H is for Neil Hawkes: Values-based Education in Schools

Neil Hawkes has helped many children, parents and teachers to build values-based schools. This approach has produced positive results in terms of children’s calmness, caring and academic results.

Many parents want their children to be happy and responsible. They also want them to show respect and make a positive contribution to society. How to encourage this process?

Many schools are now integrating the values-based education approach. This encourages children to focus on positive values, such as patience, thoughtfulness and helping others.

Neil has played an enormous part in introducing the approach. Prior to 1992, his career was spent in the UK as a teacher, deputy headteacher and in two headships. From 1983 until 1989, Neil worked as an Education Adviser for Buckinghamshire and from 1989 to 1993 as Chief Adviser/Principal Education Officer of the Isle of Wight Education Service.

He then decided to implement his values philosophy, by spending six and a half years (1993 – 2000) as Headteacher of West Kidlington Primary and Nursery School in Oxford, UK. It was here that the school community worked together to devise and implement a unique system of Values-based Education. The school still attracts a lot of national and international visitors, keen to see how the values philosophy works in practice.

Between 1999 and 2005, Neil was a Senior Adviser for Oxfordshire, responsible for school improvement based on Values Education. Neil currently works as an international consultant in Values-based Education and leadership.

Below is an excerpt from his website. You can discover more about his work and the approach via the following links.

http://www.neilhawkes.org/

http://www.valuesbasededucation.com/

What is Values-based Education?

A values-based school seeks to promote an educational philosophy based on valuing self, others and the environment through, the consideration of an ethical values vocabulary (principles that guide behaviour), as the basis of good educational practice.

It encourages adults to model values and to give time for reflective practices that empowers individuals to be effective learners and good citizens. We have a growing number of schools that have been awarded the Quality Mark as Values-based Schools.

Values-based Education is a great success and is one of the fastest growing approaches in the world, endorsed by teachers, school leaders and governments.

This is because it is based on the soundest principles of pedagogy, educational philosophy, brain research and common sense.

It helps pupils to develop holistically, nurturing a secure sense of self, respect for self and others and supports the raising of academic standards. Neil and his colleagues are in great demand as inspiring speakers at conferences and workshops.

The approach enables the children to reflect and look at how to live the eternal human values in everyday life.

Neil has written a book on the topic, From The Heart: Transforming Lives Through Values. Here is the background from the Amazon site.

http://amzn.to/Z7Zqx6

Values Education is the philosophy and practice that inspires both children and adults to be the best that they can be.

After all, we are all growing, and it is not only our children that can benefit from education and development, but adults too.

In his constant bid for better education, author Dr. Neil Hawkes advocates a positive mental attitude which aims to empower young people with a sense of their own future and their potential to shape it according to their own purpose.

Neil discusses the benefits of caring for yourself and others, as well as providing medical evidence to support these ideas.

He contextualises his philosophy by demonstrating ways in which teachers, parents and pupils can use it to create a happier and more productive learning environment by raising their self-awareness and self-confidence.