The quality of resilience is something we discuss here at Myton a great deal, and developing resilience in young people is a focus of our school improvement plan. A resilient child is one who is compelled to try. It doesn’t matter how hard a piece of work is, a resilient child will call on their prior learning, take into account the purpose of their lesson and work out what to do. The worst that can happen is that they make a mistake, but by making mistakes, correcting them and trying again, learning takes place and the child becomes more successful. The willingness to try is the essential ingredient and we explain to students that nobody should fear getting stuck or making mistakes. This is why it is so essential to always praise effort first before discussing outcomes. The more we do this, the more willing a child is to try.

Children worry, feel anxious or get upset over a range of different situations, both academic and social. I would say that this is part of learning to become resilient and is a perfectly normal human response. Our job here is to coach children through it and encourage them not to give in. Allowing them to give in is doing them a great disservice and preventing them learning resilience. It is unrealistic to expect children to go through life free of worry, upset or anxiety. What is realistic is helping them deal with things and face situations, work out compromises and mend broken friendships, ignore insults and in doing so build resilience which we know is the key to success and happiness.

For those children in school with medical diagnoses which can involve increased feelings of anxiety and worry we make adjustments as we support them in learning resilience. However, for all children, I would draw out this quality of resilience as the single most important characteristic for success and therefore argue that it is the duty of us all as teachers and parents to work together to build it. Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week and we will be exploring in school how to look after our mental health, building resilience to cope with the demands of life.

Thank you for your continued support.

Andy Perry – Head Teacher

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