It’s easy to define our success as school leaders, isn’t it?

We have all the metrics at our fingertips: GCSEs, A levels, vocational-technical qualification results and Progress 8 are all there in black and white.

We are a data-driven profession, and we can even measure education in terms of international rankings (we’ve been doing quite well according to the Programme for International Student Assessment), and then there are multiple Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development studies of children and their wellbeing.

Millions of words and numbers tell the bigger story.

School accountability

But what if we used other measures to tell a longer story? Should we use a set of metrics to measure success long after our students leave us, and should schools be judged on what happens across a lifetime?

What would those metrics be and how could they be assessed?

I think it takes a lot of reverse engineering.

A common suggestion is that we use the age of 25 as a benchmark for school outcomes.

Measures of success

If that were the case, we would be looking for measures that reveal a life of happiness and satisfaction as well as success. Also, being “poised for the future” - a kind of readiness for each of the decades to follow.

There are certainly positives to looking at that age bracket. I have in mind an example of someone who, for me, is a living illustration of how you could measure success long after a student leaves the classroom for the last time.

Jack Pepper was a successful student I worked with. He was a great student and secured a place at the University of Oxford. A shining star in the conventional sense of success.

Then the plot twist: after three days at one of the world’s leading universities, steeped in academic excellence, he had the bravery to change direction. He left to pursue his own version of success, becoming one of the youngest-ever national radio presenters in the UK.

Non-academic metrics

He is now a composer, broadcaster and writer, presenting weekend afternoons on Magic Radio’s Magic Classical (formerly Scala Radio), and hosting the Musical Theatre and Classical Music shows for British Airways and Aer Lingus.

The point of this story is that conventional education measures success only in academic terms, but a truly holistic education should aim to build character traits that guide individuals in their path well beyond school.

So, measuring the success of education at age 25 could help us track how well we have built a child’s character and their life path after school.

Achievement scales

It would be tempting to say it would be too complex to do this, but it is possible to develop a framework for a distinctive education that incorporates three aspects that we could define as academic, character and futures.

We could look to build an achievement scale. Of course, what’s needed first is a definition of what that word means in this context and what would be the crucial calculation required.

We would need to be able to record actual achievements and experiences, but also the potential for future learning and development.

And can we define what a life well led is? A 360-degree holistic look that allows for difference and self-selection and strikes a balance between reassurance and ambition, always rooted in empathy. Both “I/we can” and “I/we care”.

School judgements

What are the possible measurements? Would we extend tracking to measuring salary and job titles, and the circle of someone’s professional and personal connections?

What about personal, social and relational skills? These encompass a wide range of abilities crucial for navigating life and relationships.

Would a school be measured on marriage and divorce statistics? A potential moral minefield.

Would physical and mental health be a factor? Schools tying in with NHS data, with artificial intelligence perhaps playing a role in the tracking?

Social skills include awareness of others, a sense of public service, community involvement, communication and helping others. They also involve having a sense of one’s own values and virtues, as well as quality family relationships and friendships.

Having a wide range of experiences, as well as depth in areas of passion and interest, would be important, too. This could include work experience, events, competitions, technology awareness, sustainability and entrepreneurship.

Perhaps it’s simpler that the way to assess schools and student success across a lifetime is this: have we allowed students to go on and be aware of what is possible and then see if they have risen to those possibilities in a series of lifelong measurements?

Julian Drinkall is the former CEO of GLF Schools and Academies Enterprise Trust (now Lift Schools)

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