Andrew Johnston, Teacher, Science Coordinator and Head of Research and Development at Copthorne Primary School, shares five approaches to develop resilience for all learners in your school…

The number of children under 11 being referred for specialist mental health treatment has increased by 50% and waiting times for such treatment have trebled (BBC freedom of information requests, July 2019). The Youth Association has recently called for mental health to be taught as part of the national curriculum. Furthermore, the Department of Education has said that early intervention is key to preventing mental health challenges later in life.

Clearly, there is a huge role for schools to play in supporting our young people to have good mental health. Unsurprisingly, there is also evidence that focusing on wellbeing is likely to impact positively on learning outcomes. The EEF has recently published recommendations for improving social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools – reporting that well-implemented SEL teaching has the potential to give learning gains of +4 months over a year.

What does this mean in the context of supporting our more able learners? Those with high achievement and/or potential can often be anxious about their academic performance. Students who are repeatedly told they are very able, and who find failure impossible to consider, often have problems associated with anxiety and self-worth. I would argue that these students need to be taught that failure and struggle are an essential element of learning and a normal part of life. As highlighted in Element 3c of the NACE Challenge Framework, it is important to consider “social and emotional support” as well as academic provision for the more able.

Many schools are already teaching ‘resilience’ and ‘wellbeing’: dogs in school, outdoor learning, mentoring and school-based therapy are some of the provisions being offered. As all schools will know, the new Ofsted framework places significant emphasis on curriculum: “Curriculum matters, as it defines the knowledge and experiences that learners will receive beyond their home environment.” With this in mind, it is important to consider whether we are teaching resilience and SEL as ‘add-ons’, or as integrated aspects of a broad curriculum.

Researcher and lecturer David Glynne-Percy highlights the importance of ensuring all learners have access to opportunities to develop resilience and self-esteem – particularly through extracurricular activities offered as part of the school day, so they are accessible to pupils who rarely stay after school. His research also highlights the benefits of opportunities to compete, develop competence and receive feedback – all helping to develop resilience, confidence, leadership and sustained engagement.

Serving an inner-city community, providing children with fresh experiences is one of the main drivers of our new curriculum. We have focused on enriching our curriculum in the following ways:

1. Working with the Brilliant Club to raise aspirations

We work with the Brilliant Club to raise the aspirations of our most able learners from families who have not yet had a university graduate. Supported by lecturers at Leeds and Manchester Universities, participating pupils can experience university lectures, complete academic assignments and get a taste of what it is like to continue their education at university and the opportunities this can afford them.

2. Wellbeing-focused school clubs

Our children have had the opportunity to develop their wellbeing through cooking, arts and crafts and sports clubs. Last year, as part of a programme focusing on essential life skills, we began a cycling club for pupil premium children and low prior-attainers – providing opportunities to develop fitness and balance, alongside the experience and challenge of mastering a new skill. As part of this, children were recently able to attend a UCI event in Bradford as part of the 2019 Cycling World Championships and represent our school there. We found these children developed an ambassadorial role and now encourage their peers to be involved. Children’s feedback shows that they feel valued members of the school and have further developed a sense of belonging. This year we will assess whether this impact leads to better engagement in other aspects of school life and improved academic outcomes.

3. Developing breaktime and lunchtime provision

As part of our curriculum development, breaktime and lunchtime provision was completely redeveloped last academic year. Staff, including mid-day meal supervisors, were trained to support children to play a range of games and activities during lunchtimes and playtimes. This resulted in a vast improvement in behaviour across the school during these periods, but also allowed children to develop their social and emotional skills as they received feedback and instruction from staff.

4. Incorporating growth mindset

Consider this list summarising the behaviour of individuals with fixed mindsets:

·         Overgeneralising from one experience (e.g. a single test)

·         Exaggerating failures relative to successes

·         Categorising themselves in unflattering ways

·         Setting self-worth contingencies e.g. “If I do not get the highest mark in the class in my maths test I am a failure (or will be in trouble with my dad).”

·         Losing faith in ability to perform tasks

·         Underestimating the efficacy of effort

As a school we saw that these statements described some of our highest-achieving pupils.

Over the last three years, we have introduced growth mindset across the school, aiming to encourage children to enjoy challenges, embrace mistakes and understand that risk-taking is an important part of their learning. After initial training, teaching staff have completed cycles of lesson study to assess the impact of this approach. We have found that all groups of children are more open to trying difficult tasks or new skills and fewer children have a fear of failure or appearing less intelligent if they make mistakes.

Further to this, we asked staff to follow this guidance for supporting learners, including the more able:

1.      Tell them ability is not fixed.

2.      Encourage risk-taking in lessons.

3.      Refuse to help students who have not attempted tasks.

4.      Highlight failure as part of learning and praise effort.

5.      Down-play success but praise effort.

5. Appointment of a Mindfulness and Wellbeing Champion 

The appointment of a Mindfulness and Wellbeing Champion in 2017 has helped raise the profile of mental health and wellbeing across the school and our multi-academy trust for both staff and learners. This staff member has developed a range of strategies to teach resilience and mindfulness – taking risks, celebrating mistakes, open-ended tasks, mastery-style teaching – and has worked with parents to help them to understand the impact of self-esteem on their child’s success at school.

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