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Every August, education measures success.

And this is right, because exams tell important stories about effort and achievement. Results provide a conclusion to the focus on academic excellence that we strive towards in schools over many years, and they deserve recognition.

However, despite witnessing these celebrations over many years as a head, I find that August results days are also a time when I wonder what examination results do not tell us, too.

For example, they don’t tell us whether those students will continue to learn, exercise good judgement, build meaningful relationships, lead with integrity or contribute positively to the communities they will one day shape.

We may infer from good results that they will, but school leaders know all too well about those students who display many admirable qualities that do not translate to exam results - not least because exams only seek to measure academic excellence.

Indeed, while we have got very good at measuring academic success, we cannot measure what we may term “human success”.

Eudaimonia and human success

What do we mean by that?

More than two thousand years ago, Aristotle described the highest purpose of human life as eudaimonia, often translated as human flourishing. He was describing a life characterised by purpose, wisdom, virtue and contribution.

Education, if it wants to play its part in developing this sort of vision and drive in young people (and I would imagine most educators would agree with that ideal), cannot solely focus on ensuring students acquire enough facts to pass exams.

It has to be about developing the ability to gain knowledge, perspective, reflection and cultural understanding.

British education has, by and large, done exactly this for over a hundred years.

Our schools, while always ripe for improvement, push students to develop judgement, resilience, curiosity, to challenge ideas respectfully and continue learning throughout their lives.

A demand for two types of learning

It is this balance of academic excellence with personal development that, in part, explains why British international education is now so popular worldwide.

ISC Research estimates that almost 15,000 international schools now educate more than seven million students worldwide and thousands of these are British curriculum schools.

The growth they have witnessed has come in large part due to families’ realisation they want their children to achieve not just academic excellence, but global perspective, cultural understanding and personal growth, too. British international schools are where this happens in spades.

Results days bring this into sharp relief. We can point to the success of a student by the letters they are given against a set of subjects and say “job done”.

How, though, do we define that we have helped students develop eudaimonia?

Perhaps one day we somehow will be able to put a metric on the intangible notion of human flourishing that is equivalent to receiving an A*. Perhaps not.

But as educators, we know it when we see it. And it’s why, once the foundations of academic excellence are in place within a school, three key pillars underpin that effort:

1. Ambition

Ambition is too often defined by outcomes. The university a young person attends. The career they pursue. The salary they earn.

Ambition is something richer. It is the confidence to pursue excellence in service of something greater than ourselves.

2. Belonging

Belonging is often viewed as a pastoral concern. I would argue it is an academic one.

Young people rarely produce their best thinking when they do not feel safe enough to question, disagree, collaborate and take intellectual risks.

Belonging is not the reward for success. More often, it is the condition that makes success possible.

3. Curiosity

Curiosity may be education’s most undervalued outcome. Schooling inevitably finishes. Learning should not.

If we can imbue students with a desire to always keep asking questions, look deeply and wonder about life, then we have succeeded.

The future

For British schools, at home or around the world, the focus on academic excellence has always been at the forefront of what we do. And it always will be.

But as another results day rolls around, we should remind ourselves that this is not the only reason we are here. The stories we tell about grades are important, but they are not the only stories that matter.

And in an increasingly connected and complex world, it is the ability to provide children with skills that will serve them well for life that may be the far more valuable impact we make on their lives.

Academic excellence has long defined the history of education, but perhaps human flourishing will define its future.

Liz Free is principal of Oxford International College, Brighton

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