Our schools today have an understandable focus on teaching knowledge to achieve improved examination results. The academic demands on all children, the growing gap between Pupil Premium and Non Pupil Premium children, means the pressure is higher than ever for students and teachers alike.
In today’s fast moving world of technology, more negative pressure is put on children and young adults from social media sites with the persisted need to ‘fit in’. From an early age children are noticeably struggling when facing setbacks, having fixed-mindsets about what they can and can’t achieve and in a ‘get famous / rich fast’ thinking world, there is a general lack of resilience, and self-esteem when ideas and dreams do not materialise.
However, learning non-academic factors such as resilience and empathy, growth mind-set and emotional-control can also have a profound impact on our children’s success beyond school.
With an understanding that whatever background you come from, whatever learning difficulty one might be supporting – with a good sense of self esteem and positive thinking, perseverance and tolerance of others, one can achieve their goals.
“My class thoroughly enjoyed the BEST workshops. Vicky and Julia explained the workings of the brain in language that my Year 1 children could understand. They gave the class strategies to work on during the week such as ‘sitting like a frog’ for calming down. The class loved the games that we played which really encouraged good team work within the class. I’ll definitely use them again with my next class!” Year 1, Teacher.
“This was a great lesson, I really liked their acting of the feelings and linking it to fight/fright and frustration. The idea of understanding our frustration and anxiety was excellent as this is part of the challenge in our class.” Year 3, Teacher.