1. Reach Their Full Potential
How to Help Your Child
Reach Their Full Potential
Welcome and thank you for coming
Welcome to our open evening on how to help your children reach their full potential.
I hope you had a go at the maths problems. The purpose of doing this was to remind you of feelings your children may experience when they are presented with new, possibly challenging tasks.
Some of you would have had no difficulties in doing that problem. You will have felt relaxed, probably enjoyed knowing you could do it, not stressed at all and possibly a little smug when you saw others who may not have been able to achieve it so easily.
Some of you will have found it a challenge, not that easy but be determined not to let it beat you, determined to get it right. You are the one who, if you haven’t worked it out yet are doing it right now either thinking I can’t see you or by not listening now because you can’t give it up till you’ve done it.
Others of you will have experienced a minor panic, in your heads you are thinking you haven’t done maths since you left school and you were no good at it then. You may have given it a go but quickly got disheartened. You may have developed strategies like looking at your neighbours work, looking very busy but actually achieving nothing or just giving up and trying to distract other away from the task
What we will be looking at this evening is why we get these feelings and the impact it can have on learning and what we can do to make everyone love the challenge.

2. Statements made by teachers
Every time she makes a mistake, she makes excuses
I know he can do it, I just can’t get him to try
Every time I try to push him further, he acts the fool and messes around
She thinks she should be doing harder work than the work I set her, but she keeps making silly errors
It’s so frustrating – I know she can do better if she just applied herself!
In school the teachers and I have regular meetings to discuss pupil progress. In these meetings we discuss children how are perhaps a little stuck or not making the progress we expect and we think about why and what we can implement. For lots of children this is relatively simple but sometimes the teachers have tried many strategies and the children do not respond. I often hear statements such as: SLIDE 2
I started to wonder why. It seemed peculiar that children would not take on advice from their teacher on how to improve or that they wouldn’t even try. I started to research to find out why these children were holding themselves back.
He won’t act on my feedback
He refuses to go back and edit
his work; he won’t accept
that he can improve it

3. cultivate throughout your life?
WHY?
MINDSET
Mindset is the belief you hold about yourself. Is your ability or talents basic personality set in stone or are they things you can
cultivate throughout your life?
I started to wonder why.
It seemed peculiar that children would not take on advice from their teacher on how to improve or that they wouldn’t even try. I started to research to find out why these children were holding themselves back.
I can across the research and findings of Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University. The more I read the more excited I got as she was describing emotions and insecurities exactly like those we were witnessing in school and her reasoning for it, and potential solution is relatively simple.
In her research, she describes what she calls Mindsets. This is the belief we hold in ourselves and whether or not we are able to develop our abilities and traits.
There are 2 mindsets fixed and growth.
Fixed Mindset
Growth Mindset

4. Fixed Mindset People with a fixed mindset:
believe that their traits are just givens
they have a certain amount of ability and talent and nothing can change that
if they have a lot, they’re all set, but if they don’t...
so people in this mindset worry about their traits and how adequate they are
they have something to prove to themselves and others

5. Growth Mindset People with a growth mindset:
see their qualities as things that can be developed through their dedication and effort
sure they’re happy if they’re brainy or talented, but that’s just the starting point
they understand that no one has ever accomplished great things—not Mozart, Darwin, or Michael Jordan—without years of passionate practice and learning

6. Which mindset do you have?
Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.
You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent you are.
No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a bit.
You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.
Questions 1 and 2 are fixed mindset questions
Questions 3 and 4 reflect the growth mindset
Most people are a mixture of both but lean towards one or the other

7. It’s about personal qualities too
It’s about personal qualities too. Which of these do you agree or disagree with?
You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that.
No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.
You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can’t really be changed.
You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are.
Questions 1 and 3 are fixed-mindset questions
Questions 2 and 4 reflect growth mindset

8. How do we learn?
In order to see why this is important, we need to have a little understanding of how our brain works and learns. In simple terms, as we learn something new our brain makes connections between the neurons. These new pathways are thin and can easily break, but the more we practice the stronger the connections become. I am going to show you a short video that, although a little dated will demonstrate this perfectly.
We used to believe that the older we get the harder it is to learn because our brains loose the ability – hence the saying, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But we now have greater understanding that the neural plasticity needed for learning doesn’t vanish over time so the good news is that tonight’s presentation is just as pertinent to you and I as it is for the children.
So now we need to understand the impact of the different mindsets. Now we know that we need to keep trying and that new learning gets easier the more we do it, what do the mindsets mean?

