Outstanding!

To build a world class learning landscape where we deliver academic and technical excellence, we must develop character alongside functional skills.

The country cannot secure the economic transformation to which it aspires unless the schools system changes, and we re-imagine the curriculum. We must reshape our educational system to create outstanding institutions for every stage of learning; from early years and primary education through to college and university. We must rethink and re-imagine how we develop the ‘soft skills’; character, grit, determination and passion for learning. We need to start young and use the available and highly successful toolkits that are out there and being used inconsistently to ensure that every child is a reader, writer and counter by eight, a powerful learner by eleven and on a learning pathway to a job by the end of formal statutory education. The national and international research very clearly identifies that we need to re-engineer and re-imagine the curriculum in schools to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. Our children will need to be increasingly adaptable, creative, innovative and aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and we must work to develop their character, self-discipline and grit. All the research suggests that developing personal characteristics like hard work, persistence, perseverance, determination and teamwork will lead to school and career success. We must develop a curriculum framework where we coach and nurture learning and where we place these skills at the heart of everything we are doing with our children and young people.

Chris