Growth Mindset

We have been delivering work on growth mind set for a few years now and the children annually have participated in a range of activities to learn more about it.  Through this work, pupils have found out about famous and influential people who have succeeded due to having a growth mindset and not giving up on their goal.  We have had PSHE lessons and assemblies about growth mindset.  Across the school, adults and pupils have embraced the vocabulary and way of thinking that promotes using a growth mindset.  Our school council selected the names of our school house groups based on people who they think are determined and have persevered. Additionally, the idea of effort and perseverance was also central to forming our school motto which was put together using the ideas of all pupils and staff: Inspire. Believe. Persevere. Achieve.

Each classroom displays thought bubbles which show the traits of a fixed mindset (red thought bubbles) vs a growth mindset (green thought bubbles).  You may hear us referring to it as “green bubble thinking!”

Fixed Mindset

I’m not good at this

This is too hard

I’m great at this!

I give up

It’s good enough

I’ll never be as clever as her

I made a mistake

I can’t do maths

I can’t do this any better

Growth Mindset

What am I missing?

This may take a bit of time and effort

My effort is paying off

I’ll use the strategies I’ve learned

Is it really my best work?

I’ll learn how she does it

Mistakes help me improve

I’m going to train my brain

I’ll keep on trying; I can always improve

Activities around books

The children have completed activities based around books which promote a growth mindset:

A quote from Carol Dweck:

"In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it."

This is important because (1) individuals with a "growth" theory are more likely to continue working hard despite setbacks and (2) individuals' theories of intelligence can be affected by subtle environmental cues. For example, children given praise such as "good job, you're very smart" are much more likely to develop a fixed mindset, whereas if given compliments like "good job, you worked very hard" they are likely to develop a growth mindset. In other words, it is possible to encourage students, for example, to persist despite failure by encouraging them to think about learning in a certain way.”