25th February 2014 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A report by a cross-party parliamentary group has said that British schools should focus more on character development. The report urged schools to become more than “just exam factories”, and argued that schools should focus on the life-skills that would allow students to become resilient, thoughtful and nurture self-belief. The report, referred to as The Character and Resilience Manifesto, was compiled by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility, who consulted with the CentreForum think-tank on the project. Their conclusions have received support from senior politicians and the government’s social mobility advisor.
The strongest message in the report is that focussing solely on academic achievement throughout the education and employment phases is damaging for social mobility and students’ self-esteem. It called for Ofsted to include the need for schools to build character and self-esteem into their reports, and to make this a priority for schools to score highly. They also advised that teacher-training programmes should focus on helping teachers to build students’ confidence and to be supportive, rather than simply focussing on academic results. They recommended that the pupil-premium fund used to help disadvantaged students should be put towards such measure, and also that the grant should be extended into pre-school establishments to ensure that the benefits are felt earlier on.
The report findings showed that self-belief and perseverance greatly affect one’s chances of success, and that these qualities have a major impact on academic and employment opportunities. Therefore, finding ways to promote these qualities in students should be a priority, and would go hand in hand with academic success. The parliamentary group said that ‘soft skills’ lead to ‘hard results’, and that these soft skills can be developed in children from a young age. In addition to parliamentary support, education and children’s charities in addition to business and industry groups have expressed widespread support for the proposals.