Understanding how their brains learn can have a huge impact on children’s attitudes to learning. 

Thinking of the brain as being like a muscle helps children to visualise how practising a task will strengthen neural pathways and consolidate learning.

Research tells us that challenge is an excellent way to ‘grow’ our brains; when we do difficult maths questions our synapses fire and new connections are made. This happens most when we make mistakes; during struggle, our brains have to try harder to solve problems and new connections are most likely to form.