Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the attention paid by maintained secondary schools in England to building in all their pupils the confidence to succeed, qualities of character, and the interpersonal skills they will need as they move into adult life.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all young people develop a range of character attributes, such as resilience and grit, which underpin success in education and employment. This is essential to ensuring all young people are prepared for life in modern Britain.

We recognise that character is already being encouraged and developed alongside academic excellence through a variety of programmes in and outside schools and colleges across the country. We want to build on that success, better understand what works, identify and share good practice and encourage all schools to ensure their pupils leave with the best chance of future success.

We are investing up to £3.5 million in grant funding to develop new, innovative approaches and enable successful initiatives to expand. We have made £1 million available to the Education Endowment Foundation to increase research into the most effective ways of integrating character development into education and have launched the Character Awards to recognise excellence.