At the start of this year, I decided to try a nice, simple ice-breaker activity with a new class of Year 7s. It was an easy task involving Post-it notes.

I wrote the phrase “I wish my teacher knew…” on the board and asked the students to complete the sentence on their Post-it. The comment could be about anything, I told them: their holiday, their family, anything.

As I read through the notes, there were the predictable declarations of “I wish my teacher knew I play Xbox”; “I wish my teacher knew that I have three brothers”; and “I wish my teacher knew that I’ve watched Kill Bill.”

Then there was one that said, “I wish my teacher knew that me and my brothers don’t like her”. I had never met the pupil or his brothers prior to that lesson, but it didn’t really bother me - I have a thick skin.

One Post-it did make my heart sink, though: “I wish my teacher knew I am not bright.” It crushed me. How does this happen? Why does an 11-year-old child on the brink of his secondary school career and adult education feel like this?

He would have been told that the tests were important and worth stressing over

Whatever experience he had endured before arriving in my classroom obviously had a devastatingly negative impact on this pupil’s perception of himself.

One cause, I am sure, is that for the previous eight years of his life he would have endured tests and assessments at every possible stage to determine his “ability”, and he would have been told that these tests were important, credible and worth stressing over.

During that process, the system continually chipped away at this child’s ability to believe in himself.

Everyone is different

But another - related - cause is our own interpretation of the system. I think we need to do more to mitigate the negative impact of the tests imposed upon us. We put weight on those tests: we look at the scores, we set children, we formulate targets. And children and parents take those on board and place a ceiling on their expectations. What that child taught me was that we need to do more to fight the impact of that process.

We need to be more vocal. We have to be clear that all children are different and pupils develop at different rates. Some children simply won’t fit the mould of whatever the government prioritises in a particular month. Some children are brilliant, but they do not know it - yet. Progress is not always demonstrated in a linear fashion and we have to make this clear to young people. Because they are people, and cannot be measured and accounted for in these ways.

We also need to regularly, loudly and properly praise our students

We also need to regularly, loudly and properly praise our students for anything great they do, whether that falls into an English Baccalaureate subject or not.

Talk to them, not at them. Praise individually, praise publicly, praise specifically. Make sure their parents and friends know that they have done something great - for it is the community around the child that will set expectations, not just the child themselves.

Get students to praise each other. Display work and shout about it.

We are often too reserved, too focused on “official” metrics of achievement, too tired and distracted. That’s how you end up with a child in your class who thinks they are not good enough. No child should feel that. Let’s do something about it.

Anjum Peerbacos is an English teacher in London