Having just finished my first week of the research summer here at the SDG Impact Lab in Oxford, I’m pleased to say that our project is already getting off the ground. The first thing I noted when assigned a group and a project on Tuesday morning was how well our strengths and weaknesses complemented one another. For instance, I want to get better at liaising with stakeholders, both face-to-face and via written communication, which Albert identified as one of his strengths as a geographer, and can help me with. Secondly, I noted the massive task ahead of us! None of us have had any formal training in education, let alone the moral philosophy background needed for character education! This really began to hit home during our first meeting with Dr Crossan, our supervisor. Just the introductions of the articles on her reading list required extensive background research to understand, I already feel like I’m learning so much!

I feel we’ve worked really well as a team to zero in on a narrowly-defined research question and methods – our project is to identify a character education framework which is best suited to the needs of East Oxford, at the same time creating a blueprint of how to tailor a character education program to a local community. It took a long time to arrive at that aim from the very broad-ranging brief – there were so many aspects of character we wanted to look at! However I am very proud of us for how quickly we managed to agree on the most important questions to answer.

Today, our workshop unfortunately had to cancel, so we went on an impromptu trip to the Iffley Road sports centre to help deliver the Powerhouse Games accessible sports day for local schoolchildren, including many with special educational needs. It was heartening to see the university so wholeheartedly involved with primary education in the local community, and to see firsthand the positive impact that cocurricular activities can have – children who would typically be marginalised in competitive sport were instead not only included, but many were able to participate at exactly the same level as children with lower support needs. This was enabled by a careful choice of games including boccia, curling and seated netball, in which the gist of the rules were well understood and the specifics didn’t matter, as there was (quite deliberately) nobody to referee or keep score – the children understood at least on some level that the purpose of the Games was for everyone to enjoy developing their coordination and physical skills. I’m excited to see how the University can further make a difference in supporting local schools!