Values in Action Project Planning: Needs, Safety, and Reflection

Q: What makes a suitable Values in Action project?
A: Start with a need identified with the community partner, not with a portfolio claim. Agree on scope, supervision, consent, safeguarding, and what the student can responsibly do. Record participation and reflect honestly on what changed, including what did not work.

Last reviewed: 19 July 2026 against MOE's current VIA page, LEAPS 2.0 page and framework, and secondary Character and Citizenship Education syllabus.

What MOE's frameworks actually say

MOE describes Values in Action, or VIA, as a Key Student Development Experience intended to nurture socially responsible citizens who contribute meaningfully to the community. Student ownership, initiative, and reflection are part of that description.

For secondary schools, LEAPS 2.0 has four domains:

1. Participation;
2. Service;
3. Leadership; and
4. Achievement.

The current LEAPS framework says every secondary student will contribute at least six hours per school year to the community. It recognises time spent planning, serving, and reflecting in a VIA project. This is not the same as a national rule that every student must run one 24-hour project.

Schools implement and record their programmes. Ask the teacher or VIA coordinator how an external or student-initiated activity can be approved and documented before beginning.

What the official sources do not establish

The MOE sources reviewed here do not rank project types for university admission or scholarships. They do not say that student-initiated projects always carry more admissions weight, that admissions officers count particular VIA hours, or that one beneficiary group is more impressive than another.

Universities and scholarship providers publish and apply their own criteria. A project should not be advertised as a guaranteed way to "stand out".

A safe planning sequence

1. Listen before designing

Ask an established school or community partner:

• What need has the organisation identified?
• Who should be consulted before students act?
• What is already being provided?
• What would create extra work or risk for staff and beneficiaries?
• What outcome, if any, can be observed responsibly?

Do not diagnose a community from social media or arrive with a fixed solution.

2. Define a small, supervised scope

Write down the activity, dates, roles, venue, adult supervisor, costs, materials, and stop conditions. Decide what students are not qualified to do.

Medical, mental-health, legal, financial-rights, and safeguarding advice require appropriate professionals. Students can support an approved programme, but should not independently counsel vulnerable people, interpret rights, manage medication, handle accounts, or collect sensitive case information.