Learning’s all about the effort

FOR a while the message was simple. It was all about praise, boosting your child's self-esteem by dolling out encouragement and telling them how great they were. Eight out of ten in spellings - "that's brilliant". A nice piece of artwork - "you're so clever".

However, in the complex world of child psychology, things have moved on and seemingly not all praise is the right praise. A simple "You're the best" is not, actually, the perfect way to encourage future enthusiasm for learning or to develop an enquiring mind that perseveres to achieve further success. The language teachers and parents use to help children seek improvement is under scrutiny like never before. In the worst case scenario, by labelling children as brainy, we might actually be causing them to underperform.

One North-East school has a fresh focus that teaches children the value of effort and hard work, that brains and talent alone do not necessarily bring success and, critically, how failure can be a positive.

Barnard Castle Preparatory School, in County Durham, is leading the way in growth mindset, a method identified by world-renowned psychologist Prof Carol Dweck to foster self-esteem and increase motivation by helping children to see the positive in setbacks and by helping teachers understand that praise for intelligence does not lead to accomplishment.

The school is so confident about the impact of growth mindset that it is even being given priority over standard assessment testing at the Prep School as a way of preparing children for the future.

Ben Wicling, a Year 4 teacher and Growth Mindset expert, believes that the approach helps children develop a love of learning and resilience when faced with challenges.

"By simply telling a child they're very clever, you are not making the association between how the success was accomplished, the process of getting there. This can lead to the child developing a fixed mindset, where they believe their ability is finite and effort won’t make any difference. They might even underestimate their capability," explains Mr Wicling.

"In a growth mindset, the focus is on the process and what’s possible beyond basic abilities; that the input of hard work and effort leads to learning and achievement."

The difference between the two becomes most apparent when the child suffers a setback.

"The growth mindset tries again and works harder because of the association between effort and success. They learn from their mistakes,” he says.

"For the fixed mindset, success typically comes easy. They are not used to 'failure' and see it as something to run away from. If they don't understand the how-to-get-there, they are more likely to give up or find an alternative way, such as cheating, to protect themselves from being seen to fail."

Brain scans of fixed and growth mindset children appear to back up these concepts.

In a fixed mindset child, brain activity is negligible when they are faced with a difficult task, when they sense a high chance of failure and the absence of opportunity to look good.

The brain in the growth mindset child, when faced with a similarly tricky problem, appears to be far more active as they greet it as a challenge, a chance to learn and they are not afraid of getting it wrong.

With Prep School teachers trained in the concept, parents have also been given the chance to learn how to develop their children's growth mindset.

"The presentations we have done for parents have proved very popular as they are keen to support their children in any way they can," says Mr Wicling.

"The pointers they take away are relatively straightforward to implement, such as praise for hard work and effort, allowing children to make mistakes and parents sharing their own experiences where hard work has paid off.

"We don't encourage praise for coming top, but instead praise for effort. We don't protect children from failure and we don't make everything look easy."

The fruits of the method have also been picked up by education inspectors who, in their praise for Barnard Castle School, say: "Pupils' learning is characterised by perseverance and, when encouraged, a facility to work independently." They add: "Pupils are interested in their work and some show genuine intellectual curiosity. Their perseverance is a notable characteristic."

As an independent school, Barnard Castle has the power to develop its own curriculum and to opt out of controversial primary tests, something of which state schools facing increased testing of young children can only dream. British children have been dubbed the "most tested in Europe" and unions opposing the introduction of further tests saying schools are becoming "exam factories". One primary head, Jed Gargan, has resigned from Aycliffe Village school saying that the current system of testing is setting children up to fail.

The Prep School is exempt from the Early Years Foundation stage curriculum, which it considered too restrictive, and children in Year 2 and Year 6 do not take part in key stage 2 SATs, instead following the school’s own Year 6 Achievement Award. This incorporates a host of useful skills for life from writing biographies to learning first aid, to running a tourism fair and creating games for a probability fair, supporting both independent learning and collaborative working.

Laura Turner, headmistress at Barnard Castle Prep School, says it has brought freedom back to the classroom in a way that supports the development of growth mindset: “We deal with it in an everyday context that promotes hard work and perseverance in everything we do, whether it be English, maths, music or PE, and not because there’s an exam in three weeks’ time. Our children have an attitude that asks ‘how do I do this and what can I do to make it better?’.”

• Any parents interested in finding out more about growth mindset can visit the Prep School during its open week from Tuesday, May 10-Friday, May 13. Call (01833) 696032 for more information.