Introduction
The Values and Visions project was conceived and developed between 1990 and 1994. Funders included Cafod, Christian Aid, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Network Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the United Reform Church.
Brief overview
Many of the ideas and activities of Values and Visions draw on the inspirational work of World Studies. The staff and children of local schools, especially St Hugh's Roman Catholic Primary School in Timperley and Beech Hill Primary School in Wigan, contributed vastly to the work and the resulting teachers' handbook.
The handbook offers guidelines for teachers, heads, parents and governors who are concerned with questions such as:
- how do we create schools where people value themselves, others and the earth?
- how can we find the values and visions that lie at the heart of the school?
- how can we find practical ways to enable those in the community of the school to look at the world with hope?
There is a selection of practical activities for clarifying our values and articulating our vision, in order to build schools in which people matter. Aimed mainly at the primary classroom, most activities in the handbook are suitable for adaptation to other settings.
"[this is] a masterpiece - an approach that touches on the essential features of various cultures and religions."
Project co-ordinator, Centre for the Development of People, Ghana
The Values and Visions handbook is still available from the DEP online bookshop.