LAST year, Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, said “it is ethos that matters” in describing what makes for excellent schools.

So is it really true that where ethos comes first, academic excellence follows? Richard Wood, headmaster of the River School, thinks so.

According to figures from the Department of Education, the River School had the best GCSE results in Worcester last year, with pupils achieving 90 per cent A*-C, including English and maths.

The River School in Droitwich Road, Worcester, was set up in 1985 and is a Christian independent school for boys and girls aged from three to 16.

Mr Wood said they had worked hard for their results.

He said: “There are a number of reasons why we do so well, some of which might appear obvious – small class sizes, the commitment and relationships of pupils, parents and staff as a community and a beautiful working environment to name but a few.

“But nothing is more important than ethos. If you get that right, you build ethical character and academic success naturally follows, where young people are confident of themselves and their place in the world.

“It is ethos which is responsible for the identity of a community. A strong ethos builds values, which are essential for character development.”

Mr Wood said he based the school’s ethical character on Howard Gardner – a Harvard educationalist famous for the multiple intelligence theory, which describes character as knowing the right thing to do, regardless of whether it is in one’s self-interest.

He said: “Knowing the right thing to do depends on what you consider to be right and this depends on values.

“Without a strong ethos, the world can be an extremely confusing place for young people exposed to so many different voices and values.

“It is only when you are confident of your values that you can choose what you believe to be right and act on that – even though it may not be in your own self-interest.

“This interfaces well with education as young people become more capable of making confident choices about their lives, and therefore engage more fully with their education.

“Good results are a natural biproduct of this process, but the real benefit is that at a crucial stage in their development, young people grow in ethical character.

“Put this first and the future of our society starts to look a little brighter.”

However, to achieve this, the school has worked hard and values the local community.

Mr Wood said: “Think of the best schools around you. They will be the ones for whom it is easy to identify their ‘flavour’ or ethos.

“You don’t have to be a faith school to have a strong ethos. But you do need to know what is of value to the community you serve, otherwise school and home can be at odds, which undermines the whole education process.

“This is probably more straightforward for faith schools which identify their core values from an existing belief system, but even for them, ethos must be revisited and refreshed.

“In our case, as an independent faith school, parents explicitly choose to buy into our Christian core values. But in the state sector too, parents often want to be more connected to the school community.

“Schools should be bolder about identifying core values and advocating them within the community.

“The governing body and school leadership are important in this process, but once core values are identified, the ethical leaders in the school community can come from the most surprising places.

“It is ultimately our pupils and former pupils who demonstrate the potency of the ethos as they succeed in their education and begin to impact their own life, school, home and community as confident, ethical characters.

“The testimonies of this are tremendously rewarding and humbling, ranging from three-yearolds deciding to share a toy to 16- year-olds travelling to Bulgaria to help build school communities.

“As a parent, there is nothing I value more highly than the happiness of my children, which I equate with confident ethical character.

“This is about far more than the results they achieve at school. I think we all know that. So, that results have become the benchmark by which to judge a school is ironic and unfortunate.

“What I want to know about the school I send my children to is whether my children have the opportunities to become confident, ethical, happy characters.

“Achievement and results, and the right ones at that, follow on from this quite naturally. What I want is a school where ethos comes first.”