(DfE, 2019a)
Encouraging students to undertake social action, active citizenship and voluntary service to others are excellent approaches for developing these character traits.
DEVELOPING POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR
Research suggests that childhood self control predicts achievement and adjustment outcomes, even in adulthood (Gutman and Schoon, 2013). Good behaviour is an essential characteristic of effective schools. It creates the conditions for effective learning and it prepares students for life after leaving school. Good discipline also ensures that schools are safe places for all members of the school community. An essential aspect of character education is to promote positive social behaviours so that students can learn effectively and are well prepared for adult life.
Students should be taught about the importance of demonstrating respect towards others, regardless of their differences. Demonstrating respect is a fundamental characteristic of an inclusive society. Teaching students about good manners and courtesy ensures that they can conduct themselves appropriately within educational, social and workplace contexts. This is particularly important in cases where students do not live in families or communities where these virtues are demonstrated.
DEVELOPING RESILIENCE AND CONFIDENCE
Students who demonstrate resilience can recover from adverse situations and this can support them in achieving goals. However, the concept of resilience is problematic because resilience is relational. Essentially, this means that a person’s ability to be resilient is influenced by their relationships with others. Students are more likely to demonstrate greater resilience if they have access to social support networks that can offer emotional and practical support during challenging times. Access to supportive teachers, peers, family and community support can enable individuals to be resilient during times when they experience adversity. In addition, resilience is also contextual. Resilience varies from one context to another. It is therefore possible to demonstrate greater resilience in some contexts than it is in others.
The same also applies to confidence. An individual’s confidence can vary across social, academic and other domains and it can vary between different contexts. It is also influenced by one’s self worth and self efficacy. Self efficacy is an individual’s appraisal of their own competences within specific domains, whereas self worth is an individual’s overall view of themselves based on evaluations that others (peers, family, teachers) have made on them. Both self efficacy and self worth contribute to overall self esteem. Self esteem is therefore a two-dimensional construct. It is possible for both aspects to be high or low or for one to be high and the other to be low. Overall, self esteem affects confidence.
Resilience and confidence are dynamic traits and are therefore malleable. Supportive school environments can buffer against the effects of negative environments within homes and communities which detrimentally impact on both resilience and confidence. Students can be taught to develop their resilience, for example, by teaching them to recover from ‘failure’ or teaching them to be resilient to feedback. Exposure to teachers who empower students can dramatically improve a student’s confidence. In addition, the experience of academic success is a vital ingredient for improving confidence and self esteem. As students begin to realise that they are capable of achieving, their self efficacy starts to improve. Students can be taught to demonstrate social confidence in specific situations, even if inwardly they do not feel confident. They can be taught how to appear confident but more importantly a skilled teacher can provide students with genuine confidence by getting them to believe in themselves.
Access to a well-designed curriculum helps students to develop confidence. Knowledge and skills should be sequenced correctly. This enables students to make sense of new subject content because correct sequencing provides them with the foundational knowledge and skills upon which new content can be accommodated. In addition, access to a broad and rich curriculum which provides students with cultural capital is essential for developing social confidence and social mobility. One way of achieving this is to develop their vocabulary and knowledge so that students from all social backgrounds can experience and benefit from the same opportunities.
CASE STUDY
STUDENT LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
YEARS 9 AND 10, PSHE
A secondary school created a student leadership team to support the school with the planning and organisation of key events. The student leadership team also supported induction and transition events for students joining the school as well as organising charitable activities and fundraising events. The team was made up of students from all year groups in the school. The students in Year 12 and Year 13 held senior roles and worked with school staff to develop a peer mentoring programme. These senior students worked with school staff to train students in Years 9 and 10 to become peer mentors for students in Year 7. The peer mentors provided a range of types of support including academic support and social and emotional support. The peer mentors were recruited to the role following an application and interview process which was led by the senior students with support from school staff. Through this process, students were required to demonstrate that they had the necessary character traits to be a good peer mentor. This process was again led by the senior students, but it was monitored by school staff who maintained final responsibility for the decisions that were made. The peer mentors completed a training programme that included guidance on how to be a good listener and when to refer cases to an adult in the school. The training involved role play exercises to support the peer mentors to respond to and communicate with others and to determine when it was appropriate to ask an adult for advice. The peer mentors were also taught about their role in relation to confidentiality and ensuring that they did not promise secrecy to the students they were working with. Following successful completion of the training course, each peer mentor was allocated a caseload of Year 7 students. Mentors met with their mentees during specific timetabled slots at break times, during lunch time and after school as well as at times during the registration period. The programme was co-ordinated by the PSHE lead teacher who monitored the impact of the programme and discussed improvements and changes three times per year.
DEVELOPING THE CO-CURRICULUM
As part of the character education curriculum, schools should ensure that there is strong provision for co-curricular activities. A well-planned co-curriculum can build social confidence and self esteem and improve motivation, attendance and academic outcomes for students (DfE, 2019b). Research demonstrates that participation in outdoor adventure programmes has positive effects on the psychological, behavioural, physical and academic outcomes of young people (Gutman and Schoon, 2013).
Activities may include access to sporting or other physical activities, performance, the arts, volunteering, debating, cooking and participation in service. This is not an exhaustive list. The critical point is that schools should ensure that all students can participate in the co-curriculum, including those who are the most disadvantaged. Barriers to participation may include the direct costs of activities and to address this, schools should subsidise activities to prevent financial constraints becoming a barrier to equal opportunities. The co-curriculum should be designed to enable young people to compete and perform. These opportunities improve social confidence and self esteem.
DEVELOPING AND PROMOTING THE VALUE OF VOLUNTEERING
Volunteering empowers students by enabling them to make a positive contribution to their local community. It helps students to develop a civic mindset and provides