Educational Insights丨Developing Learning Skills for Wellbeing

Melissa Meyers

Head of the Junior School

Our year 6 cohort undertook a ten-week leadership course to learn more about themselves by focussing on questions such as: what leadership is, what are my strengths, and what areas can I develop to positively influence others. The year 6 pupils reflected that the programme helped them to “Learn about teamwork, growth mindset and fixed mindset, and interviewing skills”, one pupil expressed, “I learned public speaking” and another “It helped me know what resilience is” and “How to communicate well.”

Our year 5 pupils learned about collaboration. Often, we see pupils working alongside others, cooperating with others but not truly collaborating. We believe it is so important to teach pupils how to collaborate specifically to understand and practise becoming active members of a team and able to share their thinking and voice with others to create a very effective team, learning with and from each other. They felt that the course taught them about “Teamwork and kindness” the importance of “Being positive”, how to be more confident sharing their own opinions “I learned how to talk without anxiety” and the realization that “Communicating with each other also needs some skills.”

In year 4, and during our elearning period, pupils had their thinking extended through sharing ideas and perspectives and building on them. Often in the Junior School context, we use Edward De Bono’s Thinking Hats to assist in this process, as younger pupils can visualise and practise considering all viewpoints: The White Hat: facts, The Green Hat: creativity, The Blue Hat: the bigger picture & process, The Black Hat: the difficulties, The Red Hat: feelings and emotions, The Yellow Hat: the benefits and value. These approaches help pupils learn how to adapt to problems which they encounter socially and academically and by highlighting and practising different thinking, with their peers, pupils become more adept at embracing and working through new challenges. We aim for our pupils to be innovative and have the confidence to generate and discover new ideas and thinking and become adept problem solvers. The year 4 pupils considered their learning and felt they now understood how to communicate more effectively by “Being brave, such as, when the others have an answer, but you have another idea” and felt encouraged, “I was inspired to think more” reminded to “Show kindness” and “To be more creative and think with your imagination”.

Some of you may have heard of a Growth Mindset, the term coined by Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck in her research of over twenty years and published book, ‘Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential’ (2017). Dweck believes that developing the right mindset, at any age is crucial for a successful and happy life. As part of the Resilience workshop, our year 3 pupils build on the learning from their Inquiry Brainwave unit and learn more about mindsets and the power of YET. In addition, they learn about neuroplasticity and how we help our brains grow through challenge. Complementing the work, we do here at Wellington, we believe these online sessions are a great chance for our students to learn to push themselves outside their comfort zone, embrace new experiences, challenges and persevere in areas that might not be their strengths yet. Our year 3 pupils are currently taking this course, so we don’t have their feedback yet.

What we have found through our pupils participating in the Role Models workshops is that they have been able to immediately put these newly taught tools and strategies into practice. We use a sophisticated and responsive curriculum framework to explicitly teach skills through our inquiry units and so the learning that pupils received through their Role Model sessions complements our curriculum and enables children to practice what they have learned immediately. Teachers noticed a difference and pupils felt more confident and reassured.

The impact data which Role Models collected states that 96% of children enjoyed or really enjoyed the courses, and 82% of the parents felt that the skills their child developed in their course are important or very important to their future. We agree and found that teachers learned from the experience too and other Wellington College schools, hearing of the success of the programme, have adopted Role Models too. This in turn has created another channel of communication between our Wellington College schools and beyond. Due to the success of the programme, we have already booked Role Models for the next academic year for our pupils in years 3 to 6. We have also approached Hugo to lead a staff INSET in August about the programme.

In their literature Role Model squote from the World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs report and list the 10 skills that applicants need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution:

I asked our Junior School Head Boy and Head girl, soon to be year 6 graduates, how prepared they feel for life in the senior school and what skills they feel they have developed throughout the junior school and as participants in the Role Models programme.