Growth Mindset

At Cage Green Primary School, we want all of our children to be confident and resilient learners. One of the many ways we aim to achieve this is by embedding a ‘growth mindset’ in all of our children.

What is a Growth Mindset?

Growth mindset is a term coined by Professor Carol Dweck, a professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck researched into how students' effort impacted on their academic achievement.

She believes that people have two types of mindset: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

If people have a fixed mindset, they believe that their successes in life are limited by their own abilities and their potential is predetermined. When they are frustrated by something they give up and will use phrases like ‘I’ve never been any good at that’ or ‘What’s the point in trying?’

However, a person with a growth mindset recognises that their effort and attitude towards a task will impact upon their success. They know that we need to make mistakes in order to learn and that they can accomplish anything if they try hard and relish the challenge.

At Cage Green Primary School we are working hard to instil a growth mindset in all of our children. The good news is that mindsets can change!

Encouraging a Growth Mindset

At Cage Green Primary school every member of staff is embedding a growth mindset within each of our children. Some of the ways we do this are:

• Celebrating mistakes. Making mistakes is how we learn. Staff make it clear to children that it is ok to make mistakes as this is how we learn and improve. If a child makes a mistake in maths, we work through the process with them to see where they went wrong in order to learn from this mistake.
• We never give up. Even when the learning is difficult, we encourage children to keep going. Perseverance is the key and helps to build resilient learners who recognise that challenges help them to grow. Children receive house points when they have persevered and this is celebrated with the class.
• We learn from others. We recognise and celebrate that we can learn from others. Staff regularly show examples of how children have been successful with their learning to inspire others in the class. We celebrate when a child has found something challenging and has still persevered.
• We challenge ourselves and take risks. When children succeed at a challenge, they find this incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. We celebrate this with the children and praise when they have succeeded at something particularly challenging for each individual.

At Cage Green, we consistently strive to challenge and develop the attitudes of all pupils and staff towards learning by considering what makes a successful learner. We have dedicated assemblies and sessions in class to address what kind of learners we want to be and how we can positively approach challenges inside and outside the classroom. Teachers regularly share their own growth mindset challenges to the children to model how we are constantly applying our growth mindset in situations throughout our lives.

How can I support this at home?

To truly develop a child’s growth mindset this needs to be nurtured at home and at school.

The following video explains the concept in more detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUWn_TJTrnU

Below are some interesting links to how you can further develop your child’s growth mindset at home:

https://www.mindsetworks.com/parents/growth-mindset-parenting

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/help-your-child-try-new-things