Jubilee Centre Director, Professor James Arthur, has recently featured in articles in both The Times and the Times Educational Supplement, discussing the vision and ethos of the University of Birmingham School, which focuses on character education. The articles both highlight the immense popularity that the school has seen with parents in the local area since opening in September 2015 and the bespoke ethos, curriculum and enrichment programme the school offers its pupils. The articles come shortly after Prime Minister Theresa May called for more universities around the country to commit to sponsoring a school. The University of Birmingham also held a conference on 24th November 2016, at the University of Birmingham School, to share its experience of establishing a school with representatives of 52 universities and civil servants who attended. In the articles, Professor Arthur also speaks about the process by which the university went about setting up the school and the main factors driving the school’s unique vision and ethos which is built around values such as justice, courage and compassion. Working closely with the Jubilee Centre to develop a taught character curriculum, the school integrates character into every lesson as it seeks to demonstrate how character can be taught as well as ‘caught’.
You can access the article in The Times, ‘Fierce competition to be “guinea pigs” at the school that teachers character’ here.*
You can access the TES article, ‘How one university has created a school to “match the aspirations” of the best’ here.*
*Please note both articles are accessible through subscription.