As teachers, it often becomes second nature to provide our students with encouraging affirmations such as “you can do it”, “just picture seeing a pass grade on your certificate” or “you’re not far off, just a few more marks”. Despite these well-meaning messages of motivation, perhaps we are asking for an impossibility for some of our students, especially GCSE resit students, given the situation of perceived “failure” they find themselves in.
Adopting a positive mindset can be a difficult and daunting task and one that we shouldn’t just expect our students to be able to do automatically. Instead, we can empower our students with regular and meaningful encounters with success in the classroom, so that we can move beyond mindset and step towards success as a realistic and regular experience.
Mindset expert Carol Dweck[1] explores the difference between a fixed and growth mindset and highlights the value of learners being able to succeed where they have once failed, when developing a growth mindset. This valuable work raises the questions: what about those learners who have only ever known educational failure? How do we expect those learners to suddenly develop a whole new way of thinking and see themselves as able and successful?
What if the very nature of the resit course is what is imposing a fixed mindset upon the learners? To what extent would learners be able to adopt a growth mindset if they were not repeating the very thing they have failed at, in exactly the same way? We cannot assume all learners are able to continually learn in a new way, perceive challenges in a new light, and ultimately pass a qualification.
