Schools’ core values can set students up for success in future careers

So much in our system happens at a national level in our education system that you’d have to wonder at the absence of one over-arching set of values.

Individual trusts and patrons have their own and they sometimes overlap, so it would hardly be too problematic to have a set of umbrella values under which the individual subsets could then be defined.

Currently, we only have a State examination, common to all. During the academic year, we drill into our students the importance of preparing for this milestone academic assessment.

But once we get close to results day there’s a social media overdrive of reassurance that these results aren’t all that important after all, “they don’t define you”.

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And yet just as prominent as these posts are national media features on those who have scored highest.

While this confusion reigns, we have young people in desperate need of core soft skills. I’m referring here to the very skills that would equip them to deal with what is at best a mixed message, at worst blatant hypocrisy.

Today many young employees join the workforce having never before experienced day-to-day life emphasis on core values

Both simply can’t be true and they need an ability to question, rationalise and cope with conflicting realities. The alternative would be to disengage, but being able to remain healthily detached is then the skill they would need.

Companies and organisations these days ensure their core values are easily available – a quick search of any number of big brands will confirm that. With their future work selves in mind, it would make sense for our students to understand the values of the community they are part of and be practised in honouring them.

Currently, the extent to which schools actively embed their school’s values in daily life varies considerably. If surveyed, would students be able to name their school’s values without hesitation, let alone feel encouraged to follow them?

Today many young employees join the workforce having never before experienced day-to-day life emphasis on core values. Given that in the workplace these may be relevant to appraisals, meeting goals and targets and so on, there is some performance assessment at play. Schools that offer awards and hold prize-giving ceremonies have a real opportunity to honour publicly those students who uphold the school’s core values.

Massive strides

Such an approach also offers students a whole new skillset and shifts the focus away from the exclusively academic. This alone would offer a confidence boost to students who consistently feel it is left to others to shine in class.

It would mean that our education system would make massive strides away from rote learning. Aspects of junior cycle reform that get little airtime now would move very naturally to the fore. A number of the key skills immediately come to mind. Can you name them? Do you know how many there are?

According to the American writer, Will Durant, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

While I have my own clear ideas on what we could invite young people to do repeatedly, you undoubtedly have yours too. And with the specific aim of facilitating their journey towards excellence it would be hard to argue against respect, honesty and courage as examples of obvious candidates.

But rather than pluck ideas from thin air, I’ll draw inspiration from the key skills as they have something of a national standing already.

Promoting accountability would be such a gift. It may take time and we would certainly meet some resistance but all stakeholders would benefit from increased accountability in our students.

Integrating and promoting core values would ensure that they approach the end of their school days with a significantly broader skillset

It would require agreed standards of what we could reasonably expect from our students at specific milestones, eg the degree of autonomy they need to have over their learning. A consistent appeal to our students to step up and do their best for themselves could be truly transformative. It would do more for life as we know it on the ground than any educational reform has to date.

Communication works so easily right from the school-starting age and is surely one of the ultimate life skills. It links beautifully with collaboration and that pairing of values would work to enhance any school's sense of community.

Creativity would allow for autonomy and allay any fears that a nationally agreed set of values would promote uniformity. Prioritising the promotion of creativity would offset any diluting of the identity each individual school has. The fact that schools would have their own unique take on a common set of agreed values might even inspire curiosity in each other's interpretation and application of the values.

Accountability

School-leavers who make active progress in terms of accountability, communication, collaboration and creativity over the course of their time in primary and secondary education would be a force to be reckoned with.

They would make outstanding college students and future leaders. Their readiness for the world of employment would soar to new heights, impressing their employers and benefitting their workplaces.

This very particular reform would mean that academic results would truly no longer define our school-leavers. Integrating and promoting core values would ensure that they approach the end of their school days with a significantly broader skillset, one which has benefitted them as much socially as in the classroom.

Schools would be taking the in loco parentis role much more seriously by actively contributing in a new way to the overall development of the young people in their charge.

What’s more, I could finally say I am working in a system where promoting such values is not met with sighs and incredulity. A system which recognises that grades and points are not the only currencies of value. A system which promotes lifelong learning of the whole person and in which every child gets to feel they are a winner.