Ex-forces personnel support children to build character

• Works with children and young people from nursery age upwards
• Tailor-made school programmes delivered by instructors with forces background
• Research shows programme participation improves behaviour and attainment

ACTION

Manchester-based Commando Joe's, described as a "military ethos provider", is an organisation supported by the Department for Education to deliver its character agenda.

Six years ago, it received a share of £4.8m from the DfE to deliver its bespoke character education programme in schools.

Further grants have followed, and the organisation has recently been funded by the government to deliver its programme to every primary school and some secondaries in Doncaster.

While it may initially have attracted funding for its work in hard-to-reach and deprived areas, Mike Hamilton, Commando Joe's founder, says it works with all types of schools.

"We work in affluent areas where there's no deprivation but also in schools where 84 out of 100 children are on free school meals," he explains.

However, Hamilton believes all children and young people irrespective of their economic background benefit from help to build their character.

"There's the busy working parent who will be doing things like helping their child get ready in the morning when they are old enough to do it for themselves," he says. "Then other children who we know might be making their own food or washing their own clothes.

"Unlike children in affluent areas, these pupils will struggle with resilience from an academic point of view because it's not their skillset."

Now a decade old, the programme is delivered across a range of educational settings - the bulk of its work happens in primary and secondary schools but it also runs in nurseries.

Underpinned by its Respect framework - resilience, empathy, self-awareness, positivity, excellence, communication and teamwork - the programme breaks down each core character attribute into a number of behaviour traits.

For example, building resilience would be based on developing determination, perseverance, self-control and courage.

To support their understanding of these life skills, children are tasked with undertaking "missions" - supported by video endorsements from famous explorers such as Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Steve Backshall - that help develop these traits.

Hamilton says pre-school children often find it easier to work backwards from teamwork to resilience.

"The missions are printed in the order of the Respect acronym and get gradually harder for the children to grasp," he explains.

"But they have been written with the intention of being delivered to any pre-school child.

"They can also be delivered as a standalone series of missions for older children needing to develop certain traits," he explains.

Schools can choose between two options for the programme: instructor or school-led.

For example, all three schools in the East Manchester-based Wise Owl Trust partnered with Commando Joe's to design and develop its curriculum and employ a full-time instructor. This post is funded through the schools' pupil premium grant.

Other settings employ a Commando Joe's instructor one day a week for a year-long programme, says Hamilton.

The instructor's timetable, includes a breakfast club, lunchtime club and whole-school sessions throughout the day.

"We might do assertive mentoring with pupils who are vulnerable but also communication and leadership work through our top secret missions with more academic pupils, so it's a really bespoke programme," he explains.

The only "military part" of the programme relates to the fact the majority of instructors have an ex-forces background, to keep "the ethos of communication, teamwork and respect".

For settings that want a school-led programme, a one-off payment will give them a "Top Secret box" containing staff training materials, a suggested curriculum as well as items such as homework sheets, factsheets and an online impact progress measure tool.

Over two years, Hamilton says this model has been bought by 750 schools, a huge growth compared with 350 settings that employ a Commando Joe's instructor.

"Not only is it sustainable, it's cost effective and the schools absolutely love it," he says.

IMPACT

Swansea University's two-year study evaluating the impact of the programme found "significant intervention effects" at three- and six-month intervals for maths, English and attendance and beneficial effects on both positive social and problem behaviours.

The research involved seven primary and five secondary schools with 228 and 167 pupils taking part respectively.

The findings supported the "utility of the Commando Joe's intervention as a whole-school strategy to enhance educational and behavioural outcomes".

A new four-month trial, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation, began in September involving more than 2,300 year 9 pupils from 99 English secondary schools.

Together with charity the Outward Bound Trust, Commando Joe's will deliver an adventure learning programme to these pupils to assess its impact on character development and attainment. The results are due to be published in autumn 2021.