{"id":6323,"date":"2015-05-12T06:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6323"},"modified":"2015-05-12T06:04:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T06:04:00","slug":"has-your-child-had-its-smsc-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/05\/12\/has-your-child-had-its-smsc-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Has your child had its SMSC today?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SMSC? \u00a0What's that, you might be saying. \u00a0If you are, you're as out of touch as I am (or was). \u00a0It's <em>the<\/em> thing in schools, it seems. \u00a0Although it looks\u00a0rather as if it might be\u00a0a food\u00a0supplement [ Take SMSC everyday\u00a0for added\u00a0BrainPower ], or something nasty that you pick up in public\u00a0showers, it stands for:\u00a0<strong>S<\/strong>piritual \u00a0<strong>M<\/strong>oral \u00a0<strong>S<\/strong>ocial \u00a0<strong>C<\/strong>ultural (education), and all schools in England must show how well their pupils develop it. \u00a0It's the new PSHE. \u00a0As a happy bonus, it seems that \"<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/06\/16\/absorbing-values-british-or-otherwise\/\">British values<\/a>\" can be taught through SMSC, and non-statutory guidance\u00a0from the DfE on how to do this is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/promoting-fundamental-british-values-through-smsc\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Page 4 of this says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"All maintained schools must meet the requirements set out in section 78 of the Education Act 2002 and promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of their pupils. \u00a0Through ensuring pupils\u2019 SMSC development, schools can also demonstrate they are actively promoting fundamental British values.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, when you look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2002\/32\/section\/78\">Act<\/a>, it says something rather different:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>78 General requirements in relation to curriculum<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(1) The curriculum for a maintained school or maintained nursery school satisfies the requirements of this section if it is a balanced and broadly based curriculum which\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>(a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society, and<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(b) prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>(2) The curriculum for any funded nursery education provided otherwise than at a maintained school or maintained nursery school satisfies the requirements of this section if it is a balanced and broadly based curriculum which\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>(a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of the pupils for whom the funded nursery education is provided and of society, and<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(b) prepares those pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this slight of hand, \"spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development\" becomes \"spiritual, moral, social and cultural development\" which is not the same thing. \u00a0Mental and physical development has been dropped, with social introduced. \u00a0Further, this obscures that part of the Act which focuses on the\u00a0promotion of \u00a0\"the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of ...\u00a0\u00a0society\".<\/p>\n<p>The Act is, of course, statutory, but the DfE seems to be encouraging\u00a0schools to ignore parts of it. \u00a0How odd. \u00a0Looks like a question for my new MP once she has her new email address.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SMSC? \u00a0What's that, you might be saying. \u00a0If you are, you're as out of touch as I am (or was). \u00a0It's the thing in schools, it seems. \u00a0Although it looks\u00a0rather as if it might be\u00a0a food\u00a0supplement [ Take SMSC everyday\u00a0for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}