SMSC support

Helping your school achieve excellence in SMSC

Whether you are just starting out, restarting and rethinking your approach, or believe you have a thriving approach to SMSC: our verification and training tools were developed to help every school, meeting them on where they are in their SMSC journey.

What is SMSC?

SMSC stands for Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural learning.

It sits at the heart of education and enables children and young people to make appropriate choices as they encounter complex and changing circumstances in our modern society.

When addressed well, SMSC development has the potential to:

• Raise aspirations
• Develop empathy
• Deepen spirituality
• Connect young people with their communities
• Create opportunities for pupils to learn and practise human virtues
• Instil values such as compassion, hope, faith and forgiveness
• Develop values that challenge individuals beyond the material world.

What was the SMSC Quality Mark?

In 2017, Young Citizens worked with experts in the field to create a self-review tool and verification service to help schools audit and improve your SMSC provision. The result was the SMSC Quality Mark, which supported over 800 primary schools, secondary school and alternative education providers in eight years.

As of 2024, the SMSC Quality Mark is paused as we review the way we support schools with their provision. All existing SMSC Quality Mark verifications will continue as normal.

What support is still available?

If you are looking to improve your school’s SMSC provision, don’t worry. We still have a range of support services including:

• CPD certified training for your staff team on Making Sense of SMSC
• Comprehensive teaching resources for learners aged 5 to 18.
• A range of other enrichment programmes, from social action projects to Mock Trials.