Successive Governments have seemingly failed us in the ‘taking responsibility’ disease, which started around the 1960’s and strengthened its grip over the decades, until now when it’s an epidemic that is eroding our society.
- 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted since age 16;
- Increasing violent crime, particularly knife crime;
- 14 million people live in poverty including 30% children;
- As well as the social damage and significant economic impact the cost of family breakdown to the tax payer is £47 billion.
Please scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the huge amount of evidence to support the need for our strategy and solution.
Here’s the solution – embed self-responsibility
Summary of our unique approach
We could create a paradigm shift, not only in education but our society if we overcome the culture of focusing on grades and league tables and look at adopting a more ‘whole person’ approach, it only needs a tweak to the curriculum. Equally important is the need to transform the quality of the relationship between home and school; particularly for disadvantaged children and families – parents and teachers need to work in partnership.
During Key Stage 3 is possibly the last opportunity to make a significant change, when teachers, parents and students are looking at their future education and career options. From our experience this whole process needs to be more fully committed to by all parties, supported and managed to maximise the disadvantaged students’ and families potential.
Our suite of evidence based personal development programmes have been co-created over the last 16 years and use the best of coaching, mindfulness and emotional literacy techniques, underpinned by neuroscience to create systemic change. We think we could add value by integrating three key aspects; personal life coaching skills, adding tailored mindfulness and life skills to the curriculum. By incorporating this activity at Key Stage 3 each year the benefits will spread throughout the whole school community and beyond.
Students and families will be spreading an ethos of empowerment as they progress throughout the school. They will be more open to further learning, be more self assured and have greater belief in their own ability to attain and achieve throughout their education and into life long learning. They will become better equipped with a wider range of choices in apprenticeships, training and more flexible in their future careers. Finally they become positive contributors to their family, community, work place and society.
Our approach would be recruiting and training an existing teacher from, ideally up to 10 secondary schools; they continue their teaching commitments for 50% of the time, whilst being trained to become a DYC Empowerment coach. They would also have oversight of the students’ progression in relation to their goals and career choices. The schools would be in a relatively close-knit defined area where they would be able to share experiences and we would be able to track the progress, isolate the results and data. These schools would need to be allowed flexibility from the Department of Education, OFSTED and the local authority to participate in the program.
This is how it would work:
- 1 x Empowerment coach per school – 20 hours a week – pay is based pro-rata on the deputy head salary.
- Coach recruitment from stock of teaching staff in participating schools. School would need to recruit part time teacher to job share and make up shortfall 20 hours.
- Teacher coach to coach students, teachers and parent groups.
- Teacher coach to recruit fellow teacher, student and parent champions.
Roll out process….
- Teachers then bring personal responsibility ethos into school lesson by lesson.
- Students to champion personal responsibility ethos throughout school and influence at home and personal social groups.
- Parents to champion personal responsibility ethos at home and in personal social groups.
With commitment each school could be self-sufficient by the end of year 1, it will provide the foundation for a sustainable and empowered learning community.
And better prepared for the future
British Chambers of Commerce according to the British Chambers of Commerce, 88% of businesses believe school leavers are unprepared for the world of work. School leaver’s lack self-development skills – what is missing is the creative inspiration and motivation of the person operating the keyboard, their mind-set and attitude to life.
The Made Smarter Review 2017 reports:
- The stop–start nature of government education policy has resulted in a confusing landscape.
- Different conditions are applied to available funding.
- The system is difficult to navigate and there is a fragmented offer for employers and individuals alike.
It outlines proposals to boost the economy using advanced digital technologies. It supports the Industrial Strategy and suggests Britain’s manufacturing sector could unlock £455bn over the next decade and create thousands of jobs if it cracks the fourth industrial revolution and carves out a successful post Brexit future.
Businesses face a skills shortage, particularly in digital engineering capabilities, and are hindered by a fragmented skills system and a lack of systematic engagement between education and industry. While young people will acquire basic digital skills by default because of digital’s pervasive nature, to be truly employable more advanced skills are required. There is a lack of expertise within higher education, further education and schools to support employer needs.
Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.
In the same article Project Aristotle shows the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills: equality, generosity, curiosity toward the ideas of your teammates, empathy, and emotional intelligence, with emotional safety, no bullying topping the list. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes.
Major benefits
- Improved teachers personal and emotional wellbeing;
- Empower students with self responsibility, improved attainment and a better life;
- Enhance schools relationships with parents and family;
- Create a change in the ethos and culture of the school;
- Improve our society and save billions in public services budgets;
- Britain can become a world leading innovator and market leader in the 4thIndustrial Revolution.
If you would like to know how we create and implement the programs to achieve a totally self-sufficient school by the end of year 1 and provide the foundation for a sustainable and empowered learning community, contact us.
Here is the evidence
We have researched the areas missing in today’s society and seen the huge need for personal, social, emotional and mental health initiatives, which stops people from taking responsibility for themselves. In addition we are facing unprecedented speed of change in working practices by the 4th Industrial revolution, again the need for people to have self-belief, be self-responsible and capable of adapting to the situation they face, in the moment. Let’s start with Social Mobility.
