Character is the new fad in education. We all want to develop good character in our children, but the policy that achieves this has proven elusive. Proponents of every conceivable activity have queued up to explain how their pet project develops character (and so should get to dip their hands in the pot of government gold). But while many of these are perfectly good things, building our children’s character requires much more fundamental change.

So instead of looking for new projects to fund, let us ask a different question: why is there a deficit that needs to be made up in the first place?

The deficit exists because the core activity of schools – lessons – can become too easy and too self-consciously fun to need any character at all. Take resilience as an example. A child learns resilience by practising. They try tasks that are difficult, fail at them, and keep trying again. Eventually they learn that you do not need to give up when you face difficulty but can be successful if you invest enough effort.

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