It is ok when things go wrong

This week we welcome Bryanston's Second Master, Peter Hardy, who shares his thoughts on how making mistakes can help to build emotional resilience.

According to Professor Richard Williams of the University of South Wales, “Emotional resilience measures our ability to cope with or adapt to stressful situations or crises” and these stressful situations can also include exams. At the moment pupils across the country are sitting important GCSE and A level exams and, for some, it is not necessarily the subject matter that will cause them an issue, but the general fear of getting something wrong.

Part of our role as teachers in preparing pupils for life outside school is to help them develop the right attitude and resilience to cope with the stress that comes with exams and, indeed, the many stressful situations they will find themselves in in later life. We need to help young people understand that it is OK when things go wrong. Too often the fear of getting something wrong prevents us from even making an attempt. Yes, there will be consequences, but knowing how to deal with those consequences and learn from mistakes is, to my mind, a key part of any education.

Providing plenty of opportunities for pupils to stretch themselves and leave their comfort zone allows them to learn how to make mistakes and take responsibility for their own success. Extra-curricular activities can play a vital part in this: whether it’s the Outdoor Adventure trip to Skern Lodge in the C year, participating in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, competing for the first team, giving an assembly to the rest of the school or taking part in the D Show, each pupil at Bryanston will eventually find themselves in a situation they are not used to and will, inevitably, make a mistake at some point. These experiences can be just as educational as a classroom task, if approached in the right way and with the right support, giving pupils greater insight into themselves and a better sense of self awareness.

According to research by Dr Suzanne Kobasa, resilient people view a difficulty as a challenge, not as a paralysing event and they spend their time and energy focusing on situations and events they have control over. The importance, therefore, of helping pupils to develop a sense of self awareness and learn how to identify where their efforts can have the most impact is essential to helping them feel in control and able to face challenges that arise. The tutorial system at Bryanston is intended to do just that. Through weekly one-to-one sessions the tutor encourages the pupil to reflect on their progress so far, where they worked well and where they need to focus their energy to improve: it is about teaching pupils to focus and direct their efforts where they can make a difference, rather than worrying about the things over which they have no control. Something we should all, perhaps, ensure we remember in our own endeavours.

Diverse community

This week our Head of Sixth Form, Ian McClary, shares his thoughts on diversity and inclusivity and the importance of being accepted as yourself and of accepting others for who they are.

What does it feel like to be included? To be able, honestly and openly, to be yourself and know that you will be welcomed, encouraged, supported and cared for because of that which makes you individual, distinctive or different? The answer is, it feels absolutely amazing - knowing that you are accepted because you are you and not because you are some edited version of yourself; that your perspective, experience, knowledge and skills are valued and can contribute towards the life and growth of the community of which you are a part, for as long as you are a part of it. It is just this kind of attitude that Bryanston seeks to foster.

Society at large may raise an eyebrow at the claim of a school like ours that we consider ourselves to be diverse, viewed, as we often are, as an ivory tower filled with the perfumed elite. Nothing could be further from the truth, either in reality or how we see ourselves. We tend to take for granted and consider normal the range of nationalities, backgrounds, interests, experiences and views to be found at Bryanston. But what is more important and what really makes us diverse, I think, are the ways, as a community, in which we genuinely value the individual. Whether a pupil or a member of staff, one doesn’t feel the pressure to fit in and conform; rather there is a willingness to move the furniture around to make sure no one bumps into it.

And so, when the school conducted its first LGBT survey last term to explore and learn more about this aspect of the human condition at Bryanston, it came as no surprise that it was received with warmth and thoughtfulness. Not only was it a census of a kind to show our LGBT pupils and staff that they are included and valued, but it also served to prompt our whole community to think about how well we treat LGBT people. Do they feel welcomed, valued and able to be themselves? While there are areas of school life we need to continue to think about, by comparison with the national picture of young people and teachers in schools nationally, the results were extremely encouraging. Incidences of homophobia at Bryanston are extremely low and there is a genuine acceptance and inclusion of LGBT identity and expression as a normal part of life’s rich tapestry. Questions were raised, naturally, about why this area merited particular focus when surely it is just an accepted and integrated aspect of society nowadays. An admirable assumption to make, but we wanted to make sure it was borne out by the experience of pupils and staff, as indeed it largely was.

