Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development (SMSC)

at Abercrombie School

 

WHAT DOES SMSC STAND FOR?

 SMSC stands for Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development. This is a broad concept but it can be seen across many of our school’s activities.

 

At Abercrombie Primary School, lots of different aspects of school life and subject areas in our school curriculum come under this umbrella term, providing opportunities for personal development across the whole curriculum.

Subjects such as Personal, Health, Social and Health Education (PSHE), Relationship and Sex Education (RSE), Religious Education (RE), Science, History and Geography all enable key SMSC areas to be taught in a systematic way. It requires schools to think about the kind of people we aspire to be, the kind of world we aspire to create, and the kind of education we aspire to provide.

Our Abercrombie School aims, values, ethos, our behaviour policy, our antibullying/friendship work, our assemblies, our work with the local community, its people and places and the many cultural experiences and opportunities we provide (including visits and visitors), also promote the children’s positive SMSC development.

   

At Abercrombie Primary School, we believe that SMSC is all about developing the whole child through

  

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural activities

To do this, we strive to create an environment which enables all children to grow and flourish. Through nurturing this environment and providing strong positive role-models, we want each child to become confident individuals who appreciate their own worth as well as that of others. We strive to create a safe place where it is okay to be yourself and it is okay to be different.  

Via our SMSC provision we aim to equip all children with a robust ‘moral compass’ and give them the skills they will need to be productive and happy citizens of future.  

  

WHY IS SMSC IMPORTANT?   

At Abercrombie Primary School, we recognise that society is for ever changing. We appreciate that multiculturalism is a feature of British life, that continual life-long learning and retraining is a necessity for all our children and that many of the jobs our children will take up in years to come do not even currently exist. We need to ensure that each and every child is for prepared for adulthood and that they have the social, emotional and economic tools to forge productive and fruitful lives for both themselves and their children.  

  

OUR KEY AIMS   

  By providing robust and meaningful SMSC learning opportunities our aim is that our children will:   

  • be happy and successful citizens,
  • have high aspirations and reach their full potential,
  • have a strong moral compass & develop a sense of responsibility for their actions,
  • explore and develop their own values and beliefs,
  • have respect for British law and those institutions which uphold it,
  • develop a caring attitude towards others regardless of their background or culture,
  • recognise their own strengths and weaknesses and have high self-esteem,
  • reflect upon their own futures and will begin to ‘envisage’ where they want to be as an adult,
  • possess a ‘growth mind set’, believing that anything is possible if you work hard,
  • become independent, resourceful and resilient thinkers and learners,
  • develop a love of learning and see it as a continual ‘life-long’ journey,
  • be able to see how they fit into in the wider world and how they can ‘make a difference’,
  • appreciate their own cultural and social traditions and understand how Britain was formed and how it is continuing to grow and change,
  • show interest in the diversity other cultures and alternative ways of life,
  • celebrate difference and recognise the richness it brings,
  • have spiritual awareness, 
  • begin to pose meaningful questions about life and go beyond the ‘superficial’,  
  • enjoy and appreciate a diverse range of creative arts and be inspired and stimulated by them.

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) development is the over-arching umbrella that encompasses personal development across the whole curriculum.

If you want to find out more then look at the Curriculum Page and click on the subjects. You may also be interested in our British Values Page and the page entitled Capital Culture, which seeks to show how we provide opportunities for ALL children to become the best possible version of themselves, whatever their starting point.