Forging habits through a soft skills revolution James Featherstone, Headmaster of Exeter Cathedral School, advocates for character education ‘We cannot live life well or create a good society apart from acquiring and practising virtue’: Aristotle Dennis Silk, celebrated former Warden of Radley College and sometime President of the MCC, says in the BBC documentary ‘Public School’ that a school’s main purpose is to help its pupils acquire ‘the right habits for life’. That was in 1979. 40-plus years later, most of modern educational thinking seems to be agreeing with him. Most months there’s something in the press about the increased importance that employers are placing on ‘soft skills’ (terminology which, with one bullishly ill-advised adjective, undermines and undervalues the very point these articles – and employers – are making); Dr Anthony Seldon, whilst (iconic) Head of Wellington College, made the headlines with the rolling-out of his Wellbeing lessons, his insistence on ‘service’, and his school’s sector-leading focus on Character, Grit, and Resilience; the founding of the UK-wide Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues; and the rapid rise in in-house initiatives across the country such as Failure Weeks, Silent Retreats, Random Acts of Kindness Weeks; and our own daily periods of stillness
16
and reflection in the Cathedral as part of our programme called ‘Mind, Body & Soul’, all suggest pretty strongly that we are, as a nation and as a sector, becoming slightly less hesitant to agree with Professor James Arthur’s assertion (2013) that ‘character matters more than attainment’. Heads are afforded various soap-box moments during term time, and one of the consistent messages that I try to give during mine (Newsletters, Head’s Assemblies, Speech Days and the like) is that it matters very much to me that children be recognised and rewarded not just for what they achieve, but for the way in which they go about trying to achieve it. In other words: attainment matters, but character matters more. In other words: those ‘soft’ skills are the ones that count the most. In other words: those ‘habits for life’ are what we really prize. The development and promotion of good character, the upholding and embedding of core values, the modelling and nurturing of the right habits, and the acquiring and practising of key skills are at the heart of what we try to do as a staff team at Exeter Cathedral School. There is a great deal of talk across the educational sectors about the quasi-impossible task facing schools
