Beyond the School Newsletter with Michael Fordham, Principal of Thetford Academy.
One of the things I have been talking to students at school about a lot these last few weeks is resilience. This idea, that we should be open to failing and nonetheless willing to keep going with something, even when it is hard, is quite difficult to teach. I am not at all convinced that any amount of telling children to “be more resilient” is likely to be successful.
What I think we can do in schools is to create the conditions in which resilience can be nurtured. In part, this is about accepting failure and helping to show how it is not (normally) an end, but a next step. We often have to do something badly or unsuccessfully before getting better at it. This is how we learn from mistakes. This means that sometimes we have to praise failure: when someone has tried, been unsuccessful, but kept going regardless.
The challenge in school at the moment is to beat me at chess. I am not a particularly strong chess player, but I have played casually for many years. Students at the school know that the first one to beat me will be the recipient of the largest chocolate bar I can find.
What I have been particularly impressed by is the willingness of students to come and have a go; I have played quite a few students at lunchtime in the canteen, and more seem to be up for taking on the challenge.
I am very confident that at some point a student will beat me, but I am not going to make it easy for them. I am not going to make deliberate errors or fail to capitalise on any of their mistakes.
The reason I am confident one will soon beat me is that, each time they come back, they have got better and better. And it means that, when one of them finally does win, that victory will be all the more special to them.
Michael Fordham
