Year 8 Mindset and resilience Booklet for Year 8 (PSHE)

This booklet is for Year 8 students in P.S.H.E. lessons, building on prior learning from the Year 7 unit and booklet.

The learning objectives are to help students embed their existing knowledge and understanding in their academic studies, beginning to think ahead to the academic pressure they might face in the exam years in KS4. This booklet focuses on how many people might hold a mixture of Growth and fixed mindsets seeking to demonstrate how students can move themselves towards a Growth-dominant mindset using a range of athletes and famous people to illustrate how performance can decline or improve based upon how we think about our learning exploring the role of mistakes, failure, grit and determination by investigating how the British cycling team have inspired the concept of “marginal learning gains” and developing understanding of the brain as a learning machine with particular focus on the process of forming neural connections.

NB - This booklet forms part of a spiral curriculum year 7 through to year 9 to help a wide range of challenging and disadvantaged students build their resilience to perceived failure within the school system, and increase their window of tolerance towards assessments and work within the classroom. It was created following training and support given by the Psychology department and Research Team at Portsmouth University, led by researchers in the field within UK cognitive & educational Psychology and within the context of “Changing Mindsets” research funded by the Education Endowment Fund and The National College of Teaching and Learning. However, the design and implementation within these resources is all my own creation.