Human Values Foundation

Life-enriching values for everyone

Registered Charity Number: 1048755
Horsham, West Sussex

HVF featured in CUSU: 50 Years of Excellence

Date Posted: 20 May 2014

The University of Cambridge is a world-leading model of educational excellence with a reputation that spans the centuries. The university and its colleges invest in the future to deliver an exceptional education to the students of today and tomorrow.

2014 marks an historic milestone for Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), which is now beginning to celebrate its golden anniversary.  In conjunction with St James’s House publishers, it has produced The Guide to Excellence 2014, which is a lively and informative mix of news, views and articles. 

Charting the impressive 50-year history of CUSU, the book highlights how selected organisations from around the world are promoting best practice and inspiring new ideas.

The HUMAN VALUES FOUNDATION is honoured to feature in the "Innovators in Excellence” section:                                    

"Onward and Upward"

The Human Values Foundation provides innovative teaching resources that promote values literacy, personal development and a positive mindset.

In the early 1990s, British schoolteacher June Auton developed a teaching method that has had profound, positive impacts on individuals and society as a whole.  Since some of her primary school pupils were struggling with negative influences in their lives, she introduced them to five core values that they could count off on one hand: truth, love, peace, right conduct and non-violence.  This simple strategy quickly improved the children’s progress, so she set up the Human Values Foundation (HVF) in 1995 to supply values-based teaching resources to educational institutions.

Cross-cultural values

June’s programme for primary schoolchildren, entitled Education in Human Values, enables children to be calm, confident and compassionate by using class discussion, storytelling, singing, quotations, group activities and silent sitting. The extensive range of values explored transcend cultural and religious beliefs, thereby appealing to all children.  While the HVF promotes the importance of teaching human values in schools, its practical cross-curricular programmes are superb for personal development and behaviour management, securing continuous improvements in learners’ social and emotional competencies and their wellbeing. In 2004 it developed the Social and Emotional Education programme for children aged 12 to 14 and over.  As well as silent reflection, quotations and songs, this programme uses group exercises, forums, quizzes and role play to encourage dialogue about life’s challenges and how best to manage them.

“Our programmes have an excellent impact on the quality of education,” says Rosemary Dewan, CEO of the HVF.  “They help young people develop a moral compass and a positive mindset, so that they can maximize their talents and play a positive part in society and the community.  If used widely in schools, they can also have a significant financial impact on costs associated with individuals’ poor social, emotional and psychological health.”

The programmes have already been sold to over 1,700 schools in the UK.  And the HVF has also received many orders from across the world, including one from a TEFL teacher in Latvia, who delights in blending the imparting of emotional and social skills with learning English.

Globally the HVF helps schoolchildren develop strong values that guide their thinking, decision-making and behaviour.  Not only does this ramp up their achievements but it also gives them a sound emotional foundation on which to build the rest of their life.

See the entry on Page 297 in Section 7 at http://www.cusu-50.org.