To measure or not to measure—that is the question.
Increasingly, I find myself aligned with those calling for radical reform in both what children and young people learn at school, and how they learn it.
This call for more wholesale curriculum reform has been growing for some time, but it feels particularly urgent in the age of AI. AI is already disrupting traditional models of education that rely heavily on end-point assessments of knowledge and understanding across predefined topics. Some respond by arguing that we simply need to double down on exams. But to me, this misses a more fundamental point: education should be preparing young people for their lives ahead, not just testing what they can recall at a moment in time (although I understand that exams can be character-building in their own way).
Increasingly, pupils question the value of memorising knowledge or procedural skills that can now be reproduced instantly and accurately with a single prompt. While I would still argue that real learning lies in the process (the struggle, effort, and intellectual wrestling) rather than the final answer, education systems in many countries have, for many years, operated as heavily results-driven environments. This has had significant consequences, often negative, for both teachers and learners.
For this reason, I believe a radical curriculum overhaul should devote a substantial proportion of learning time to character education. Character is, in large part, caught through the ethos and culture of a school, but it can also be taught and sought through intentional programmes and experiences. Many schools already embed valuable character-building work, but too often this happens at the margins, squeezed between competing curriculum pressures.
Now for a thought experiment. Imagine, instead, if a quarter or even a third of teaching time were dedicated to character education. This may not be as radical as it first sounds. For example, it is broadly consistent with approaches seen in alternative schooling models such as the Alpha School network in the United States. The idea would be to create intentional space to bring high-quality enrichment and co-curricular activities into the heart of the curriculum, ensuring that all students (not just those with time, confidence, or opportunity) can develop teamwork, communication, leadership, courage, integrity, justice and other virtues in structured and meaningful ways. It would also give teachers permission and resources to design learning that truly reflects the needs of their school communities.
Yet one major challenge stands in the way: measurement.
If we are serious about allocating substantial curriculum time to character development, then we inevitably face questions about assessment and evaluation. Schools are under pressure to demonstrate impact, employers seek evidence of the character qualities pupils develop at school and elsewhere, and it is reasonable to ask whether educational approaches are working. Moreover, experience suggests that if something is not assessed in some form, it is often not taken seriously by some pupils, parents and teachers.
However, and this is a significant ‘however’, measuring character is far from straightforward. Unlike mathematics or literacy, character does not lend itself easily to simple or standardised measurement. Most existing approaches have clear limitations, and character development is best understood over time, often across the whole of a person’s life.
There is also a risk that over-measurement could undermine the very purpose of a character-focused curriculum. Reducing character to a set of grades or metrics at different stages of schooling would be both methodologically problematic and educationally counterproductive. It could distort practice, narrow understanding, and could undermine trust in teachers’ professional judgement.
I have deliberately presented a stark framing here to highlight the tension, but there are more nuanced possibilities. These might include assessing different components or dimensions of virtue, incorporating pupils’ own reflections on their development, or recognising participation in structured character-building experiences. Equally, there is a case for placing greater trust in teachers’ professional knowledge of their pupils over time.
There is also a more radical alternative. This is to trust the process itself – that meaningful character formation will occur when skilled educators design and lead rich, purposeful learning experiences.
Personally, I am increasingly drawn towards more ambitious curriculum reform, including models I have seen in some more experimental educational settings in the UK and internationally. But fundamental questions related to assessment, measurement and evaluation remain largely unresolved.
So I return to the question: to measure or not to measure?
I would be very interested to hear your views.
