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From Values Statements to Lived Values is a short reflection guide designed for trust and school leadership teams. Drawing on insights from MAT leaders, it assists in reflecting on how pupils actually encounter values in practice — through curriculum, relationships and culture.
Across the UK education system, there is increasing emphasis on the broader development of young people - including character, wellbeing, belonging and responsible citizenship. National policy and inspection frameworks reflect this shift.
The Ofsted Education Inspection Framework places significant emphasis on pupils’ personal development, including how schools support young people to develop confidence, resilience, respect for others and a sense of responsibility within society.
The Department for Education’s Character Education Framework (2019) similarly highlights the importance of helping pupils develop qualities such as integrity, curiosity, resilience and respect for others.
For many multi-academy trusts, values are clearly articulated in mission statements, strategies and school policies. The challenge leaders often describe is ensuring those values are consistently experienced in everyday school life - through relationships, dialogue and school culture.
At the same time, values are interpreted within the social and technological contexts in which young people are growing up. Digital media environments, global interconnectedness and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence are reshaping how information is created, shared and interpreted. Within this context, schools increasingly play an important role in helping pupils develop the ethical judgement, discernment and sense of responsibility needed to navigate complexity responsibly.
Lyfta recently hosted an online discussion with trust leaders Dan Morrow (CEO, Cornwall Education Learning Trust) and Tom Fay (Director of School Improvement at The Priestley Academy Trust) in which we explored how schools can move from values statements to lived values. Five themes emerged.
1. Values are being tested by changing social contexts
School leaders reflected that several core values can feel harder to sustain consistently in the current social and cultural environment.
Many of these pressures extend beyond the school gates. Broader societal shifts - including complex digital media ecosystems, rising individualism in public life and declining trust in institutions - shape how young people encounter ideas such as responsibility, community and respectful disagreement.
Schools themselves also operate within systems that often emphasise individual performance, competition and measurable outcomes. While these priorities serve important purposes, they can sometimes sit in tension with values that depend on collective responsibility, dialogue and mutual understanding.
Within this context, leaders highlighted several values that currently feel under particular pressure:
Respect and integrity
Influenced by polarised online (and political) discourse, rapid reactions and misinformation.
Resilience and wellbeing
Shaped by the lingering impacts of pandemic disruption alongside wider mental health pressures affecting many young people.
Community and belonging
Sometimes strained by cultural narratives that prioritise individual success over shared responsibility.
Accountability and openness
Challenged by fragmented digital information environments where sources of authority and trust are frequently contested.
National evidence reflects similar concerns. Reports from organisations such as NHS Digital and the Children’s Commissioner highlight increasing levels of anxiety and emotional pressure among some young people in recent years.
These trends reinforce the expectation that schools support pupils not only academically but also in developing the social and emotional capacities needed to navigate uncertainty and complexity.
These pressures do not necessarily mean that values themselves are changing. Rather, they highlight the importance of schools as places where pupils can explore how enduring ethical principles - such as fairness, responsibility and integrity - apply in rapidly evolving social contexts.
In some cases, leaders may also find that the interpretation, emphasis or prioritisation of certain values benefits from renewed reflection as social and technological contexts evolve.
Insight 1 for leaders
Periods of social and technological change often bring renewed attention to values. Schools therefore play a crucial role in helping pupils explore how enduring ethical principles apply in complex contemporary contexts.
Reflection
- Which values appear most contested or difficult to sustain within our school communities?
- How do wider social and technological influences shape the ways pupils encounter and interpret values?
- Where might the structures or incentives within our own systems unintentionally reinforce individualistic behaviours rather than collective responsibility?
2. Pupils understand values best through experience
Definitions can introduce values, but deeper understanding usually develops through reflection, discussion and experience.
Research across social and emotional learning (SEL) and character education highlights the importance of reflection, dialogue and perspective-taking in helping pupils develop empathy and ethical understanding. Programmes that combine emotional engagement with structured reflection are more likely to support the development of these capacities (CASEL, 2020).
