The Warwick Way
The Warwick Way is what makes us distinctive and special – our vision of education and the values that underpin it.
Our purpose is simple and powerful:
‘To inspire and nurture every pupil to thrive in the world now and in the future’
To thrive is to be happy, fulfilled and have a positive impact on the world.
Our approach:
The Warwick Way has four key elements.
- Mental and physical wellbeing - pupils cannot thrive unless they are mentally and physically well. We place wellbeing at the heart of school life.
- Belonging – young people thrive when they feel known, valued and part of a community.
- Flourishing academically – academic excellence opens doors, but our aim goes further. We foster intellectual curiosity, a lifelong love of learning and the ability to think critically and creatively.
- Character development – we seek to build people of principle - ready not just for the world as it is but as it may become.
Why is character development so important?
We live in a world of rapid, unpredictable change. The traditional model of education – focused on knowledge and fixed skills – no longer guarantees success or fulfilment.
...in the twenty-first century we are flooded by enormous amounts of information…In such a world the last thing a teacher needs to give her pupils is more information…Besides information, most school’s focus too much on providing pupils with a set of predetermined skills…Yet since we have no idea how the world and the job market will look in 2050, we don’t really know what particular skills people will need.’
Yuval Noah Harari
We have to prepare our children for the time when they have to go it alone - for the day when we are not there to uphold the rules or show them the possible consequences of their actions.
If we want young people to thrive in a world shaped by social media, AI and global uncertainty, we need to help them to develop qualities of character that mean they will choose what is right – even when the right path isn’t obvious.
We can try to apply rule and consequence based educational strategies to help our children survive…We need to apply character-based strategies if we want them to thrive.
Dr Tom Harrison
