1. “We Can!” Reaching Our True Potential Anna Bowden September 16 th 2015

2. Why are we here?  Growth and Fixed Mindsets  Developing Growth Mindset  Language

3. Mindsets – Dr Carol Dweck Nature vs Nurture debate Is it the natural ‘gift’ or ability that leads people to be great or the endless curiosity and challenge seeking that feeds the ability ? Research shows that people have more capacity for lifelong learning and brain development than ever before Robert Sternberg – ‘it is not some prior fixed ability but purposeful engagement that makes pupils reach their potential.’ Binet – ‘it is not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest’ DIGIT SPAN TEST 3

4. 4 The Growth Mindset Intelligence, gifts, talents & qualities are fixed traits which cannot be changed Creates a need for them to prove themselves and look clever Shy away from risk, effort or challenge as it may reveal inadequacies Misestimate their performance & ability Intelligence, gifts, talents & qualities can be cultivated through effort The belief that qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning Risk takers – recognise the value of challenging themselves and the importance of effort Have a realistic understanding of their strengths and weaknesses The Fixed Mindset

5. 5 The Growth Mindset Do not take criticism of any sort very well Success is about proving you are smart and talented – validating yourself To be clever or successful you must not make mistakes – they make sure they succeed Seek perfection – lots of success and validation Expect success with little effort or work – High effort is a risk Act upon and learn from constructive criticism Success is about stretching & developing yourself to learn new things People who believe they can develop know they learn from mistakes Low effort is a risk as you may not learn something new The Fixed Mindset

6.  As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges and afraid of not being "smart". Example of mindsets in action:  Dweck studied Year 6 pupils completing puzzles Fixed Mindset – enjoyment plunged and they changed their minds about taking the puzzles home. Even the best puzzle solvers started to give up. Growth Mindset – couldn’t tear them away from the more complex puzzles. The harder puzzles were their favourites. Asked to take them home.  Dweck studied pupil's responses to test results Fixed Mindset – Less likely to study hard after a poor score. More likely to cheat. Growth Mindset – Studied harder for the next test after a poor score. 6

7. Rather than trying to learn from their mistakes, pupils with a fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem as opposed to fixing the difficulty. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to.” “I don’t need to do that anyway because…” 7

8. ‘Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it does not mean that others can’t do it with training.’ 8 Artistic talent is often regarded as a natural gift which many fixed mindset people believe cannot be changed. This is important as pupils with a fixed mindset believe that their early performance sets out their talent and their future. Dweck worked with a teacher called Marva Collins. They found that high expectations and promotion of growth mindsets led to phenomenal results.

9. Developing The Growth Mindset at Long Crendon School Developing The Growth Mindset at Long Crendon School

10. “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” Jack Canfield What are most children afraid of? FAILING

11. “Failure is the seasoning that gives success its flavour.” Truman Capote What are the behavioural consequences of being scared to fail or believing you cannot do something? Self-handicapping Giving yourself an alternative reason for failure A person does not want to leave their ego vulnerable

12. Take away the fear of failure We want the children to understand that FAILING is ok and even necessary to learn. High quality learning involves more failure than low quality learning High quality learning involves more failure than low quality learning

13. The Learning Pit

16. Don’t celebrate effortless success Lived on Silverdale Road in Reading and all played table tennis - look at their achievements! Matthew Syed - British Number 1 player in 1995 3x Commonwealth Champion 1x olympian Andrew Syed – 3 national junior titles Karen Witt – Commonwealth Champion, junior & senior titles Andy Welman - won series of national doubles titles Paul Trott - leading national junior player Keith Hodder – outstanding county player Jimmy Stokes – England Junior Champion Paul Savins - Junior International title holder Alison Gordon - 4x England Senior Champion Paul Andrews - top national player Sue Collier – England Schools Champion “Talent is vastly over-rated” Matthew Syed

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18. Praise & Positive Labels Children need praise to foster their confidence, self- esteem & achievement but … What kind of praise ? A study was carried out on hundreds of pupils in which pupils were given 10 fairly difficult IQ questions - the average score across the pupils was high. Praise was given to 2 different groups: Group 1 was praised on their ability: ‘Well done you are clever at this’ Group 2 was praised on their effort: ‘Well done you worked really hard’ A more challenging set of questions was then offered. Group 1 were far less likely to take up the challenge for fear of failure but 90% of Group 2 wanted to learn from the harder task. 18

19. Both groups were exactly matched to begin with, but right after the praise they began to differ: 19 Group 2 Praised for effort Pushed into a fixed mindset. They rejected the chance to try the challenging task as they did not want to expose any flaws or call into question their talent. After a second round of harder questions these pupils now believed they were not as clever as before and their enjoyment of the task disappeared. Pushed into a growth mindset – through effort they can improve. Happy to try the harder questions and did not experience failure when they found them difficult and did not see it as a reflection on their intellect. The effort praised students still loved the problems and some reported that the hardest questions were the most fun. Group 1 Praised for ability

20. Growth Mindset Language En route..... Nearly there..... Got it! Notice the children’s mistakes “I noticed today you found … really difficult. You are not quite there yet, but you will be soon.” “You did really well to put so much effort in to … but you didn’t get it right.” Encouragement “Don’t give up on it, remember you are in the pit and you CAN find a way out.” “You will be able to, you just don’t know how…YET.” Explain the praise “Well done for getting that all right – you tried really hard.” “You persevered and worked hard to get to that answer.”

21. Language is Key AVOID Should… ‘e.g you should have done this’ puts pressure on = Fixed Mindset Too hard / easy… ‘e.g. that one is too easy / hard for you’ makes a child feel the pressure = Fixed Mindset You’re so clever / smart… ‘e.g. well done for that score, you’re so clever’ makes a child think they don’t’ need to put the effort in or that next time if they don’t succeed they have lost their cleverness = Fixed Mindset You’re so talented… ‘e.g. you’re the next Messi, you’ve got the talent’ makes children think that it is in them and they don’t need to learn anymore = Fixed Mindset I expected that… ‘e.g. I expected that of you – you’re always doing that’ children will meet your expectation = Fixed Mindset Please read the excerpt from Carol Dweck’s Mindset book for more on Growth Mindset language.

22. In short… 22 Everyone needs to develop a belief that they can achieve things with effort We can improve and become good at things we may find difficult at first You learn by challenging yourself Foster a passion for learning Have high expectations of yourself and others The right language will promote Growth Mindsets