Teachers therefore often find that values become most meaningful when pupils encounter them through:
- real stories and lived experiences
- opportunities for dialogue and reflection
- exploration of ethical dilemmas
These experiences help pupils move beyond memorising values to interpreting what those values mean in practice.
Insight 2 for leaders
Values are most deeply understood when pupils encounter them through experience, reflection and dialogue, rather than definitions alone.
Reflection
- Where in our curriculum do pupils encounter real human experiences that invite reflection on values?
- How do learning experiences help pupils interpret values in complex or ambiguous situations?
- To what extent do pupils have opportunities to connect values explored in the classroom with their own lives and communities?
3. Avoid the ‘values wallpaper’ effect
Many schools display their values prominently on walls, websites and policy documents. However, when pupils are asked what those values mean in everyday life, can they talk about them in concrete or meaningful ways?
This webinar recognised challenges associated with the “values wallpaper” effect, where values are highly visible in school branding but less visible in everyday behaviours or conversations.
This can occur when:
- values are introduced primarily through slogans or posters
- pupils remember the words but not the meaning
- values are not connected to real situations or discussion
Values become meaningful when pupils can see them enacted, discuss them and practise them in everyday school life.
Insight 3 for leaders
Values are learned through culture and experience, not simply through display.
Reflection
- If pupils were asked to describe the values of our school, what examples would they give?
- Where do pupils see values being modelled by adults in everyday school life?
- How do routines, systems and expectations reinforce (or potentially undermine) the values we promote?
4. Dialogue develops ethical understanding
Values education involves learning how to reason ethically in complex situations and is not always about complete agreement.
Research on dialogic teaching highlights the role of structured discussion in helping pupils explore perspectives, evaluate arguments and reflect on moral questions.
Dialogue allows pupils to:
- consider different viewpoints
- explore ethical dilemmas
- practise respectful disagreement
Through these experiences, pupils develop the judgement needed to apply values thoughtfully rather than simply recite them. Dialogue also creates space for pupils to explore how values may be interpreted in different situations, helping them develop the discernment needed to apply ethical principles thoughtfully rather than mechanically.
Insight 4 for leaders
Dialogue helps pupils develop the capacity to apply ethical principles in complex situations.
Reflection
- Where in our schools do pupils regularly engage in structured dialogue about ethical or social issues?
- How do teachers support pupils in navigating disagreement respectfully?
- What opportunities exist for pupils to practise ethical reasoning rather than simply expressing opinions?
5. Look for values in action
Values rarely appear in simple metrics or performance indicators. Instead they are often visible in everyday aspects of school culture, including:
- pupil voice and participation
- the way pupils resolve disagreements
- student-led initiatives or social action
- the inclusiveness of the school environment
In the webinar, Tom Fay shared a useful reflective exercise to explore this dimension of school culture - the ‘visitor perspective’ test:
If a visitor spent a day in the school without reading any policies or documentation, what values would they experience through the culture, relationships and behaviours they observe?
Insight 5 for leaders
Values are often most visible through culture, behaviour and relationships, rather than formal documentation.
Reflection
- What forms of evidence help us understand how values are lived within our schools?
- How do we capture pupil voice about school culture and values?
- Where might everyday routines or practices unintentionally contradict the values we aspire to promote?
Where values come to life
Values education plays a vital role in helping young people develop the ethical understanding and judgement they need to engage thoughtfully with the world. But this understanding doesn’t emerge from statements. It grows through reflection, dialogue and lived experience, through moments where pupils encounter what fairness, responsibility and compassion really look and feel like in practice.
In a time of rapid social and technological change, this becomes even more important. Schools can offer a space where young people can pause, explore, question and make sense of how enduring values apply in new and sometimes unfamiliar contexts.
Schools are not only places where values are taught. They are places where values are experienced - through relationships, stories, and through the everyday interactions that shape how young people come to see themselves, others and their place in the world.
If you’re looking to support this kind of meaningful, lived values education in your school or trust, explore Lyfta’s Year of Values programme - designed to help bring values to life through powerful human stories, reflection and dialogue.
