ANDY THREADGOULD
The lessons from Cleverlands are important messages for teachers and school leaders, and in her visit, Lucy distilled these into three key areas. HIGH EXPECTATIONS SUPPORT COLLABORATION Firstly, the importance of genuinely high expectations for all pupils, with a belief in the ability of all to access and master key aspects of the curriculum. This is a view that almost all teachers would instinctively agree with and believe they live up to in their day-to-day work, but Lucy helped interrogate how a growth mindset is crucial – for both teachers and pupils – for all to make the most progress possible in their learning. Secondly, and closely linked to the first message, is that of the need for high quality support for those pupils who are struggling. Again, an easy response is that systems are already in place in UK schools, but Lucy provided interesting challenges regarding the power of peer mentoring and teacher expertise in helping unlock potential and provide all pupils with the opportunity to both learn and teach, the latter providing an important experience not only to support others within a strong school community, but also to use the process of peer teaching to question and clarify their own understanding beyond a superficial, performance level. Finally, Lucy explained the different systems which can help to break down the isolation of teaching to provide collaborative professional communities to increase effectiveness and manage workload to the benefit of all. In the rest of this article, I hope to explore how the first of Lucy’s messages might help shape the attitudes of pupils and teachers at Dulwich College: what do we mean by genuinely high expectations? In recent years the work of Carol Dweck has caught the imagination of educationalists, along with no little criticism. In particular, Dweck’s concept of a growth mindset offers a challenge to pupils (and teachers and parents) who may be inclined to make the limiting assumption that academic ability is a fixed and innate entity. Under this fixed mindset , pupils are therefore ‘good at maths’, or ‘sporty’, or ‘musical’ - or otherwise - and their educational outcomes will be determined by these inherent traits, about which they, and their teachers, can do very little.
Of course, every child is born unable to speak, walk or feed themselves! Whether we refer to biologically primary or secondary learning*, by early childhood they are already demonstrating new skills and independence, which will continue to allow them to develop to solve equations, catch a ball, or play the recorder. The right combination of environment and support therefore develops, in every young person, the capacity to achieve exceptional things. A fixed mindset can also create crippling anxiety around performance. If achievement is based on ‘intelligence’ or ‘talent’, any failure or underperformance must logically be a function of weakness, with devastating consequences for the individual’s self-worth. The consequences of this are explored in the very interesting book, ‘Excellent Sheep’ by William Deresiewicz which explores the high-pressure environment of Ivy League colleges and intensive graduate employment programs in the US. The criticisms of Dweck’s work are usually built on the strawman argument that growth mindset theory proposes that effort is far more important than talent, and therefore anyone could be a Nobel prize- winning mathematician, professional footballer or musician. In fact, Dweck argues that effort combined with talent is crucially important, and it is the belief that all pupils have some latent talent, and that this talent can be developed (even if not infinitely) which maximises the opportunities for success in every individual. The joy of the teaching profession is helping young people learn new concepts, languages and systems of thinking, and relishing their growing confidence in using the ideas we teach to understand and explore their world. We are particularly delighted when pupils exceed expectations, but when this happens, we might ask ourselves: is it because our initial expectations were simply too low?
DEPUTY MASTER ACADEMIC
We were delighted to host Lucy Crehan at the College on 24th May 2024 as our keynote speaker at the Summer Term INSET Day. Lucy began her teaching career as a science teacher in London before setting out to explore the highest- performing education systems according to PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) rankings. Lucy lived with teachers in Finland, Shanghai, Japan, Canada and Singapore as she spent time in Cleverlands What can we learn from high performing school systems?
*learning that happens without the need for instruction is biologically primary
schools observing lessons, volunteering in classrooms, and speaking to pupils. This research culminated in the publication in 2016 of ‘ Cleverlands: the secrets behind the success of the world’s education superpowers’ 1 which was regarded by The Economist as one of its Books of the Year and helped launched Lucy’s career as a speaker and international education consultant. Lucy is currently an Associate Advisor for Curriculum at Swansea University and teaches on the Masters programme at the University of Buckingham.
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