Tag Archives: fixed mindset

Growth mindset – it’s like learning to ride a bike!

One nursery in Dundee that’s been working on growth mindset, have used mindset principles with their children across other learning opportunities. St Andrew’s Nursery in Dundee, tell us about how they combined developing growth mindsets with learning to ride bikes.

In August 2016, two of our nursery team, Mrs Smith and Mrs Broughall, attended a city run course called Play on Pedals. The programme instructed our nursery children on how to ride a two-wheeled bike. This was done through a series of fun games and exercises on balance bikes that were provided through the local authority. When they were ready the children were then encouraged to have a go at riding a two-wheeled bike themselves.

The team had been learning about growth mindset and were using mindset language and building resilience in the children through adopting a ‘praise for effort, never give up, you can’t do it yet’ approach. This attitude and mindset was applied and encouraged by staff during the play on pedals programme.

St Andrews nursery kids learn to ride bikes

The staff were given a target at the start of the programme to try and have 30% of our pre-school children (aged 4) riding a two-wheeled bike confidently before starting school. We actually achieved 67% of our pre-schoolers riding their bikes, with a few of our 3-year olds riding their bikes too!!

This has been an unbelievable success and I have no doubt it has been spurred on by the growth mindset approach encouraged by the staff in our nursery.  It was fantastic to hear the children so proud of their achievements and the realisation and acknowledgement that their efforts and perseverance had paid off.

I believe that this will build a good foundation and set our young learners off in good stead as they carry on their learning journey into primary school. I have high hopes that they will carry on developing their growth mindsets in the knowledge that they can do something if they put the effort in, keep trying and never give up!

St Andrew’s Nursery, Dundee

Has your school or nursery been developing children’s growth mindsets to help them achieve goals or challenges? Let us know! Either leave us a comment or email alison.hennessy@winningscotlandfoundation.org

Mindset, maths and myths

How many of you hated maths at school?  If you were good at maths, did you think that you were just born that way?  Until I heard of the work of Carol Dweck and Jo Boaler, that’s exactly what I thought too.

Fixed mindsets are common in mathematics.

When I think of my own primGirl playing legoary maths education, I remember timed mental maths drills, pages of sums that got progressively harder, and silence.  Jo Boaler has taught us that depth of understanding is much more important than speed, and that discussing mathematical ideas with the teacher and classmates can help understanding.  Using word problems with real life stories makes maths relevant, and helps to identify gaps in understanding.

Traditional maths classrooms can cause lots of anxiety in children who don’t react well to timed exercises, children who have not understood fundamental concepts, and children who are afraid of failure.  Fostering a growth mindset culture in the maths classroom, where mistakes are actively sought out to be celebrated, is a much better environment for children to learn.  Explaining that the brain grows when we make mistakes in maths also helps to dispel the idea that children who make mistakes in maths simply don’t have maths brains.

Beliefs of parents have an effect too – research has shown that when mothers tell their daughters that they were rubbish at maths at school, their daughters’ exam results suffer as a result.  Traditional female toys such as dolls and makeup may place girls at a disadvantage to their male peers, who are exposed to mathematical toys such as lego and mechano.  How much better for parents to give a strong positive message about maths to all of their children, irrespective of gender, from a very young age.

Many pupils, parents and teachers believe in a maths giftedness, as I once did, but this is a myth there is no such thing as a maths brain.  Anyone can understand and achieve maths to a high level when it is taught deeply and conceptually.

What methods are you using in your maths classroom?  We’d love it if you would share your experiences, just comment on this blog…

Alison