FEATURE FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
“Growth mindset is key to overcoming mental health and wellbeing challenges”
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midst a rising tide of mental health and wellbeing challenges in our schools, a
major question for many teachers and parents is how to encourage a positive approach to learning that will prepare children for adult life. Here, Julian Murphy, Headmaster of Loughborough Amherst School, discusses how a growth mindset programme is helping his pupils adapt to the everyday challenges of modern life. Research from the Mental Health Foundation
found that one in ten young people are affected by mental health problems. These figures are alarming for schools, which are also feeling the impact of extra scrutiny placed on young people by social media. These challenges, alongside a desire to increase academic performance, inspired the adoption of a growth mindset programme at Loughborough Amherst School in 2017. Our Minerva Programme was actually
developed initially with the main aim of improving exam results, but we realised early on that academic success is inseparable from wellbeing and happiness. This learning has been critical to understanding how we can ensure that young
people are able to succeed, but not at the expense of their mental health.
Growth mindset The growth mindset approach, developed by Stanford academic Carol Dweck, is centred on the belief that an individual’s learning can be improved if they believe that their intelligence can grow as a result of hard work. This is a constructive approach to learning, moving away from the idea that talent is a key predictor of success in favour of an approach that centres on the ability to apply effort and ability. There are countless examples away from
education, particularly in sport and music, of people who have achieved unbelievable success which is attributed to grit and determination rather than a God-given natural talent. Skilled pianists for example, are most likely to be made up of the one per cent of people that applied themselves, but most people would have the ability to read music and learn to play to a good standard if they really focussed on this. Dweck’s theory has been criticised in recent years, with many calling the idea of a growth
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mindset a gimmick or simply dismissing the approach as an empty platitude better suited to motivational posters than a classroom. In practice, certainly in many schools, this may have been the case with the only outcome of an ‘adoption’ of a growth mindset programme being the odd assembly about wellbeing. Our team focused on a complete change of
systems and processes, for example we asked questions like, does the current marking system get the best out of pupils or could our day-to-day structure be improved for the better?
Scrapping school reports Although it wasn’t the initial aim, the growth mindset approach has led the school to adopt a range of policies which have not only improved pupils’ approaches to learning but have also had a significantly positive impact on mental wellbeing. In practice, this is perhaps best shown through
our new reporting system which completely removed traditional school reports. Now, instead of focusing on an emotive, subject-by-subject report full of effort grades, teachers feed back on
September 2019
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