Introducing Character Education at Fellside
A person with good character does the right thing

because they believe it is the right thing to do

At Fellside we firmly believe that the many positive experiences provided for children in their primary years has a major impact on their future wellbeing and success. It is for this reason, we have made a whole school commitment to the teaching and development of character traits; attributes and behaviours which we believe underpin achievement and success.

Our chosen analogy for this emerging area of our school’s ethos is the compass, and in school we are beginning to refer to our ‘Character Compass’.

Prior to the lockdown of 2020, we had agreed with the then School Council (with input from school staff) on 4 key traits that would be our north, south, east and west of our compass: integrity, honesty, tolerance and respect.  At the same time, we devised simple definitions of these traits to make them less abstract and more accessible to children:

Integrity: doing the right thing; acting honourably and ethically    

Honesty: being truthful

Tolerance: willingness to accept differences in the opinions and beliefs of others

Respect: demonstrating good manners, kindness and politeness

These were agreed because they very much reflect our school’s mission and vision statements:

Our Mission Statement:
Ensuring every member of our school community is inspired to fulfil their potential and is prepared effectively for their future.

 Our School Vision
At Fellside, we nurture curiosity, creativity and the love of learning through an inspiring, broad and engaging curriculum, where learning is at the heart of all that we do. We are all challenged and encouraged to thrive and achieve as individuals and from collaboration through partnerships. Through personal development, our pupils develop commitment, confidence and aspiration to achieve and maximise their potential. They can respond positively to change and become fully prepared for both the next stage in their future and to become tolerant, responsible, caring citizens of 21st century Britain.

We have already shared the definitions of these traits with children in a number of assemblies.  Discussions, stories, video clips etc. have been used to help to illustrate the idea of good character as a desirable moral principle.  Helpfully, we already award a ‘Good Egg’ certificate each week in our Gold Book achievement assembly (alongside which the winner receives two ‘Golden Clucks’ from the entire school body – quite an undertaking via a Zoom link!)  In this, children have much lived-experience in school of expectations regarding good citizenship, along with anticipated rewards for its recognition.

None of this is to say that character education has never before been on our radar, therefore.  Our school ethos has long been to provide the very best academic education to children, however alongside that is our determination to provide exceptional personal development: experiences and opportunities to thrive; inspire and motivate.  We are particularly proud of our track record in this area, and we see the move to shine the spotlight more explicitly on the development of good moral character as a logical ‘next step’ in our provision.

A Broader View of Character Education
Our work on character education is based on the premise of a single prevailing idea that character is explicitly taught; that is that pupils learn about character strengths and virtues and that they are given opportunities to practice these.  An obvious way is for adults to model these so that positive traits are explicitly demonstrated.  Equally, children need to be exposed to the language of character education through their experiences at school – the daily ethos that is woven into our values and vision.

Our intent regarding character education is clearly not to be limited to the four key traits of our Character Compass, of course.  Indeed, the four traits selected in 2020 are broad enough to encompass many positive tenets that are highly desirable in children’s personal development.  Nonetheless, we are mindful that character virtues extend beyond the moral and include the intellectual, the civic and the enabling (and undoubtedly there are many more than are documented below):

These character traits are also reflected in our 7Cs Learning Values – a longstanding feature of life at Fellside since 2014.