Students and staff

11 Principles (Character.org)


The 11 Principles of Effective Character Education were elaborated by Character.org: "We’ve helped thousands of campuses move beyond ineffective strategies and begin to achieve real, measurable progress toward a positive and healthy school culture and climate. The odds are good we can help you, too. The reason we’ve been so successful is our powerful framework for school success: the 11 Principles of Effective Character Education. The 11 Principles provide specific, measurable standards for campuses to begin and sustain a comprehensive character education programme."

Authored by national experts and educators, the 11 Principles are widely recognized as the most comprehensive and effective framework for meaningful character education efforts. While no single script for effective character education exists, the 11 Principles provide a specific, practical framework while simultaneously empowering customized application according to each school’s unique context and culture.

Learn more about 11 Principles (document in Latvian)

The 11 principles: 

  1. Core values are defined, implemented, and embedded into school culture.
  2. The school defines "character" comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and doing.
  3. The school uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to develop character.
  4. The school creates a caring community.
  5. The school provides students with opportunities for moral action.
  6. The school offers a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed.
  7. The school fosters students’ self-motivation.
  8. All staff share the responsibility for developing, implementing, and modeling character.
  9. The school’s character initiative has shared leadership and long-range support for continuous improvement.
  10. The school engages families and community as partners in the character initiative.
  11. The school assesses its implementation of character education, its culture and climate, and the character growth of students on a regular basis.

More about the 11 Principles