Developing Character at Warden Park Secondary Academy
At Warden Park Academy, we believe that character is primarily caught—absorbed through the experiences, relationships, and environments a young person encounters. The values modelled at home, at school, and in the wider community all shape a student’s character through the examples set by peers, teachers, family members, and role models.However, character can also be taught. This occurs through explicit reference to core virtues—such as courage, empathy, compassion, honesty, and good judgement—discussing their meaning, and exploring how they manifest in everyday life, particularly during moments of challenge or decision-making. Importantly, we also believe that character should be sought. This means providing students with regular opportunities to practise and internalise positive habits such as punctuality, personal presentation, wearing the correct uniform, following rules, showing good manners, and forming respectful relationships. These learned behaviours, embedded over time, provide a strong foundation for developing moral awareness, self-regulation, and the confidence to make positive choices in wider life—whether that’s joining a club, forming relationships, entering employment, or becoming a parent.
Character education is integral to life at Warden Park. It underpins our ethos, informs our values, and is embedded across the Academy using a ‘Caught, Taught and Sought’ approach:
Curriculum
Character development is embedded across all areas of our curriculum, including our Twilight Curriculum. Every subject area and year group incorporates specific character foci, detailed in curriculum maps throughout the academic year. Please visit our Curriculum Overview to view these curriculum maps.
We also offer bespoke curricula that develop specific character traits:
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Character in Action and Health & Wellbeing (Key Stage 3): These curricula support students in exploring personal growth, understanding healthy relationships, and developing mental fitness through active learning.
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Ingenium (Key Stage 4):
Ingenium empowers students to develop independence by allowing them to choose their learning focus. -
RAISE (Key Stage 4) : Raise helps students build Resilience, become Active and Inspired members of our community, and improve Self-regulation and Enthusiasm for learning.
Behaviour for Learning
Our Behaviour for Learning policy and the Communities system are centred on empathy, self-control, and responsibility. We adopt a restorative approach to resolving conflict—one that prioritises repair over punishment. This allows those who have caused harm to understand its impact and take steps to make amends, fostering mutual respect and personal growth.
Character for Learning (CfL) Reporting
To fully embed character education, we report on each student’s Character for Learning (CfL) across all subjects. CfL grading reflects both classroom engagement and wider school contributions:
Students receive a CfL score each half term, comprising:
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66% from lesson-based character indicators (e.g. ‘Role Model’ recognition).
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33% from outside-the-classroom contributions (e.g. behaviour points).
A lower CfL score reflects a stronger character profile, with 1 being the highest possible standard. These scores influence access to key opportunities such as fast passes for the Parkes canteen; Celebration breakfasts; and Prom discounts Students with a CfL score greater than 2.7 will forfeit access to certain privileges (e.g. school representation, enrichment events) for the following half term. Importantly, all students start afresh each half term, giving everyone the chance to reset and improve.
Assemblies and Tutor Programme
Character development is a core theme in our assembly schedule. Each assembly is followed up during tutor time, where students have the opportunity to reflect on key messages and explore
Enrichment Programme
Our vibrant enrichment programme provides students with valuable opportunities to build character through teamwork, creativity and leadership. Throughout the year, a wide variety of weekly clubs enable students to explore their interests, develop new skills and engage with others in a meaningful way. Each July, we hold our annual Enrichment Week, during which the usual timetable is suspended to allow students to participate in a diverse range of experiences. These include modern foreign language visits to France and Spain; camping trips; visits to Thorpe Park; London Museums and galleries; outdoor pursuits such as archery; water parks; rock climbing and water sports; visits to London theatres; as well as sponsored charity walks. Through these activities, students develop resilience, confidence and a strong sense of purpose beyond the classroom environment.
Student Leadership Opportunities
We place great importance on providing students with leadership roles that empower them to play an active part in shaping school life. A wide range of opportunities is available, including becoming a prefect; taking on the responsibilities of a student librarian, representing their peers as a tutor group representative, or becoming a member of the student Senior Leadership Team. These roles nurture responsibility, encourage initiative and ensure that students have a genuine voice within our school community.
To learn more about the research that informs our approach to character education, please visit this page.