Published in The West Briton, Monday 8th July 2013:
A headteacher of a school near Camborne could see his scheme, encouraging pupils to be more virtuous, adopted by schools across the country.
Geoff Smith, who runs Kehelland Village School, introduced his virtue project six years ago following an inspirational trip to a school in Canada.
The scheme, which praises children’s virtues such as hardwork, patience, caring and teamwork, was singled out by experts at the University of Birmingham who are lobbying Education Secretary Michael Gove asking him to endorse the scheme nationally.
Mr Smith recently attended a two day conference at St Georges House, inside Windsor Castle, organised by staff with the university’s Jubilee Centre for Characters and Values.
He was asked to write a charter on character education which the Government may consider introducing into the national curriculum.
The headteacher, who has more than 20 year’s experience in teaching, works closely with pupils, staff and parents to strengthen pupils’ characters.
He said: “It is a unique way of teaching good character. It helps parents and teachers to recognise the positive in the children. We praise flexibility, determination, courage,rather than just saying something is good, or focussing solely on academic achievement.”
Mr Smith is keen to see the project adopted by schools across Cornwall and is inviting headteachers to visit Kehelland School and see it being put into action.
He said the scheme has reaped rewards across the board, adding: “An improved classroom climate leads to greater learning, and confidence, students achieve more and there is better attendance.”
Tom Harrison, deputy director at the Jubilee Centre, said Mr Smith’s project was at the forefront of educational practices and was setting an “incredible example” for other schools.
Character Education Advisor 
It sounds like he visited Maxwell School on Vancouvre Island. They used a particular system which has many resources and is used in about 100 countries around the world. This can be found at http://www.virtuesproject.com . There is some research as to its effectiveness in schools that supports Geoff Smith’s opinion about its influence. There are trainers around the world who are qualified to teach people how to implement this in their families, schools, or other organizations.
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Thanks Derek -Funnily enough I did visit Maxwell School briefly a lovely place. The article is not quite right in that I first discovered the Virtues through a friend in the UK. However if you look at my links page you`ll see that I have linked to the Virtues Project which of course was the source of my inspiration- and I’m in touch with it`s new director Dara Feldman.
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That’s great. Dara has the education portfolio and Dr Chris Kavelin and I are co-leaders on research. We both live here in Melbourne and I lecture in the Master of School Leadership degree at U Melbourne training school principals in positive psychological methods in Authentic and distributed leadership to achieve whole school culture change. This part time degree requires a research project and two have tried a whole staff training in Virtues Project. This is a big ask, and most chose smaller projects with one class or select team. The Associate Professor who invented this degree has done the 12 hours training and loves the virtues project. Dara will know when to include me in any discussion about collecting data. On a personal note, my eldest daughter, husband and their four children live in Wimbledon, so I might visit London sometime in the next year or two. They are visiting us in NZ later this year. UK is important to start something with Virtues. One argument I use comes from the UK “good childhood inquiry” which included the top researchers there in the book where it says: “What is needed is a common vocabulary that is used by both parents and teachers” “the words we use have a powerful influence on our actions. They work in two ways. They echo in our mind, reminding ourselves of how we would like to be. And they can reverberate in a community, providing a common focus for people’s aspirations.” p. 78 References
Layard, R., Dunn, J., & The Good Childhood Inquiry panel. (2009). A good childhood. Searching for values in a competitive age. London: Penguin Books.
Seems to me the whole UK system has been “primed” for a virtues project approach and therefore your efforts are very important, timely and hopefully will be a tipping point.
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Geoff, If you need supportive arguments for your effort, you might note that in this year’s QS university rankings by subject, U Melbourne, or more specifically our Graduate School of Education, where the above mentioned degree is taught, ranks 3rd in the world behind Harvard and then Cambridge. My own PhD research follows a UK model from Oxford and Institute of Education, U London with one principal researcher visiting us here. Likely I will have a future there regarding this. Your school is a bit far from London, but I suppose not as far as Melbourne (Australia). cheers derek
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Thanks Derek -I agree with your points
I`d be happy to email you Birmingham University’s Charter for Character Education which was the purpose of the conference at Windsor and which proposes a framework of civic, personal and performance virtue – I`m not sure the divison of virtue into these subdivisions is necessary , but it’s what they’ve arrived at.. We are 5 hrs from London and you are welcome to visit and look at our school if it’s of interest.
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Great. my other email is derekpatton19@gmail.com
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