A key concept which shapes the ethos of our school is growth mindsets based on the work of Carol Dweck. Rather than simply praising success we praise effort and persistence.

We believe the best thing to do is to teach children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. For children who find work easy we make sure they encounter more difficult tasks. Our children recognise that effort, persistence and good teaching are what help them improve.

Every class has been looking at and learning about the two types of mindsets that children and adults can have, a ‘fixed’ mindset and a ‘growth’ mindset. Below is an overview of the traits of each: 

Fixed Mindset 

• I like my work to be easy 
• I don’t like to try a challenge 
• I want people to praise me for how clever I am 
• I believe I cannot change how clever I am 
• I don’t like to try new things because I won’t be very good at it 
• I give up easily

Growth Mindset 

• I never give up 
• I like my work to be difficult – it means I am learning 
• I love challenges 
• I want people to praise me for the effort I put into my work 
• I believe I can get more intelligent by working hard 
• I feel clever when I’m learning something new 
• I learn from my mistakes 

It has been proven that having a Growth Mindset can improve children’s progress and attainment. As a result, we are teaching our children that by having a Growth Mindset they can grow their brains and intelligence and achieve anything they want! If children have fixed mindsets they find it hard to cope with failure: we teach our children to see mistakes and failure as positive. This makes for a very energetic and inclusive culture. It also has a really positive effect on our ethos and on how children approach learning and support each other. 

How you can help at home 

• Praise the amount of effort your child is putting into things rather than how clever they are; 
• Talk to your children about their brain being like a muscle - the more they use it, the stronger it gets; 
• Encourage your children to not give up if they are finding something difficult; 
• Challenge your children to try something new or challenging.

For further information on how to encourage confident and resilient learners at home, have a look at some of the links below.