9. Fixed Mindset Needs to look ‘smart’ in every situation
Needs to prove themselves and never fail!
Worries about how they look to others – will they look smart or dumb?
I failed (identity) so I’m a failure
Avoids challenges, gets defensive or gives up easily
Thinks effort won’t change anything
Ignores constructive criticism
Feels threatened by others success – compares
Achieves less than full potential

10. Growth Mindset
Will stretch themselves, take risks and learn. Bring on the challenges!
Will this allow me to grow? Will it help me overcome my challenges?
I failed (action) so I will try harder next time
Embraces challenges – persists in the face of setbacks
Understands implicitly that growth and learning takes effort
Learns from criticisms. How can I improve?
Finds lessons and inspiration in other people’s success
Reach ever higher levels of achievement

11. What does this mean in school? FIXED
Children who are scared to fail
Children who will not push themselves
Children who can not take constructive criticism
Children who give up easily when things are hard
Children who compare themselves to others – know their ‘rank’ in the class
Children who avoid things they find hard
Children who make excuses when things go wrong – It can’t be their fault
Get their sense of achievement from the final outcome
This links straight back to my original questions – why will some children not take the advice on how to improve

12. What does this mean in school? GROWTH
Children who don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it
Children who love to stretch themselves
Show the same level of interest even when they find the work very challenging
Mistakes and failures are opportunities to learn
This is hard, this is fun!
Get their sense of achievement from the effort it took – I worked hard at this!
You can see that what we really need is for children to be here, loving challenges, taking risks, pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. And you can see why the children with fixed mindset were not. They are so worried about being judged as not as intelligent or able as they should be that they will do nothing that might make them look bad in their eyes. Or they have decided they are no good at it so there is no point in trying.

13. Carol Dweck: Ted Talk Nov 2014
To give you a little more insight into the research behind this and some simple ideas on how we develop growth mindsets, I’d like to play a Ted Talk that Carol Dweck presented in Nov 2014

14. What we are doing in school
Praising the process not the end product
You must feel very proud, you worked so hard on this
You found this hard but you persevered, well done!
This isn’t challenging you much, let’s make it harder!
I know you felt like giving up, but you didn’t and that is excellent
Don’t label – you are so clever, naughty, a natural….
Celebrate mistakes!
There are no failures, just a step towards success
Constructive feedback – how to do it better
High expectations for effort and perseverance
Teaching how the brain works and how we learn

15. Our Learning Values Resilience Open-minded Resourceful Curious
Supportive
Reflective

16. WHAT CAN PARENTS DO? Remember the power of yet!
Praise the process, the effort and determination they showed
Praise how hard they worked
Remind them that practice will strengthen their neural pathways
Help children to take responsibility for their own learning and progress
Daily learning discussions
Encourage risk taking and learning from mistakes

17. Encourage and model positive self talk
Do you have a growth mindset? Do you model this or do you say statements like ‘I was no good at maths’ or ‘I can’t cook!’
Listen for the messages you are giving
You learnt that so quickly! You’re so clever! (‘If I don’t learn something quickly, I can’t be clever’)
Look at that drawing you did! You’re going to be the next Picasso! (‘I mustn’t try drawing something hard or they’ll realise I’m not that good’)
You’re so brilliant, you get an A without even studying! (‘If I have to study next time, they won’t think I’m brilliant’)

18. Time to Practice Meet 9 year old Elizabeth 1 Tell her she was the best
2 Tell her she was robbed.
3 Reassure her – gymnastics
isn’t that important
4 She has the ability, she’ll
win next time
5 Tell her she didn’t deserve to win

19. Your child comes home from school saying she
feels wasn’t given the
most challenging work
and found the work easy.

20. plays with him at playtime.
Your child says nobody
plays with him at playtime.

21. Your child completed their homework quickly,
skipping several questions and answering others
in a short, imprecise way.
How do you respond?

22. Your year R child says to you, “I was counting and I missed out the number 8 and now I feel sad.”

23.  As a child, you really loved sport and you want your child to love it too and get as much pleasure from it as you did. Your child shows no interest in sport beyond school.

24. Your child fails an exam
Your child fails an exam
and is devastated,
feeling she’s let you down.

25. Lots of children in the class get invited to a birthday party
Lots of children in the class get invited to a birthday party. Your child thinks she’s the only one who didn’t get an invitation

26. Your child has worked really hard on their homework but has got it wrong.

27. Your child won’t read at home. How can you encourage?
Your child won’t read at home. How can you encourage?

29. What have you learnt? What will you do differently
Additional resources
‘Mindset: How you can fulfill your potential’ by Carol Dweck
‘Bounce’ by Matthew Syed
‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’ by Daniel H Pink
‘Your Fantastic Elastic Brain’ by Deak Joan
‘The Dot’ by Peter H Reynolds