The Power of Yet

The Lent term started at St. Peter’s with the whole school agreeing on a shared resolution.  To learn and use a new word, a simple word, a word that they already use.  This magic word is ‘Yet’.  The concept goes hand in hand with the educational philosophy of ‘Growth Mindset’ where we teach the children to embrace the concept of learning, to realise that if they are stuck they should not give up but embrace the challenge.  The whole school got quite carried away as I presented them with difficult problems.  ‘Learning all the Countries in the world…  ‘I can’t do it… YET!’ they shouted, ‘Learning all my times tables… ‘I can’t do it….YET!’ shouted the little ones.  ‘Really complicated algebra…. ‘I can’t do it….YET!’ yelled the older ones.  Although this sounds rowdy, I am sure that you get the picture.  And visiting all the children in their classrooms over the last few days that ‘Yet’ word has really stuck.  Ask the children about it at home this evening.  If you would like more information please watch this Ted Talk where the Growth Mindset guru Professor Carol Dweck explains in more detail.  

We also started the new year with a focus on pastoral care and a reminder of who the children can talk to if there is a problem.  You will notice in each of the children’s classrooms a colourful poster ‘Who can I talk to?’.  We enforce with the children, that if they have a worry, however small, that there is always someone who will listen and they shouldn’t worry alone.  These issues are reinforced in the children’s weekly PSHEE lessons, circle time and in our regular program of assemblies.

And finally, parents and staff have this week completed the development plan questionnaire.  It was wonderful to read the positive ideas to move the school forward from both parents and staff and we now have a huge amount of information to read and prioritise as we write the five year vision for St. Peter’s.  Pupils will be surveyed next week. Many of you commented that you were delighted to be involved and thanked us for the opportunity to share in building the development plan.  I will be sharing the results with you in due course.  Here is a little taster of one of the questions that I asked the staff.  Weighted by how many times the word was used.  You can see a wonderful visual reminder that ‘caring’, ‘supportive’, ‘family’ and ‘children’ are the centre of our purpose here at St. Peter’s. A very happy new year to you all.