At Newton British Academy Al Dafna, the teachers and staff work consciously and conscientiously to make it a place where children acquire the character virtues that lead to success in school, university, in work and life beyond. We define Character Education at Dafna as the active development of children’s character strengths and virtues. The practice of character education is based on the view that these strengths are not merely given but can be developed through instruction and practice.
Character education is about important life skills children need to learn for their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. An important aspect of character education is the development of character traits, such as courtesy, honesty, respect, responsibility and kindness. We carry this out through our school’s ethos, by having teachers as role models and by empowering children to be role models and recognizing these character traits.
As such, our curriculum is infused with opportunities for children to develop their own character strengths and virtues. These are complimented by our weekly assemblies and our class Character Education lessons, which teach the children explicitly about the character virtues. Together, discrete and embedded learning gives the children the knowledge, language and moral examples to help them continue strengthening the virtues in their own lives.