Develop student engagement with Clifton StrengthsExplorer

Rob Clarke

Rob is the kaihanga/co-founder Learning Architects. He supports leaders and organisations to thrive in the future through coaching, development, technology, and learning design. He is a Ministry of Education accredited PLD facilitator. He is also a Dad of two beautiful girls.

For more information please visit: learningarchitects.com/about or get in touch via +64 21 590 572

Whatever our involvement in education, we all want our students to develop resilience, confidence and hope, and to be engaged in school. And given that at the time of writing this post, all schools across New Zealand have just closed for a month due to the COVID-19 virus, and our country going into Level 4 lockdown, it seems we are certainly getting some practice at developing resilience at the moment.

The Clifton StrengthsExplorer is an innovative online tool designed for 10 to 14-year olds to complete that helps them discover and then develop their top 3 strengths. It takes them through a series of questions that they agree or disagree with, in order to identify their individual talents. It is unique because it provides students, their parents, teachers, and school leaders with guidance on how to build on each child’s gifts, and develop student engagement.

“It taps into who they are rather than who they are not.”

Gallup’s extensive global research shows us that when we can capitalise on our unique differences, it is a recipe for multiplying our potential, and it leads to success for our young people. When young people discover their talents, it can lead to increased:

resilience and confidence
productivity and engagement in school
hope and direction for the future

This tool is one of the many ways you can drive learner agency in your school.

“It shows who they could be”

“it levels the playing field.”

The assessment, which is fun to do and only takes 35 minutes to complete comes with guides and workbooks for the student, their parents, and school leaders.

Students receive a ‘top 3’ report along with a workbook with ideas and activities to help them better understand what makes them unique, so they can start applying their talents every day. These two resources suggest action items both for students and parents, to help students turn their talents into strengths.
Parents receive a guide that contains questions, ideas, and activities for parents to help their children understand the language of talent, and how to help support their children to develop talents into strengths.
School leaders also receive an overall guide that includes one-on-one or group activities and resources to help kids be their best by using and developing their talents.

This assessment for 10-14 year olds is part of a range of tools and strategies that enable individuals and teams to capitalise on their strengths.