There are 5 different British Values that we combine to support the learning and development of our children here at Banana Moon and within our early learning and development program.

What are our British Values? What do they mean? & What do we do?

Democracy - Opinions matter!
At Banana Moon we value each child as an individual and understand that we all have different views and opinions and we work hard as role modelling adults to ensure that we value each child's opinion, belief and choice, celebrating and valuing them.
We allow our children lots of choice during daily routine, this can be at meal times, selecting their fruit from a fruit platter, choosing between milk or water, selecting the resources they would like to play with or add to an activity and being themselves!

Mutual respect - Showing respect for others
As early years professionals we role model to our children every minute of the day by showing them how to behave towards each other whilst at nursery. We show respect to other adults, the parents and our children and we in turn, expect our children to have respect for their peers. We look after each other throughout the day, if a friend is sad - what can we do to make them feel better? We talk about our feelings, how do you feel today? If we are happy - what makes us happy? If we are angry - what makes us angry? and how can we make this better? It is really important for our children to recognise the feelings of themselves and others around them.

Tolerance of different cultures and religions
We encourage and provide training for all team members on Inclusion, equality and diversity and reflect this in our daily practice and the opportunities we offer through teaching and learning to children of all ages.
We again, role model language and behaviour of tolerance and respect towards all cultures, backgrounds, beliefs within our local community and within the nursery itself. We celebrate various festivals throughout the year such as Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Chinese new year, Halloween etc.
Where we have children of different backgrounds we use our settling in process to identify any celebrations we should be aware of, customs, values and how we can support their language if a child has English as an additional language, working hard to reflect this in our environment through resources and print, consistently reviewing their speech and language skills and making a referral if necessary for external support.

Rule of law - Having 'rules' and expectations
Although we know our children are still very small, and are learning every day about rights and wrongs we do have some 'rules' at nursery to shape our children into British citizens, we refer to these as the 'Golden rules' and remind our children of these throughout the day, particularly if there are any instances of challenging behaviour. Examples of our golden rules are;
- Good listening
- Good sitting 
- Kind hands
- Helping hands
-Walking feet (indoors)
-Quiet voices (indoors) 
Again through role modelling our team of professionals support our children in this area.

Individual liberty - Having independence
Our routines, activities and daily life at nursery is focused around supporting our children to have and develop independence. This can start from a very young age as a baby through to leaving for school and can include, recognising their own water cup, wiping their own faces, choosing toys to explore during free play, pouring own drinks, serving own food onto plates, washing hands at meal times, using the bathroom when toilet training, helping adults and following simple instructions.

Overall, we value, respect and encourage our children to develop as young individuals developing skills to support them as they grow into young adults, through choice, independence, tolerance and respect.

If you have any questions about British Values, please do let us know and we will be more than happy to help you understand practice.