Encourage a growth mindset approach
The impact of this benchmark may be best measured through pupils’ own reflections on their behaviours and attitudes in class and towards challenges. In addition, teachers could also comment on noticeable differences in pupils’ stickability and problem-solving as a result of this strategy. You could acquire this feedback through surveys and interviews.
You could also use the baseline assessment provided for Year 5 pupils upwards as a way to see your starting point. Use it again after the full implementation of your strategy.
Remember in each case to describe the impact of your actions (that is, what difference they made) and not just what you did.
A great way to ensure that resilience is promoted throughout your school is to influence the way pupils view their achievements and academic aspirations. One way to do this is by encouraging pupils to adopt a growth mindset.
There is currently much research that underpins the growth mindset versus fixed a mindset mentality. The growth mindset subscribes to the view that talents, achievements and skills can be developed over time through practise and hard work, whereas a fixed mindset subscribes to the view that talents are innate and immovable. So, if you’re not good at something, you might believe you’ll never be good at it.
According to Dr Dweck, fixed mindset people believe that ‘they have a certain amount [of intelligence] and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb’. Academics also say this is often the reason why young people give up and do not persevere when they experience academic setbacks. They also say that this mentality is sometimes much more prevalent among more able pupils, who have been told they are naturally clever. When these pupils encounter high challenges, they are more likely to refuse the challenge, for fear of not living up to the expectations of the adults around them and their own view of their talents.
It is beneficial for lifelong resilience to promote a growth mindset mentality. Dweck cites the following benefits as:
- reduced burnout
- fewer psychological problems, such as depression and anxiety
- fewer behavioural problems.
Developing a growth mindset might affect the way schools set targets, give feedback and report achievements. In addition, the purpose of the school’s community and charity work, for example, could serve to help pupils focus less on themselves and more on others.
Intentions are actions you intend to take in order to improve your provision in this benchmark. Choose three intentions to focus on.
It’s obviously very important that staff grasp the concept of what a growth mindset is and understand the principles behind it. To ensure this, you could consider:
- holding a briefing/training session on what specific approaches your school will use to promote a growth mindset (for example, PSHE, assemblies, circulate catchphrases such as ‘Never give up!’ or ‘I can’t do that yet’)
- recommending some essential reading about the importance of the growth mindset and resilience prior to the briefing session (use the TED Talk by Carol Dweck as part of your training session)
- staff undertaking their own self-assessment to promote discussion.
Top tip
- Use the training session to allow staff to reflect on their own experiences and observations of the pupils they teach.
Further resources
- Encourage staff to complete this self-assessment about their own resilience.
- Learn more about Dweck’s concept of changing the way you think to fulfil your potential.
- Read Becoming a Growth Mindset School: The Power of Mindset to Transform Teaching, Leadership and Learning by Chris Hildrew.
Research has shown that when pupils receive feedback in the form of grades and formative comments, they focus on the grade more than the ways to improve. This is the same for parents. There is a place for giving grades (usually at the end of a period of study, year, key stage or final examination) but getting pupils to focus on the process of their achievements and next steps is far more productive in achieving well and lifelong learning.
So for this intention, you will need to train, encourage and remind teachers not to praise attainment more than praising the effort that has gone into achieving it. Make sure staff know to prioritise effort, practice and good learning behaviours over attainment goals. You can use the suggested language prompts to help formulate some common feedback phrases to help with this.
Devise a training session for staff using the language prompts and the language of resilience downloads. You could consider including these ideas and more in your own growth mindset policy.
Top tips
- Make the growth mindset approach a feature in the school’s curriculum intent statement on your school’s website.
- Make sure parents are informed about this practice in schools and understand the reasons why.
Further resources
As part of your work to engender a growth mindset, consider the ways you can support pupils to value the work they have put into their studies over and above the grade they achieve. By rewarding the process, you are instilling the notion that talents and skills are malleable and not fixed.
