Ethical Changemakers

Ethical Changemakers is about standing up for what’s right. It’s about giving our students the critical thinking and leadership skills, the values and the character to be changemakers.

What is a values-led education?

As a leading values-led school, we create unrivalled opportunities for personal development and character education while working with partners to create a better world. This focus draws on the impressive history of Quakers who set up forward-thinking companies like Cadbury and Rowntree; very successful businesses that also treated staff and suppliers fairly and created social good. Equally important, Quakers helped found leading charities and campaigning organisations, such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Quakers won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947.

Partnership and Charitable Engagement

Leighton Park leads the UK for its commitment to mutually beneficial partnerships and charitable engagement work, winning the prestigious national Independent Schools Association (ISA) Award for Outstanding Community Involvement in 2021 and 2020, the only time a school has won the award two years running.

Developing kind and compassionate leaders for the future is an important part of how we give our Quaker values currency and purpose. Our mutually beneficial partnerships with state schools, community organisations and charities give us insight, strength and courage to look within and strive for a fairer, better society.

Find out more about our Partnerships and Community work +

Sustainability
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Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the most pressing issues of our times. Sustainability is one of the School’s core values, alongside Truth, Respect, Integrity, Peace, Equality and Simplicity.

The importance of these issues is reflected in our curriculum, our interdisciplinary, cross-curricular projects such as Sustainability Week and our expansive co-curricular programme.

Our Eco Schools student-led groups have achieved the coveted Green Flag Award, an international accreditation that recognises young people’s environmental actions. The School has planted over 1,200 trees on the Park this year, with the community also sponsoring a project to re-wild an area of the ancient Caledonian Forest in Scotland.

Click on the image to watch a student-produced video about the work of our Eco Schools group.

Read about our sustainability initiatives +
Play
Cloc climate change video

Values-led Education
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Although only a small number of students and staff are Quakers, it is our Quaker roots to which we owe our forward-thinking approach to education. Our values-led education is characterised by:

  • Achievement – we inspire a love of learning, deep thinking scholarship and an inner drive for realising talent
  • Values – We foster a sense of responsibility, a commitment to helping others and a determination to make a difference
  • Character – We develop a confident sense of self, underpinned by resilience, perseverance and self-reflection
  • Community – We nurture respect, valuing the potential of each individual and seeking to understand and celebrate difference.

Click on the image to watch a short video about Ayesha, one of our former students now working as a Climate Journalist.

Find out more about the values-led education at Leighton Park +
Play
Peckover sunrise

Related news

June 5, 2023

Grant for Green Good +

It has been a year of sustainable successes for our Nature Environment Wildlife Taskforce (NEWTs), who in March, persuaded several schools to get on board with their Meat Free Mondays … Read More +

May 22, 2023

Tugging the Heart Strings +

Twenty-nine students from Farley Hill Primary School joined our Biology team on 22nd May for a heart dissection workshop exploring the intricacies of the body’s inexhaustible muscle. The Year 6s … Read More +

May 15, 2023

Kit Aid Support Benefits Children in Need +

Monday 15th May marked the collection by the charity ‘Kit Aid’ of over 50 bags of used items of sports clothing and equipment kindly donated by the parents of Leighton … Read More +

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Shinfield Road
Reading
Berkshire, UK
RG2 7DE
+44 (0) 118 987 9600
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