Supporting the College’s vision for reinventing education is the desire to form the character of the young men in our care, so that under God they would have the finest preparation for life. With this intention in mind, Scots was pleased to be a part of the inaugural Character Leaders in Education National Symposium 2022, held in Sydney from Thursday 26 to Friday 27 May.
The event featured keynote addresses by world-class scholars, including Professor Christian B Miller (Wake Forest University) and Professor Nancy E Hill (Harvard University), along with nine masterclasses by scholars and practitioners from theology, psychology, philosophy, business and education.
Several staff from the College, including our Principal, Dr Ian PM Lambert, were able to join this learning experience, which delegates overwhelmingly described as ‘excellent’. But more than just a one-off gathering, the symposium now leads on to the first Character Leaders in Education research project, ‘Formed for Flourishing: Towards a new measure of school success’.
Akin to the well-known ‘Up Series’ longitudinal study, this project opens up the ‘black box’ to see what happens to our graduates as they reach adulthood at age 25. How are our graduates going? What impact have our schools really had in forming their character, for better or worse? How do they look back on their path to maturity? What do they wish we had done differently?
Partnering with a range of schools and international leaders in this area, including Professor Nancy E Hill, this project aims to help school leaders move the conversation about our impact from the anecdotal to the evidenced, from being driven only by the narrow indicator of ATAR scores towards a more holistic measure of school success. We look forward to sharing more about this exciting project in due course, and details of the forthcoming visit of Professor Nancy E Hill in Term 3 for our 2022 Clark Lecture.
Dr Hugh Chilton
Director of Research and Professional Learning
