Quaker Values at Friends’ School

Friends’ School is a Quaker School. Quakers believe that there is that of God in every person and this belief impacts on the way we approach the educa­tion of our pupils. These beliefs mean that:

  • Those of us involved in educa­tion approach every learner hope­fully, believ­ing that each individual’s educa­tional needs should be recog­nised and equal value given to them.
  • We believe in ‘immense poten­ti­al­it­ies’, and that the purpose of educa­tion is to help indi­vidu­als to believe in these in themselves.
  • We believe that learn­ing is a lifelong exper­i­ence and is part of living rather than a prepar­a­tion for it.
  • We respect each indi­vidual and value the contri­bu­tion that each has to make to the learn­ing process.
  • We treat indi­vidu­als as equal, whatever their gender, race, culture, class abil­ity, sexual orient­a­tion or circum­stances. It means that we actively reject, and work to elim­in­ate, discrim­in­a­tion of any sort.
  • We believe that learn­ing happens most creat­ively when rela­tion­ships are based on mutual respect.
  • We wish to adopt meth­ods of discip­line based on trust and mutual support, seek­ing to promote the positive.

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  • We encour­age indi­vidual respons­ib­il­ity to the group and the group’s respons­ib­il­ity for each individual.
  • We seek to avoid hier­arch­ies of power and to encour­age a parti­cip­at­ing community.
  • We want to empower learners to chal­lenge injustice and to develop the imagin­a­tion to find altern­at­ives, to build compas­sion­ately a community which is inclus­ive of those who may be disad­vant­aged or rejected.
  • We encour­age ques­tion­ing and explor­a­tion, honesty and openness.
  • We seek to nurture and value spir­itual growth and to open windows into new worlds of creativ­ity and imagination.
  • We seek creat­ive ways to go forward, partic­u­larly in situ­ations that involve or might lead to conflict.
  • We stress achieve­ments and successes, bear­ing in mind that excess­ive use of compet­i­tion may be destructive.
  • ‘Teach­ers’ recog­nise that they are learners too and strive to be good listeners.
  • We try to live out our voca­tion ‘adventurously’.
  • We value simpli­city, pursu­ing the things which bring true fulfil­ment and seek­ing to find and commu­nic­ate a right rela­tion­ship with the mater­ial world.
  • We try to keep before ourselves and others the ideal of unqual­i­fied and unlim­ited love.

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The Quaker ethos is demon­strated in the school in the follow­ing prac­tical ways:

Meet­ing for Worship and Silence in the School Day

Meet­ing for Worship lies at the heart of the core values of Friends’ School. We gather in silence to seek a deeper under­stand­ing of the spir­itu­al­ity of our lives and to feel the power of God’s love draw­ing us together and lead­ing us to find direc­tion in our lives.

Meet­ing for Worship makes Quaker educa­tion distinct and encour­ages respect for the indi­vidual, the habit of self reflec­tion, vulner­ab­il­ity and open­ness to each other, the exper­i­ence of silence, the abil­ity to listen, the trans­form­a­tion of tension and the cour­age to stand up and speak.

We believe that chil­dren learn best in a school envir­on­ment that fosters their spir­itual growth. Through silent worship, we affirm the good­ness in each person. The exper­i­ence builds confid­ence and self-esteem which helps chil­dren learn more success­fully in all areas.

There is a short period of silent worship for all pupils in the school as part of our morn­ing assemblies.

Sunday Even­ing Meeting

On Sunday even­ings there is an Even­ing Meet­ing which all boarders are expec­ted to attend and which usually lasts about 30 minutes.
We consider that this occa­sion offers an oppor­tun­ity for a quiet time of reflec­tion, medit­a­tion and prepar­a­tion for the week ahead in a spirit of worship, and it strengthens the sense of community.