A growth mindset is a character trait that character being the drive to succeed. Teachers can educate students through the power of growth mindset language and therefore build character in young people that will make them ready for life outside of the school gates. Oliver Beach

One of our core objectives when developing our unique Character programme, was to encourage our learners to look beyond their academic studies and think about their own unique qualities and strengths that could be nurtured during their time at school. Their responses to opportunities and interactions will inform their readiness for their future so we hoped to provide our students with a programme that would enable them to document and reflect upon their character development and personal achievements. We hoped that by actively encouraging our learners to engage with the concept of character development we would deepen their love of learning and enhance their personal growth mindset.

We have worked with our School Leadership team to identify character traits that we feel are essential and have shared these with all of our learners. We have discussed the features of each trait and also shared assemblies which focus upon the traits individually to highlight awareness of the programme and concept. Baroness Tyler, chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, has argued that schools and parents could all do more to help children develop greater fortitude? This has not been area that has been high on the agenda for Government’s but it should be. There’s evidence to suggest that this improves academic learning and helps develop more well-rounded people that are more employable.

 

In order to ensure fortitude and character has equal value to academic study, we have also identified opportunities for students to demonstrate our identified traits; tolerance, initiative, aspiration, resilience, confidence and integrity. Students are able to collect evidence as an online portfolio and we use life-long sessions as an appropriate time to reflect upon their collected evidence and share their achievements with their tutor and peers.