In the past, schools have been accused of focusing on academic skills to the exclusion of all else. Now, however, there is a growing awareness of the importance of social and emotional skills. Not only do these help prepare students for life after school but they can also promote a positive attitude while they’re in it, as well as improving academic performance.
Many teachers wanting to illustrate the importance of resilience have turned to a particular clip on YouTube from 2008. The film is of the Big Ten Indoor Track Championships, and shows an athlete named Heather Dorniden going on to win a 600m race after falling over two-thirds of the way through. I’ve shown it in class myself and most students are (understandably) impressed.
Pupils talk about how Dorniden’s attitude is the perfect embodiment of the “never-say-die” mentality that can often make the difference between success and failure. But I think that focuses too much on the final outcome - the winning of the race.
For me, the really interesting point is not how Dorniden managed to win (she was more determined, and clearly faster, than her fellow racers) but how quickly she picked herself up. When I watch her, I think that anything that is done so instinctively has been learned and worked on, and it is that attitude of mind - the willingness to focus on how to respond when things go wrong - that can make the difference.
Somewhere behind Dorniden getting up was a teacher willing her on during the times when the easiest thing would be to give up.
Many prominent figures write and speak about the importance of these kinds of qualities. There are school chains that have organised themselves around the central importance of character, including KIPP schools in the US and Floreat in the UK.
For some, character is “taught not caught”; for others, the opposite is true. However these abilities develop, they are increasingly being seen as on a par with academic skills. To underline this, late last year the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced that it was carrying out a new study to assess students’ social and emotional skills, specifically examining the link with educational outcomes, among other areas.
Character education
All would probably agree that being able to metaphorically pick yourself up is a valuable skill. For that reason alone, character education should play a part in every school’s approach to learning. It is part of the “hidden curriculum”: that non-prescribed area of learning that all schools have. But how much time should be spent teaching these qualities? To produce a Dorniden in chemistry, history or English literature requires time and money, neither of which schools have in abundance.
What schools do have is an inexhaustible supply of energy and inventiveness, among both staff and students. The challenge for senior leaders is to create the conditions for this hidden curriculum to flourish. How can this be done?
Start with the endpoint
School leaders have to be completely committed to providing their students with the social, emotional and behavioural skills they will need to be personally and professionally fulfilled in the future.
Staff need to know why it matters that their students should be resilient, able to communicate well and able to exercise restraint. And they cannot assume that someone else will take care of all that.
For example, being able to communicate well is vital to future success but students are too rarely given the opportunity to debate with their peers, talk to the whole school or learn how to convey their ideas effectively. According to Times Higher Education’s recent survey on employability, being able to communicate well is the No 1 skill employers want from graduates, but the gap between what they want and what they get is huge.
Schools can help bridge that. School 21, for example, is in a socially disadvantaged area of London. It is unusual because it puts oracy and eloquence right at the heart of everything it does, and it claims that this accounts for its students’ impressive academic success. Ofsted agrees, rating the school “outstanding” and noting that pupils “talk and discuss with a maturity and confidence that is remarkable for their age”.
Make it fun
In another part of London, and in a different sector, Wimbledon High School has embedded grit and resilience at the heart of its curriculum. Talking about failure and looking at what doesn’t work could quickly become heavy going: schools are hardwired to celebrate success and achievement. But Wimbledon High’s headteacher, Jane Lunnon, believes her students gain as much from knowing why they fail as how they succeed.
“Learning to evaluate where you have gone wrong and being brave enough to share it with others, and to discuss where your limitations might lie at that point, are hugely important for us: grit, determination, these are things that help our students grow and become more rounded,” Lunnon says.
Every member of the school community has written a key failure on a brick to build a “failure wall”. Additionally, every student has been given a “failure passport”, which gets stamped every time they take a risk and learn from it in a lesson.
The school also holds an annual “failure week”. This consists of lots of fun activities associated with getting things wrong and learning from the experience, and culminates in a stand-up comedy show where the risk of failing, and not getting a laugh, is real.
Make it personal
Failing in an academic subject is very different from not getting a laugh on stage, of course. But the lessons learned in School 21 and Wimbledon High School should help prepare their students to deal with setbacks in the classroom.
Schools need to make this process personal. All students benefit from having a tutor who really takes an interest in what they are doing; coaching staff to be aware of the skills the school is fostering is a key step and can provide an essential focus for building the relationship between form tutors and tutees.
Knowing that a member of staff is there for them, to pick them up, to cheer them on, can make a world of difference to pupils.
Be consistent
Like all school initiatives, promoting character will work only if it is fully supported by staff and understood by students. But parents have to buy into it as well and this requires clear articulation from the head and senior management about why it matters.
Equally, it matters that teachers are allowed to pick themselves up when they “fail”. They need to believe that their line managers will give them the space to reflect on where things could have gone better, and to learn from it.
Like learning itself, if success and failure are confined only to the students then a school’s long-term growth will be unbalanced. In a job such as teaching, grit is essential; learning to understand your limitations is perhaps the best professional development you can have. When conditions in a school foster this approach, students and staff are both winners.
David James is deputy head (academic) at Bryanston School in Dorset and tweets at @drdavidajames
