2. Effort & Growth

Good teaching and learning challenges all learners by encouraging them to recognise the importance of sustained effort in meeting expectations that are high but achievable for them

The proposed Progression Steps should set expectations that challenge children and young people to have high personal aspirations and achievement. Teaching should proceed on optimistic assumptions about its ability to make a difference in ways that will encourage such high aspirations in all learners: ‘Notions such as talent, ability and intelligence…are not sufficient to explain learning or achievement’. Self-limiting beliefs about fixed ‘potential’ are difficult to alter and can have a profoundly negative effect on learning. The consistent message should be that sustained effort is integral to good learning and can lead to high achievement.

Praise and support are essential but the opportunity to make and learn from errors in the pursuit of challenging goals builds confidence and resilience. Teaching approaches that engage learners’ interest in relation to goals that they see as worthwhile can release additional discretionary effort and a ‘can do’ attitude. Tests or examinations are often used to prompt such motivation but the skill of the good teacher lies in establishing in children and young people the more intrinsic satisfaction that comes from making the effort to address and succeed with challenging tasks. In that way, lifelong learning can become a matter of personal fulfilment as opposed to one-off responses to external demands.

All children and young people will encounter difficulties with learning of one kind or another at different points in their school careers. Such difficulties need to be identified early and addressed before they become entrenched. Early intervention is therefore an integral part of good teaching and learning.