The Social Mobility Commission reports in 2016, that, pupils’ educational achievements were overwhelmingly dictated by the circumstances of their birth, and the link between social demography and educational destiny has not been broken: over the past five years 1.2 million 16-year-olds disproportionately from low-income homes have left school without five good GCSEs.
Centre for Social Justice’s Breakthrough Britain identified educational failure as one of the five pathways to poverty. It is therefore essential to provide an education that gives students the skills and capability to achieve and sustain worthwhile employment.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation(JFR) We can solve poverty in the UK. A strategy for governments, businesses, communities and citizens’ (2016) JRF recognise that socially disadvantaged young people, often experience family breakdown, live with a single parent, are more likely to suffer mental health issues, as well as feel disengaged with their education and that ‘we need to see flexible and co-ordinated support that builds on people’s assets, strengths and relationships, that roots them in ordinary housing, jobs and communities, and is tailored around the ‘whole person’ and the ‘whole family’. These make it easier to improve their long-term prospects.
Building human capacity is vital for industry and essential for the economy, but we agree that the solution must be multi-faceted and that schools can play an important part in contributing to improving the health and well-being of young people, building family relationships and co-ordinating social support to reduce the damage done by poverty and improve prospects.
The Skills Commission called for evidence on apprenticeships and social mobility as they had concerns. In response, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (August 2017), set out 8 key features of a good quality apprenticeship.
There is a growing awareness for the need for personal development skills, life skills, character education, soft skills etc, same thing different labels!
Sutton Trust There’s a lack of personal development skills in education. Life skills are vital for the future and recent research from Sutton Trust shows 88% of young people, 94% of employers, and 97% of teachers say life skills are as or more important as academic qualifications.
Macmillan English Life skills are an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of a constantly changing environment. The dramatic changes in global economies over the past five years have been matched with the transformation in technology – impacting on education, the workplace and our home life. Students need life skills such as the ability to deal with stress and frustration.
TES increase in character education Teachers can educate students through the power of growth mind-set language and build character in young people that will make them ready for life outside of the school gates.
The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues is a pioneering interdisciplinary research focussing on character, virtues and values in the interest of human flourishing, in order to explore the importance of virtue for public and professional life.
PSHE Association new character curriculum toolkit offers practical advice on integrating character education within PSHE education, for Key Stages 1 to 4.
World Innovation Summit for Health and Wellbeing in Children Forum ’s report (2015), The Healthy Young Minds – transforming the mental health of children, suggested our schools need to adopt children’s wellbeing as one of their major objectives – both in their ethos and their teaching. Life skills can and should be taught as professionally as mathematics or literature.
The critical link between poverty and poor productivity is an insidious, core issue – resulting in low self-esteem and an erosion of personal values over decades, more specifically a lack personal responsibility and accountability in people of all ages and socio-demographic backgrounds. Neglect of this sort is found at all levels of organisations and society.
Poverty. The State of the Nation (2017) reports 14 million people live in poverty, blaming rising housing costs, increasing food and energy bills and cuts in benefits. We believe the problem goes much deeper.
Productivity. Office of Budget Responsibility (October, 2017) is considering a “downward revision to prospective productivity growth” in its next economic forecast. “Productivity has not been this stagnant since the end of the Napoleonic wars, 200 years ago”.
Our Director of Education (Georgina Saralis) has over 30 years in education including the last 13 years in special schools. She was the deputy head teacher of an independent school, pioneering an alternative provision for a diverse range of young people aged 8-18 with mild disabilities and various learning difficulties, including Autism, Asperger’s, high anxiety, social, emotional and behavioural issues and medical conditions, building it from 4 to a competitive provision for Local Authorities’ ‘hard to place’ young people. In partnership with our charity, then Every Family Matters, she ran a Parent Champion programme.
Reporting to trustees she said “I have to say that personally I have been overwhelmed by the response to this course and by the achievements of the individuals taking part. Obviously we would not have embarked on this programme unless we were convinced of its value to the school, but it has more than met my expectations. What we are creating here is open and trusting relationships between parents, teachers and pupils and I had not realised the potential of this until now. We are experiencing the benefits of this already and I feel excited about how this will contribute to our mission of unleashing the potential of our pupils still further.” Also in a conversation with the (OFSTED) inspector he said, “the content of (the programme) sessions were acknowledged as contributing in particular to “building self-esteem”.
Currently, she is working in a mainstream special school in an area of social deprivation on the south coast; she is a Community Partner for Save the Children, delivering their Families and Schools Together and is developing a similar approach at secondary level, to promote closer links between the pupils’ parents, the school and local services, to raise levels of attainment and support their move out of poverty using the Develop Your Child (DYC) programs.
Engaging parents is crucial to the success of any intervention devised to raise attainment, as this increases their long-term effect. We believe that our ‘whole person’ and the ‘whole family’ approach should be provided at the end of KS3, through KS4 and continue as a support the individual until the completion of their apprenticeship or start work.
