Our Curriculum at Lane End Primary School along with our Super Learning Power skills provide our children with daily opportunities to challenge themselves and work towards personal, group and class goals. 

The children are constantly encouraged to persevere and keep trying whenever they face a challenge during lessons or at any part of the school day.

We believe it is good to push children out of their comfort zone as this is when the really exciting learning happens.

To develop the children's understanding and to celebrate a fantastic growth mindset attitude we award our special 'Growth Mindset Award' during our Star of the Week assembly to any child who has challenged themselves and been a really great Reflective Ralph. 

We shared the story below with the children to introduce the idea of Growth Mindset and explain how we all need to practise when learning new skills and it takes time and effort to achieve things. 

Lightbulb Moments!

Imagine that in your brain are billions of tiny lightbulbs. There is a lightbulb for everything you could ever do. There’s a dancing lightbulb, a maths lightbulb, a soccer lightbulb, an imagination lightbulb, a science lightbulb, a cooking lightbulb, a flying a plane lightbulb …. You get the idea. The thing is, they only turn on when you do what they are there for, so not all of your light bulbs will glow all the time. Some of them will never glow at all. That’s exactly as it should be. Nobody is great at absolutely everything!

The really cool thing about these lightbulbs is that the more you turn them on (by practicing whatever it is they’re there for), the brighter they glow, and the brighter they glow, the stronger your brain. The first time you try something, its lightbulb will only glow a little bit but the more you practice and learn that thing, the brighter that lightbulb will glow. Remember, not all of these lightbulbs are glowing all the time – only the ones that have been turned on.

If you never ride a bike, for example, the riding-a-bike lightbulb won’t glow at all. The first time you ride a bike, that lightbulb will glow just a little bit. The more you ride your bike, the brighter the riding-a-bike lightbulb will glow. It might take a lot of practice before your riding-a-bike lightbulb is as bright as your teeth-brushing lightbulb but when it is as bright, you’ll be just as good at riding a bike as you are at brushing your teeth.

Of course, your teeth-brushing lightbulb is very bright because you brush your teeth every morning and every night! When it comes to riding bikes though, you might fall off a few times but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be great at riding bikes. It just means that you’re not good at riding them yet. You’re still charging up that lightbulb. 

Every time you learn something or practice something, you’re turning on a lightbulb and strengthening your brain. In the same way exercise makes your body strong by strengthening your muscles, learning and practicing makes your brain strong. You’re very capable of learning things and strengthening your brain, but no brain is going to build itself. All brains can all be strong, smart and capable of amazing things, but they need you to work and make the lightbulbs glow … and you can do that brilliantly.