The Case for Character

Entelechy Academy was delighted as City & Guilds responded with excitement to its daring learning and assessment model.

The UK government’s focus on lifelong learning and an agenda to democratise education is welcome. Everyone should indeed have the opportunity to actualise their potential, their Entelechy.

However, there are two areas of concern that need some focus.

First, to prevent a repeat of old mistakes, we need to acknowledge a missing ingredient: Character.

Second, all Governments have succumbed to an outcomes culture. There is a danger that this focus on lifelong skills will be filtered through Ofqual and become a subset of criteria in qualifications. We need to avoid the regurgitating of inappropriate pedagogy under a new heading.

The issue is not one of skills, whether these are hard or soft. We are human beings, not human doings, and it is how we show up that defines our success. The problems of work readiness identified by the CBI are a matter of Character, not skills.

Character is the foundation of our success in all areas of life.

If we can be educated in how to be better, we will do better by extension. Each one of us is meant to become something that no one else can, to offer a unique value to the world. For that to happen, our innate Character needs to be unlocked.

The barrier to unleashing this potential is a lack of an appropriate structure to aid educationalists. The Entelechy approach, based on years of research and backed by surveys conducted by BritainThinks and YouGov, codifies Character, soft skills, and behaviours for the first time. It is a framework of 54 Character Qualities that define what we need to evolve, to become our best self.

The ultimate manifestation of this pedagogy is a self-directed learner in the habit of daily acts of development.

With extensive experience and research into effective learning, we have developed an approach that also rewards the development of Character. We have designed a means of assessing the development of Character.

The key to an effective assessment model is to capture what is learnt rather than what is taught.

City & Guilds has been persuaded of the power of this model to unleash the potential of learners. A 140-year-old organisation impressed by our disruptive approach and working with our team to offer Entelechy Academy the Assured status from launch. C&G will be joined by the Learning & Performance Institute and the CPD Standards Office.