Impact case study database

The Jubilee Centre has generated a wide portfolio of impacts across the education and charitable sectors nationally and internationally.

1. Influencing policymaking related to provision of character education in Schools in England

Through direct engagement with the Secretary of State for Education (SoS), in 2014/15, ‘ character and resilience’ became a policy priority across the Department for Education (DfE). In a speech at the University of Birmingham, the SoS directly acknowledged the Jubilee Centre’s influence on her vision for education, stating that her “focus” on character education was “inspired by the work of the Jubilee Centre at Birmingham University and its innovative research on character education and its work with schools to build best practice in this area” (S1). The SoS consequently created a ‘Character Unit’ comprised of civil servants to focus on this area (Arthur was appointed to the advisory committee) and allocated £5m to a Character Innovation Fund/Character Award scheme in 2014/15; this was followed by a further £9.5m between 2015–17, awarded to schools for the development of exceptional character education initiatives (S2). The announcement of this policy priority followed discussions at a September 2014 DfE roundtable on educational settings for character development, in which the Jubilee Centre’s conceptualisation, including the four virtue domains (R3), along with findings and lesson plans from R4, were used as a focal point to shape and structure the discussions.

2. Changing professional standards of the national inspection framework (Ofsted) for schools in England

Through successive governments, Jubilee Centre researchers worked with officials and ministers to firmly embed character-education research within education policy. In May 2019, the national schools inspectorate, Ofsted, published the revised national education inspection framework, which included character development as one of four criteria against which schools’ provision for pupils’ personal development is assessed (S3). Building on the Jubilee Centre’s prior collaboration with the DfE, Harrison and Arthur contributed to discussions with Ofsted representatives that shaped character criteria throughout the guidance, drawing on the Jubilee Centre’s conceptualisations in identifying different domains and psychological components of virtue. For example, the definition of ‘character’ used in the national inspection framework is “a set of positive personal traits, dispositions and virtues that informs [children’s] motivation and guides their conduct so that they reflect wisely” (S3: 58); this language is replicated from the Jubilee Centre’s Framework (R1, R2). Since September 2019, England’s 22,000+ schools are now required to demonstrate how they develop pupils’ character for Ofsted inspections.

3. Shaping pedagogical practices in primary, secondary and tertiary education in the UK, Montenegro, North Macedonia and the USA

The Jubilee Centre has co-produced an extensive suite of downloadable educational resources for use within and beyond the classroom in collaboration with teaching practitioners from 4 countries. Jubilee Centre website analytics indicate the reach of the uptake of these free resources, with over 141,000 resource downloads (>127,100 unique downloads) worldwide in the period July 2017–December 2020 (S4; see Figure 1). Whilst the majority of these downloads (>57,300) came from UK-based viewers, significant numbers are situated in the USA (>6,200), Australia, India, Spain and Mexico.

Figure 1. Total Resource Downloads July 2017–Dec 2020 (S4)

Within the UK, impacts on pedagogical practice have been generated through school-specific workshops and professional training programmes as well as school-wide, extra-curricular and day-to-day activities, in addition to changes to education policy and school inspection frameworks at the national level. The Jubilee Centre’s impact on teaching in UK schools was documented in a 2020 evaluative report commissioned by the Jubilee Centre with NatCen (S5). The report found that 100% of the schools who participated in the survey had been influenced by the Jubilee Centre in their delivery of character education and were “twice as likely to have been influenced in their approach to character education” by the Jubilee Centre than by other sources, for example the DfE or Ofsted. Further, schools in this study were more likely to offer discrete character education lessons than those in the national study, which suggests that schools partnered with the Jubilee Centre are more likely to adopt an explicit, ‘taught’ approach to character development (S5: 6).

Outside of the UK, collaboration with UNICEF has enabled Jubilee Centre researchers to contribute to changes in curricula and teaching practices in Montenegro and North Macedonia. Insights from character education interventions at primary level informed design changes to the national curriculum in Montenegro, with lesson plans extracted from the Jubilee Centre Primary Programme of Study and translated into Montenegrin to assist native teachers’ delivery. The translations since have been cited throughout official teacher-training guidelines to aid the nationwide roll-out of the programme (S6). In November 2015, the UNICEF regional office invited Arthur and Cooke to participate in a professional development conference in Geneva that extended this work to other education practitioners in the region. As a result, initial trials have begun on a similar programme of curriculum design change in early years and primary education in North Macedonia, and Jubilee staff have spoken at schools, met with government Ministers and engaged with academics in the country, including hosting a visit of North Macedonian Ministers, policymakers and academics in Summer 2019.

The Jubilee Centre’s work also has influenced the Kern Family Foundation (KFF) in the USA. As a result of the Jubilee Centre’s work with KFF, the foundation adopted the Centre’s Framework as “the benchmark through which [they] judge the character content of grant applications” and “ shifted its funding priorities to fund more character education grants” resulting in $63.3m in grants awarded since 2017 for character education projects (S7a, S7b). Jubilee Centre staff also provide consultancy to KFF and to new and prospective KFF grantees (R1). The Jubilee Centre’s partnership with KFF has been realised with the award of three grants to date, one of which was a major grant of $1.65m to create 75 scholarships for US-based students to study on the Centre’s MA Character Education programme. This programme is the first of its kind to provide an academic qualification for those who embrace the study of character and its practical applications.

4. Co-production of effective campaigns for social change through engagement with youth social action charities

The Jubilee Centre has informed the way in which YSA programmes are delivered by over 700 organisations nationwide, through influencing YSA #iwill campaign and shaping its guideline documentation. A partnership between charity Step Up To Serve (SUTS) and the Jubilee Centre was formalised in December 2013, with Research Associate Emma Taylor-Collins seconded from the Jubilee Centre to SUTS to work on a co-produced research stream analysing character and YSA. Findings from this research — particularly the centrality of the ‘double benefit’ to social action providers — were incorporated into ‘six principles of quality social action’ underpinning the #iwill campaign to make YSA the norm for 10–20 year olds by 2020. Campaign literature cites this principle as a cornerstone of effective YSA, stating that “character development — and the importance of virtue — should be viewed as a core element of youth social action” (S8). The ‘double benefit’ criterion was subsequently included in guideline documentation produced by SUTS and other YSA charities, and incorporated as an evaluative component of the annual YSA survey (S9). The 2018 survey stated that 58% of 10–20 year olds across the UK participated in such programmes, with 54% of them recognising the double benefit (S9). Further findings on specific programme characteristics conducive to developing a ‘habit’ of YSA (R6) have informed #iwill guidelines and shaped implementation of the government policy commitment to extending YSA, as indicated by citation in strategic policy documents (S10: 31).