The rich pedagogical heritage of V.A. Sukhomlinsky by virtue of its depth and uniqueness makes it possible to identify the axiological constants of pedagogy, relevant at each stage of society development. The purpose of this article is to reveal the logic of formation of value orientations of schoolchildren in the age aspect on the basis of V.A. Sukhomlinsky’s work experience as a teacher and director of Pavlyshskaya secondary school. To achieve this goal, the article addresses the following tasks: an attempt is made to identify those parts of V.A. Sukhomlinsky’s heritage that reflect the regularities of age and value development of schoolchildren; synthesis on their basis of the age logic of the formation of value orientations; filling the values realized in the pedagogical process by V.A. Sukhomlinsky with the content relevant for modern schoolchildren. In V.A. Sukhomlinsky’s pedagogical system it is possible to distinguish a special line of development of a schoolchild’s personality — age-specific features of the formation of his value orientations, which determine the subsequent life of a person: his future choices, successes and failures. The strength of V.A. Sukhomlinsky’s axiological ideas lies in building a system of school work on basic universal values, including the universal triad: Truth — Goodness — Beauty. Having proclaimed and realized first in the experience of his school and then in the pedagogical theory the cult of Book, Knowledge, Beauty, — he actually created a basic classification of values-objectives in pedagogy. According to the authors, this hierarchy of values of an adult can be relevant today, if we fill these values with actual content within the pedagogical process. The changed realities of the first third of the XXI century require the rejection of formal analysis of Sukhomlinsky’s heritage, since extrapolation of the great pedagogue’s ideas to the realities of the modern school in an unchanged form has become impossible. Gamification, neural networks and avalanche-like flow of information, which modern schoolchildren face, require adaptation of the great teacher’s ideas and change of approach to education, departure from value neutrality.