GLF Schools

GLF Schools

GLF Schools was founded in 2012 in order to enable the federation of Glyn School (an academy in 2011) and Danetree Junior School. Together, we began our journey to become a MAT of more than 1000 talented staff working with over 10,000 children in 40 schools across 5 regions in southern England.

Our Schools

Banbury Region

Banstead Region

Berkshire & Hampshire Region

Caterham Region

Crawley Region

Didcot Region

Epsom Region

London Boroughs

Redhill Region

Sunbury & Camberley Region

Social, Moral, Spiritual, and Cultural Education (SMSC)

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Social, Moral, Spiritual, and Cultural (SMSC) Education lies at the heart of our curriculum and our commitment to realising our vision. Our carefully-crafted SMSC curriculum was developed in-house to ensure we are meeting the needs of our school whilst fulfilling our statutory requirements regarding Health & Relationships Education (HRE) and Fundamental British Values.  

Our approach to SMSC Education is driven by our belief that SMSC is as much about knowledge and skills as any core curricular discipline; as such, we have made deliberate choices about when and how each strand of SMSC is taught (see table below). With our combination of discrete timetabled SMSC time and strands that are embedded throughout our Thrive curriculum, we are intent to cultivate independent, reflective, and respectful citizens of the world who are ready to participate in and contribute to society. 

Our SMSC offer has been developed in conjunction with our Inclusion offer and Behaviour Policy. We teach emotional literacy through the Zones of Regulation programme which is a powerful and accessible tool for communicating and regulating emotions and supports all children to succeed at school. Children earn House Points towards their own milestones; House Points are linked explicitly to our school values. All staff employ a shared language when it comes to praising expected behaviours and recognising when children have demonstrated our values. 

Religious Education (RE) 

We adhere to the Surrey Agreed RE Syllabus to frame the teaching of RE. We alternate class-based RE lessons with whole-school assemblies. In class, children learn about beliefs, practises, and symbolism of all major world religions. Our assemblies take a more philosophical turn as children are taught to grapple with Big Ideas such as ‘Do you shape your own destiny?’ and ‘Are humans superior to animals?’.

Health and Relationships Education (HRE) 

We developed our offer over two years from the teaching objectives given by the Department for Education and now have a progressive curriculum that covers a range of topics (see table below) to equip children to be successful in their future working and personal lives. 

Smsc table

Our Values can be found below:

Democracy

Democracy is evident throughout our school. Pupils have the opportunity to have their voices heard through our Pupil Parliament and Pupil questionnaires, the election of Head boy and girl, House captains and class members of parliament. Our school’s Behaviour Policy enables pupils to distinguish right from wrong. In instances of wrong doing, we challenge children’s bad choices by allowing children time for reflection to accept their responsibility for their wrong doings and support them to make changes for the future. We encourage a respect for democracy by modelling the voting process whenever appropriate, such as elections for house captains and class representative for pupil parliament.

Rule of Law

The importance of Laws/rules, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country, are consistently reinforced, particularly during school and class assemblies, SMSC and topic work. Pupils are taught the value and reasons behind laws; that they govern and protect us, the responsibilities that this involves and consequences when laws/rules are broken.

Individual Liberty

Within school, pupils are actively encouraged to make choices, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and advise how to exercise these safely, for example through our E-Safety and SMSC lessons. Whether it be through choice of challenge, how they record work, selection of lunches or participation in our extensive extra-curricular clubs- pupils are given the freedom to make choices.

Mutual Respect

Part of our school ethos and behaviour policy has revolved around Core Values such as ‘Respect’, and pupils have been part of discussions and assemblies related to what this means and how it is shown.

Tolerance and respect

This is achieved through enhancing pupils understanding of their place in a culturally diverse society and by giving them opportunities to experience such diversity. Assemblies and discussions involving prejudices and prejudice-based issues have been followed and supported by learning in RE and SMSC. Members of different faiths or religions are encouraged to share their knowledge to enhance learning.