‘The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education’ 

Martin Luther King Jr.

Over 2000 years ago Aristotle noted that all adults involved with young people either help or thwart the young person’s growth and development through the positive or negative behaviours that they model. It is an inescapable fact that our behaviours, either intentionally or unintentionally, shape the formation of character in our young people. Character education is thus not optional in our schools, it is inevitable, and therefore merits intentional focus and priority status.

Developing character is an explicit part of the ethos, culture and belief systems of each of the Trust’s academies. It is not an ‘add on’, but part of the DNA of each academy through its five guiding principles. In this process, the ultimate aim of character education is the development of good sense or practical wisdom: the capacity to choose intelligently between alternatives.