Education is more than schooling for examination success, important though that is, and young people need as many opportunities as possible to identify and build on their strengths, both personal and cognitive, if they are to enjoy fulfilling lives.

1. For the school or other supporting institution

• Schools make a positive difference to pupils’ lives and can act as a positive inducement to life long learning.
• Good schools embrace positive change and help young people to develop their own self confidence and ability to be flexible, creative and cope with change in their lives.
• Collaboration is crucial. Schools no longer operate in isolation and the different needs of pupils and their parents can best be met by partnership working in local communities.
• Change for Children recognises that children’s lives can be enriched if they are to become fulfilled and successful adults.

2. For the learner

• Human beings are individuals and their learning reflects that as they show differential progress at different ages and stages and in different activities.
• The environment for learning at home, school and in the community can be a powerful force for good in enabling all learners to make the best of their life chances.
• We learn from our own direct experience. For example, we learn to write reports by writing them and having constructive criticism offered by a mentor/teacher.
• The broader the range of learning experiences and opportunities a school, or group of schools can offer, the more likely it is that each learner can find success.
• Learners need to reflect on and examine their experience if its value is to be enhanced and not diminished. We do this alone and with others, often through listening, speaking, reading and writing and in other, subject specific, ways, for example the arts.
• Learners organise and communicate their developing knowledge, skills and understanding in a variety of ways: diagram and picture; movement and speech; working models and, increasingly, through the use of ICT.