July 2018
Who would choose being a young person today over their own childhood? Very few of us, I suspect, if recent conversations with parents are anything to go by!
I don’t believe it’s just the golden glow of nostalgia distorting our perspectives - the current generation of children and young people face a daunting set of challenges. Exams were always ‘high stakes’ for young people because they influence their future life chances - the school accountability regime now means the stakes are also high for every teacher, school management team and the institution itself. Poor performance in exams could trigger an Ofsted inspection and that vinyl banner tied to the railings proudly proclaiming a positive rating could soon be heading for the bin, along with the support of parents. For those at the chalkface, the level of anxiety about the new, more challenging GCSEs is palpable.
And that is of course only a small part of the picture. Once you consider the significant impact of social media and other societal factors, it’s perhaps not surprising that this generation of children and young people are reportedly suffering unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm and eating disorders.
As someone who works in education for an exam board, I am acutely aware of our responsibilities as part of that system. There are technical things we are able to do to help students have as positive an experience as possible - for example making sure our exam papers ramp up in difficulty, with straightforward questions early on, to help students settle in. We ensure the design of our papers makes them easy to follow and the phrasing of the questions is clear and unambiguous. We provide advice on exam technique and guidance and support for teachers and parents, and we work with organisations like the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, providing mentoring for young people who face challenges. providing mentoring for young people who face challenges.
However, we recognise that there is more for us to do as an organisation and a sector, and we are currently working with partners to develop new approaches to help students cope with the significant pressures they are under.
One area I am keen to explore is how a strong sense of personal values could help equip young people to navigate the challenges they face. When I reflect on my own childhood, I don’t remember many conversations that were explicitly about ‘values’ - but there were plenty about right and wrong, doing our best and how we should treat others. There was also a very clear sense that we had a role to play in the world, and that we had a duty to do our bit, however small, for a rather nebulous entity which I understood to be ‘the greater good’.
Today’s children are rather more likely to be actively thinking about values than my generation. Since 2014, schools have been required to promote ‘British values’ as part of encouraging cohesion and integration under the UK government’s Prevent counter–terrorism strategy. The four British values are identified as: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. In a recent speech Ofsted Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman responded to the criticism that these values are not uniquely British saying that missed the point – in her view they are integral to the ethos of British society.
I confess I have struggled with some of the more tribal conceptualisations of ‘Britishness’ for most of my life, interspersed with the occasional moment of revelation. Those moments include, for example, the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, when it became apparent that as a nation we had pulled off something rather wonderful, or more recently, the poignancy of Gareth Southgate consoling Mateus Uribe, the Columbian player whose World Cup penalty miss set England up to win the game.
My focus here, though, is not about exploring what government thinks could equip us to operate as effective citizens, although that is of course vitally important for society. It is more about the opportunity that the exploration of values at a young age might offer in terms of helping children and young people understand better what makes then tick as individuals and the place they want to have in the world.
I appreciate that those who develop a strong religious faith early in life will benefit from the moral framework that provides, but obviously a clear sense of personal values is not taught; it is intrinsically linked to our unique life experience and all the influences we breathe in. And while it will usually have a core that does not waver, there will be aspects of how we relate to others and the world that will evolve as we mature.
As a leadership development coach and facilitator, I am constantly struck by the fact that many of us may be in our 30s and 40s before we really reflect deeply and seek to articulate what we understand our own moral compass to be and how that should influence our behaviour and choices as leaders, and, more generally, in all aspects of our lives. Imagine the power of getting clear on what really matters to us much earlier, and using that clarity to inform our sense of purpose and self-worth, sustaining and guiding us as we navigate life’s challenges from an early age!
So, I am actively considering what more I could do to help children and young people understand the significance of their personal values. Not only could it help nurture and inspire the next generation of strategic leaders, it could also have positive benefits for their mental health, wellbeing and resilience. And I hope we’d all agree that would be an inspiring prize worth pursuing.
First published by Windsor Leadership in July 2018.