Forging habits through a soft skills revolution

James Featherstone, Headmaster of Exeter Cathedral School, advocates for character education.

‘We cannot live life well or create a good society apart from acquiring and practising virtue’: Aristotle

Dennis Silk, celebrated former Warden of Radley College and sometime President of the MCC, says in the BBC documentary ‘Public School’ that a school’s main purpose is to help its pupils acquire ‘the right habits for life’. That was in 1979. 40-plus years later, most of modern educational thinking seems to be agreeing with him. Most months there’s something in the press about the increased importance that employers are placing on ‘soft skills’ (terminology which, with one bullishly ill-advised adjective, undermines and undervalues the very point these articles – and employers – are making); Dr Anthony Seldon, whilst (iconic) Head of Wellington College, made the headlines with the rolling-out of his Wellbeing lessons, his insistence on ‘service’, and his school’s sector-leading focus on Character, Grit, and Resilience; the founding of the UK-wide Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues; and the rapid rise in in-house initiatives across the country such as Failure Weeks, Silent Retreats, Random Acts of Kindness Weeks; and our own daily periods of stillness and reflection in the Cathedral as part of our programme called ‘Mind, Body & Soul’, all suggest pretty strongly that we are, as a nation and as a sector, becoming slightly less hesitant to agree with Professor James Arthur’s assertion (2013) that ‘character matters more than attainment’.

Heads are afforded various soap-box moments during term time, and one of the consistent messages that I try to give during mine (Newsletters, Head’s Assemblies, Speech Days and the like) is that it matters very much to me that children be recognised and rewarded not just for what they achieve, but for the way in which they go about trying to achieve it. In other words: attainment matters, but character matters more. In other words: those ‘soft’ skills are the ones that count the most. In other words: those ‘habits for life’ are what we really prize. The development and promotion of good character, the up-holding and embedding of core values, the modelling and nurturing of the right habits, and the acquiring and practising of key skills are at the heart of what we try to do as a staff team at Exeter Cathedral School.

There is a great deal of talk across the educational sectors about the quasi-impossible task facing schools today: as Richard Riley (US Secretary of Education under Bill Clinton) once put it, ‘We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist…using technologies that haven’t yet been invented…in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.' Terrific emphasis continues to be placed on the importance of STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Maths): the future is computer-based; educate children for that future.

And yet Andrew Pinsent, Research Director at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, University of Oxford, makes the point that from here-on-in anything that can be automated will be; anything that can be run by/done by computers will be; and so what’s left for people at that point? His answer: all the important stuff. To think on that a little longer: in a world increasingly governed by and served by machines, the ‘soft skills’ (empathy, emotional intelligence, manners, social intelligence, nuance, persuasion, kindness, subtlety of expression, interpretation of information, team work, leadership, self-reflection, self-awareness, perspective, gentleness: in short, awareness) are going to be more important than ever as today’s young adults head out into the world seeking employment and meaningful relationships. Will Gompertz, the BBC’s Arts Editor, takes this to its logical conclusion and makes the case for every school being an arts school, because everything else will end up being done by computers.

There is, as is usually the case with these things, a balance to be struck. Schools must embrace the use of technology as a learning tool and recognise the importance of digital literacy in the lives and futures of pupils. Which is why we were so pleased when our lockdown remote learning package – ECS@Home (and its spin-off, Choristers@Home) – received acclaim from Microsoft Education who branded us an ‘Industry Leader for Remote Learning’.

But good schools must also be environments where ‘soft skills’ are highly-valued, modelled, promoted and prized. As I have said before during my soap-box moments, the primary role of an outstanding school is to work with families to help pupils acquire the right values, habits, and skills for life. Our 9 ECS Habits (child-friendly value concepts) underpin everything we do; all of our interactions and all of our decision-making. Awareness – of self, of others, and of one’s own impact – is key: we encourage children to be mindful of, and grateful for, those around them, and, through faith or a broader sense of spirituality borne out of the daily presence of the cathedral’s gentle majesty in their lives, appreciate that they are part of something greater and more timeless than themselves.

Silk, Seldon, Pinsent, Gompertz and Featherstone (audacity fully acknowledged) may all agree on what matters most, but none of these can claim to be the first to have thought of it: I suspect that we ought to hand that one to Aristotle, too – ‘It is not unimportant, then, to acquire one sort of habit or another right from our youth; rather it is very important, indeed all important’.

This article appears in the 2022 edition of John Catt's Preparatory Schools, which you can view here: