Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset

At Barnfield we want everyone (pupils, staff and the wider community) to be the best they can. We have high aspirations and expectations. We also know that in order to reach our potential, it is important to have the correct mindset.

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What is Growth Mindset?

Growth mindset (based on the work of Carol Dweck) is the belief that our brains are a muscle and, like every other muscle in our body, when we exercise it, our brain can grow. We exercise our brain by challenging ourselves in our daily life and showing resilience; not giving up when we find something difficult. This links to our learning principle of ‘ambitious me’.

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Why are mistakes important?

In our school, we embrace mistakes. We know that learning is meant to be difficult, therefore we recognise that mistakes help us to learn. Mistakes are expected when we try harder things or something new. We teach our pupils that if something is tricky, it shows we are learning. Not knowing the answer is an opportunity for learning.

To succeed, we need to have a growth mindset and show resilience when learning is hard.

 

“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield 

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What is the Learning Pit?

 

We often talk about the learning pit – The learning pit is where we find ourselves when our learning is tricky.   We enjoy being in the learning pit; in the pit we say we are finding something tricky or that we do not understand yet.  We use our time in the pit to look for connections with our past learning and for clues to help us back out of the pit.  We can work independently, with friends and with our teacher to climb out of the pit.

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