I recently participated in a half day’s training on Growth Mindset. Now, having taught for 12 years, it wasn’t the first time I had received training on the importance of children having a Growth Mindset, but this is obviously important currently, with Nicky Morgan pushing for us to be a global leader in “character education” whilst performing miracles to get our children to the government’s new expected standards. 

As a Year 2 teacher, this is more important than ever. Every day I push my children to the limits of learning to do well in their ever-changing assessments in order to achieve the “expected standards”. The children work really hard and because the assessment system has got so out of control this year, it feels like they fail nearly every day as the goal posts are forever getting further and further away.

For the children this is disheartening, demoralising and frankly unfair. For the parents it is alarming, worrying and confusing. For the teachers, it is a challenge that some days seems so unattainable that some mornings, it is really hard to want to get up and go to work.

At the Growth Mindset training, we heard about celebrities who had overcome challenges to make it where they are today: all inspiring in their own way but hearing about them second-hand soon vanishes from memory. However, having recently seen the film Eddie the Eagle, it struck me that his story is the perfect embodiment of Growth Mindset.

‘Just look at Eddie the Eagle’

Eddie wants to be an Olympian and the film shows many failed attempts: every time he achieves something, the goal posts are pushed further and further back. But no matter how unattainable things seem to be, he never relents, gives his all and gets better and better. What I like most about his story is that he isn’t the best (like the majority of our children) and he doesn’t find it easy, but he celebrates every achievement he makes. I witness this kind of resilience in my pupils every day and it is this that drives me.

We teachers have a massive job on our hands this year, especially in Year 2 and Year 6. It’s not only the children who need a Growth Mindset, but us too.

Even though I know it’s going to be a tough week and the challenges that the children and I face are going to be difficult to meet, I’m going to channel the resilience I see in them. Some children, by the end of the year, will overcome and surpass those challenges, some will meet them and unfortunately some won’t. But I, like every other teacher, will know that they have worked hard and been determined - and ever so resilient.

And even if they don’t meet the government’s “expected standards”, I shall be proud of every single achievement we have all made: every improvement, every moment they shone and especially every moment they picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and gave it another try. It is this perseverance and resilience we inspire in each other that gets me up every morning.

Fiona Flynn is a Year 2 teacher in England

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