Of course there are other areas surrounding equality and diversity which merit further scrutiny as we ask ourselves how inclusive a community we really are. These can take place in a variety of ways, most recently the development of a pupil-led Equality Society which has responded to the impulse to reflect, as any healthy community should, upon the various needs and perspectives of its members.

What has always struck me since I came to Bryanston five years ago and as I prepare to say goodbye to the first group of pupils that I have seen through the school, is that Bryanston is an unusual school for the way it embraces flexibility and change, both in the way it thinks and the way it operates. It is open to new ideas, reminding me of the Quaker idea of being open to new light, from whatever source it may come. This culture of openness and enquiry is a real strength, as well as an enjoyable one in which to participate, and it makes for an inclusive school which embraces diversity for the enrichment it inevitably brings.

Individual breadth

This week Edrys Barkham, Bryanston's Director of Admissions, explains the need for a balance between breadth and depth in education.

One of the defining characteristics of the primate family is intelligence. Juveniles of all species have an innate curiosity and a propensity to innovate. Learning is achieved through copying adults; there is some fascinating research showing that young bonobos take years to learn the skill of using stones to crack nuts, with varying degrees of success, by imitating their mothers.

Humans have finessed the transmission of culture from one generation to another by using language to pass on information as well as skills and this has been at the foundation of our cultural evolution. Many societies have developed formal education systems to ensure the transmission of knowledge. In Ancient Greece pupils (only boys!) were expected to gain information across a wide range of subjects by questioning their mentors. In early Islamic civilisation the purpose of education was to equip an individual to be an upstanding citizen, aware of their responsibilities to the world, society and God, and only through knowledge could an understanding of their own talents be realised. To be considered well educated in Europe during the Renaissance required knowledge of a broad range of subjects and the polymath was celebrated. Increasingly, the scope of our modern education system seems to be becoming more focused than ever before with a prescriptive and narrow choice of subjects, particularly post-16.

The new A levels appear to be enforcing a sort of intellectual monogamy on sixth formers with the majority nationally studying just three subjects, each of which is closed off and taught in isolation. This specialisation at A level has led to education in some schools becoming a quest for top grades and with the emphasis on the academic outcome at the cost of the co-curricular. We believe that by encouraging our pupils to explore their full range of talents through a breadth of activities and opportunities, our pupils are able to explore what they are really capable of achieving. Through the co-curricular programme, children can discover their own particular strengths and enhance their natural skills, helping them to develop confidence. Knowing they are good at a range of things gives them the confidence to tackle the areas they find more difficult and to develop grit. It is not possible for everyone to accomplish this level of self-knowledge and confidence solely in the classroom.

There is a fine balancing act between breadth and depth: a pupil with an academic bent will naturally be encouraged to study hard and explore a wide range of subjects, but not at the expense of playing sport, learning a musical instrument or taking up a range of hobbies and interests. At Bryanston, it is not unusual to the see a first team player take the leading role on stage, or for a musical soloist to compete in national academic competitions. The abundant life is celebrated and intelligence thrives.

The breadth of opportunities encapsulated in the concept of the ‘abundant life’ advocated by Thorold Coade (Bryanston Headmaster, 1932-1959) can reveal hidden talents and interests. A combination of compulsion and choice ensures all children gain insight into themselves; learning to play a musical instrument (which all Bryanston pupils in D do), having three afternoons of sport timetabled per week, getting involved in House Drama, writing for the school magazine, helping at charity events, all these activities develop a child’s confidence and belief in themselves.

Through tutorial conversations, pupils reflect on these varied activities to determine what was successful and what wasn’t and they discover what works best for them. This is a powerful tool for the future. Encouraging an adolescent to think about not only what they did, but where they did it, how they did it and how successful was the outcome further adds to their repertoire of understanding what makes them tick. The reflective process helps develop the pupil into a self-directed learner, able to focus on improving themselves and encouraging a problem-solving approach to learning in all areas. Engaging in a wide range of activities, academic and co-curricular, broadens the mind, encourages creativity and builds confidence for tackling new problems.

In an increasingly complicated and multifaceted world, creative and innovative thinkers are needed to solve global problems with new ideas, or to use old ideas in new ways. A wide-ranging education where pupils are able to develop their own individual breadth of talents and interests will, we hope, result in broad-minded, independent thinking, creative citizens for the future.