TOP STORY: Values to be taught in class

Values will be taught as part of the school curriculum to fill a void left by those parents not instilling them in their children at home.
But Hawke's Bay schools say they are already teaching values and in many cases this is just the curriculum catching up to present practice.
The president of the Hawke's Bay Principals' Association and principal of Porritt School in Tamatea, Doug Fitzsimons, said most schools teach values as a part of their health education.
Parents had asked the school to teach and reinforce values in school to address problems at home, he said.
Role plays, activity sheets, murals and a variety of arts and crafts are all used to teach honesty, respect, responsibility, caring and sharing.
Neal Swindells, principal of St John's College in Hastings, said parents sent their children to his school because they thought values were important.
"We've always taught values and we always will," he said. "That's what we are."
Port Ahuriri School in Napier had gone as far as adopting aspects of an American "virtues" programme as they sought a different approach to punishment.
"We don't spend half an hour on a virtue like we would reading - it's incorporated into the programme," acting principal Maureen Duncan said.
As part of an Education Ministry review, a comprehensive list of values to be taught in schools had been put together.
They are diversity, community, respect and care, equity, integrity, environmental sustainability, inquiry and curiosity, and excellence.
The list will be distributed to schools next year for consultation and a final version will become part of the national curriculum in 2007.
Principals Federation president Pat Newman supported values education as many children do not get this at home.
He said it was frustrating that schools had to spend so much time on it.
"Unless we can get society to also reflect those values it is often like hitting your head against a brick wall. Why is it that schools have to do it?" he said.
Mr Newman believed if schools did not teach values, society would deteriorate.
Ministry senior curriculum manager Mary Chamberlain said while many schools already taught values it was important to provide a focus for schools as teachers wanted more direction on which values to teach.
She said it was expected values would be included in day-to-day teaching rather than as separate topics.