You could consider:
- rewarding exceptional effort and progress in assemblies – call it the ‘Challenge’ reward or the ‘Resilience’ award
- asking teachers to ‘catch’ pupils being resilient and awarding points for times when pupils have demonstrated ‘stickability’ and resilient skills or encouraged others to do so
- adapting your school’s MIS to record resilience skills and rewarding these at the end of term
- holding a rewards evening and congratulate pupils who have made the most effort from their starting points/shown the best characteristics of resilience.
Top tip
- Remember to include your rationale for this approach in your school’s behaviour policy.
Schools are realising that attributing target grades to pupils have sometimes led to pupils being more focused on the grade rather than the journey to get there. It has often led to fast burn out when pupils were being told that they had not reached the grade time and time again. Growth mindset theory helps us to focus on the process and small step plans rather that the end goal. These plans could be reframed as ‘growth improvement plans’.
Download and use the growth mindset improvement plans examples and try some of these suggestions:
- Consider adopting an academic mentoring approach to discuss with pupils the plans they should put in place to improve.
- Set some milestones to achievement so pupils can track their progress.
When devising targets for pupils, frame them in terms of actions to get better and to improve understanding, rather than setting grades. You might even consider removing graded tasks and replacing them with formative comments for improvement.
Top tips
- Include the growth mindset approach in your school’s curriculum intent statement on the school’s website
- Remove target grades from reports.
Parents have a big part in developing the growth mindset. To help parents understand the school’s intent, consider holding a parent workshop, either online or in school. You can show them the talks from the founder of the concept, Dr Carol Dweck (see below) to help convey the growth mindset key theory and rationale.
Devise some simple techniques and phrases that parents can use at home to encourage a growth mindset with their children. These could be the same as those used at school.
Top tip
- Avoid jargon – present your rationale clearly to ensure parents can make sense of it.
- Share the language prompts and resilient language examples with them to practise with their children.
Professor Lord Richard Layard, a labour economist who has studied the happiness factor in determining our economic and social outcomes, believes that the biggest source of misery is absorption with oneself. His view is that by adopting an outward-facing mindset, where one focuses on making a difference to others and committing to making a happy society rather than constantly focusing on what we might look like, for example, will lead to a better, more positive and more successful life. Putting our own lives/issues/problems in perspective by learning about and helping those less fortunate than ourselves, we are more likely to bounce back from setbacks quickly.
To help pupils develop an outward mindset, you could look at implementing some of the following suggestions:
- Establish a community engagement programme in each year. This might include supporting local charities, animal sanctuaries or old age care homes.
- Develop pupils’ understanding of the plight of people less fortunate than themselves around the world and global struggles such as the climate crisis (for example, in assemblies, geography, PSHE and history lessons).
- Establish pupil-led campaign groups for different causes (for example, charities and money-raising activities).
- Develop international links with schools in low-income countries.
- Facilitate the development of ‘pen pals’ with pupils from around the world through the British Council or Afri Twin.
- Establish a pupil portfolio in which pupils demonstrate their understanding and contribution to supporting different causes and being involved and active in issues bigger than themselves.
- Form a pupil-led group to discuss the impact of social media and how to manage the social pressures of Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. This could be a support group but also an opportunity to expose fake news and influencers.
- Introduce ‘random acts of kindness’, where pupils are challenged to raise the spirits of random people. Focus on the positives.
Top tips
- Consider making activism, charity and service to others an expectation for all pupils attending your school.
- Encourage your pupils to learn about world cultures and gain an alternative perspective by finding a global penpal.
Further resources
- Listen to this BBC Sounds documentary, The science of resilience.
This benchmark requires a whole-school approach. It is most effective when all stakeholders understand the theory behind the growth mindset. It requires practise.
This benchmark encapsulates not only what we say to each other and ourselves when we encounter difficulties by how we say it too. The growth mindset approach is very much a compassionate stance on building resilience backed by cognitive science.