On Thursday 30th June 2016, Prof. James Arthur, Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, presented the Department for Education Character Awards with Edward Timpson MP, Minister for Children and Families. The Character Awards celebrated nine outstanding practitioners in character education from across regions in England, including the National Award winner, Thoresby Primary School in Hull. Details of all of the Character Awards winners can be found below, including the announcement by the Minister available here. During his speech, Minister Timpson thanked the Jubilee Centre for leading the way on research in character education in the UK.

The Character Awards were made as part of the Association for Character Education (ACE) inaugural conference, at the University of Birmingham School. The conference also marked the launch of the ACE e-journal Character Matters. ACE, supported by the Jubilee Centre, is a ‘bottom-up’, grassroots organisation, created to respond to the growing interest in character education in Britain.

The conference, chaired by ACE Chairman Gary Lewis (Head of Kings Langley Secondary School), featured key note addresses from Prof. James Arthur (Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues) and Michael Roden (Principal of the University of Birmingham School), Charlotte Hill (CEO of Step up to Serve) with Nicky Broomhall (Head of Star Academy, Sandyford) and Thomas Munnelly (#iwill Ambassador), and Lord James O’Shaughnessy and Jo Glen (Floreat Education). There were also workshops by leading practitioners and organisation in the field of character education.

Association for Character Education Executive.

L-R: Jo Glen, Linda Sanders, Prof. James Arthur, Edward Timpson MP, Gary Lewis, Michael Roden, Dr. Tom Harrison, Geoff Smith

Image used courtesy of the Department for Education