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Magazine Issue 22: SUCCESS FOR LEARNING
April 2012

This month ideas about and techniques for Success for Learning

Article: Success for Learning
Supporting Resources
New Resources
Additional Resources

This Month's Article:

The Truth About Success

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The Truth About Success An Article that will inspire you to think about the real meaning of success: about its breadth, depth and height and how an enriched mindset about success can help your pupils achieve more.

Success is dependent on effort. 
Sophocles

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan

What is success? What does it have to do with standards? And how does it show itself in the classroom?

This is a Free Sample Resource

 Categories: Article, Educators, Skills-Based Learning, Any Subject, All Ages

Tags: Success Mindset Multiple Intelligences Dweck Gardner
Rank these 5 people in order of how successful they were or are (gut feel, no need to labour the task):Bill Gates, Mother Teresa, Adolf Hitler, Rowan Atkinson, Margaret Thatcher

Who did you put first? Last? In the middle? Your choices and reasons (and there is no right or wrong here) reveal your beliefs about success: Bill Gates first financially (or philanthropically)? Rowan Atkinson first for happiness spread? Hitler first for strength of influence? Mother Teresa first for care? In fact each one could be deemed ‘most successful’ if the ‘success criteria’ used to evaluate them matched their major achievement in life.

Success vs Standards
Publicly validated success is narrowing and shrinking when in should be widening and growing. Success means getting good grades, going to university then securing a well-paid job (or winning a national talent show). All valuable and worthy but what if you are a student whose strengths don’t have an associated grade? What if you excel in ways that are not easily measured and valued on a list on classroom wall in August? What if your path takes you into the world rather than into just one academic establishment? The challenge for schools is with imposed standards that value only a subset of the ways in which pupils can thrive, succeed and contribute. 

The Diversity of Success
The most academically successful schools I work in cite their extra-curricular programmes as integral to exam achievements. The broader the curriculum, the greater chance of finding a place to succeed. Sir Christopher Ball argues that every person should have at least “one outrageous learning success”. The broader the opportunities, the more likely this is to happen. And Howard Gardner proposes that each element in the diversity of intelligence is equally valuable. We need to enrich our beliefs about success and adjust our words and actions accordingly. We need also to challenge those who limit our pupils by their own restrictive definition of success. Success is wide, deep and high.

Failure and Mindset
Once we’ve revisited and expanded our definitions of success we need to help our pupils find their strengths and believe in their potential. We must also help them the develop determination and resilience to achieve this potential. Carol Dweck shows how mindsets ultimately influence success. Growth mindsets are more likely to reach their potential; fixed mindsets less so. A fixed mindset avoids failure at all costs and when it does fail learns quickly how to avoid a repetition. Growth mindsets accept failure as integral to success. They mine each failure for the learning inside it. Then they use this learning in their next attempt. They believe that failure is just one type of feedback. They don’t fear it, they apply it. 

Supporting Resources:

Certificate - Mistake of the Week

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Certificate - Mistake of the Week A Certificate template to celebrate the value of acknowledging mistakes and of using them to learn.

Categories: Other Resources, Skills-Based Learning, Any Subject, All Ages

Tags: Success Mindset Mistake
Teacher Premium Resource: Login or Upgrade to Teacher Premium to access this resource.

Certificate - Mindset of the Week

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Certificate - Mindset of the Week A Certificate template to award for either a change in mindset from fixed to growth, or for an example of growth mindset in action.

Categories: Skills-Based Learning, Any Subject, All Ages, Other Resources

Tags: Mindset
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Certificate - Success After Failure

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Certificate - Success After Failure A Certificate template that celebrates eventual success after extended effort and initial failure.

Categories: All Ages, Other Resources, Skills-Based Learning, Any Subject

Tags: Success Mindset Mistake
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New Resources:

Timeline Thinking

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Timeline Thinking A Thinking Skills Tool to help older pupils think clearly about their futures and the steps needed to reach their goals. Includes a blank prompt sheet.

Categories: Thinking Tool, Meta Cognition, Skills-Based Learning, Transition, Other Subject, Secondary, Tertiary

Tags: Success Mindset Goals Careers
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PSHE Think Sheet - Success

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PSHE Think Sheet - Success A Think Sheet of Thinking Classroom ideas for tackling the real issues around success, failure & effort.

Categories: Think Sheet, PSHE, Junior, Secondary, Thinking Skills

Tags: Success Mindset
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Additional Resources:

Thinking Classroom Archive:

Literacy Think Sheet - Authors

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Literacy Think Sheet - Authors A Think Sheet of Thinking Classroom ideas for learning about children’s authors and their stories.

Categories: Think Sheet, English, Junior, Thinking Skills

Tags: Literature Story
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Science Think Sheet - Periodic Table

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Science Think Sheet - Periodic Table A Think Sheet of Thinking Classroom ideas for looking at elements' properties and categories.

Categories: Think Sheet, Science, Secondary, Thinking Skills

Tags: Periodic Table
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DT Think Sheet - Product Ideas

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DT Think Sheet - Product Ideas A Think Sheet of Thinking Classroom ideas for considering design requirements and innovative/creative product problem solving.

Categories: Think Sheet, DT, Junior, Secondary, Thinking Skills

Tags: Design
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Music Think Sheet - Exploring Musical Ideas

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Music Think Sheet - Exploring Musical Ideas A Think Sheet using Thinking Classroom ideas to explore, combine and organise musical ideas.

Categories: Think Sheet, Music, Secondary, Thinking Skills

Tags: Genres Timbre Tone
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Books:

How Children Succeed
by Paul Tough
How Children Succeed <br>by Paul Tough Find out about grit, hard work and how character influences success.

Available from Amazon

Opens in a New Window 		Categories: Suggested Books, Professional Development, Assessment

Tags: Character Success Thought Leader Growth Mindset

Next month we think about video CPD for learning.

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