Growth mindset

Do you believe that with hard work, effort and perseverance, you can achieve anything you set your mind to? If the answer is yes, then you probably have a ‘Growth Mindset’.

Here at St Clare’s, we are trying to implement a complete Growth Mindset attitude throughout the school. Ultimately, we are trying to teach your children that strength doesn’t come from what you can do… it comes from overcoming things they once thought they couldn’t do.

If we encourage others, especially our children, and appreciate their efforts and persistence, then we will support their development of a ‘Growth Mindset.’ By developing a Growth Mindset in our children, we will equip them to persevere with difficult tasks, and pick themselves up when things don’t go their way throughout their lives. The vision of developing a Growth Mindset is focused on practicing and finding alternative ways to achieve goals.

No matter what our age, our brains can grow and change, and we can learn new things, especially when making mistakes. By practicing and challenging ourselves, we show that we will not let failure define us as a person, and as a result, our brains will grow; stronger connections will be made, and with extra challenges come extra brain growth.

You can help too. 1. Have daily learning discussions. At meal times, in the car or at bedtime take time for both the children and parents to share the answers to these types of questions: “What did you learn to day?” (We LOVE this – so much better than “How was your day?”) “What mistake did you make that taught you something? “What did you try hard at today?” It’s really important that you share what you learned, too. This models for kids that we learn new things every day, even learning from failures. When children share, you can reply like this: “You certainly did get smarter today.” “I like the way you tried all kinds of ways on that problem until you finally got it right.” “Everyone learns in a different way. Let’s keep trying to find the way that works for you.”

2. Give feedback on process only. Praise effort, persistence, strategies, seeking challenges, setting goals, planning, or using creative strategies. Don’t praise personal abilities like being smart, pretty, or artistic. This kind of praise actually can lead to a loss of confidence since children won’t be smart at everything. They’ll doubt their ability to be good at something that is difficult initially.

3. Do you know brains can grow? Explain to kids how the brain can grow stronger and that intelligence can improve throughout your life. Intelligence is not fixed. It’s changeable. This is called brain plasticity. (Aren’t you so glad!?) What’s more, learning CHANGES our brains. (Again, three cheers for brain growth!) Children need to know this is possible.

4. Encourage risk, failing, and learning from mistakes. Now is the time to let our children risk and fail. Failure teaches our children important life lessons. For one, it’s how they learn resiliency. We know it’s hard as we often want to prevent our children from failing, from feeling upset or sad. Don’t! We must let our children fail now so that they can strengthen their growth mindset muscles. If we don’t, they will be adults with no perseverance, with no belief in their abilities to work hard and succeed.

5. Encourage and model positive self talk. Finally, I think it’s worth sharing this self-talk chart. Our self talk is where it all starts to shift.

As the saying goes….’Rome wasn’t built in a day!’ With your help and support we really can make a difference for all our children and their future.