Yesterday I put our ‘character building’ to the test. For over a year now we have been making big changes to our school ethos and environment. We have implemented new school values, have ‘purple learners,’ talk about the values of effective learning like perseverance, resilience and grit. As leaners, we are now focused on a ‘growth mindset’ and understand how we can change our attitude so that challenges don’t stop us.
Year 1 have been here the same length of time as I. Therefore, they were the perfect candidates for my evaluation to take place. I know that our older pupils can talk to me about their learning and can explain what we do as a school, but year 1 would be the challenge! I was unsure as to how well they could verbalise the things we do here in school.
I set the scene by explaining that an alien had wanted to know how our school was different to any other. He wanted to know what the children would be like by the time they left year 6. What traits would they have, what would they know about learning that they could take to secondary school with them? What did we do as a school that built ‘character’?
I have to say that the discussions that took place after that left me speechless. Mrs Hyde and Miss James were both there as well and we all looked at each other, knowing that what we were doing was making an impact.
The children had time to talk with their partners and in groups. They were getting prepared to draw posters for me to give to the alien and to take back to his planet in space. We were just gathering ideas at this point….
The children talked about our values. I then asked them what our values all meant. They could tell me. One child said, “Mrs Barton you tell us that service can be as simple as a smile!” Yes, yes it can. I then asked them about the word integrity (this is the one most difficult to understand). A child’s hand shot up. He then went on to explain that in my story I had told them in collective worship, the emperor gave his throne to the boy who showed integrity, by doing what was right even when no one was looking. He remembered a story I had told them last year!
We then had a discussion about Batman and Superman. I asked them what the difference was between them and why it mattered to us. They went on to explain that Superman was given his powers and that Batman has to work hard to be who he is. More conversations took place that explained that we need to be ‘purple learners.’ We need to challenge ourselves to be our very best. We need to keep trying and learn from our mistakes. Remember this is a year 1 class. They could even tell me that failure only happened when we gave up…..that we may make hundreds of mistakes before we got it right.
We continued to talk about perseverance, resilience, bounce-back-ability and grit. They could tell me what grit meant…..and why grit was important to us. They even went on to discuss why a growth mindset was so important to being an effective learner.
It is clear that what we are doing is making sense…..they understand what we are trying to achieve.
They are beginning to understand what it will take to reach their full potential.
More importantly, they are understanding why we are doing what we do……
So ask you child about these things and see what they say……
