Junior School Prefect creates thought-provoking video about learning from mistakes
A Junior School Prefect recently created and shared this thought-provoking video in a whole-school assembly which explored learning from mistakes and being resilient.
Throughout this term, pupils in the Junior School have been considering how disappointment is a natural and expected part of life – no matter who we are, or what we become. The video highlights ways we can improve how we feel about mistakes. It also offers suggestions on how we might respond more positively to the mistakes of others.
Matthew O’Reilly, Head of St Mary’s Junior School comments: “At St Mary’s, we prepare girls for the future challenges and hurdles they may face. We help them to see disappointments not as failures, but as an essential part of life. By listening to our pupils, we help them to contextualise each experience – encouraging them to face each experience with determination and positivity.”
Headmistress Charlotte Avery recently wrote a blog about coping effectively with disappointment, explaining how High Performance Learning gives the students skills such as “logical, critical and crucially flexible ways of thinking” which help them deal positively with challenges they may face; this is important as it enables the girls to fulfill their potential by removing self-limiting behaviour. Writer Matthew Syed also emphasised the importance of developing soft skills like resilience in Chris Parr's recent article in the TES; he explained that "it is important that children are given the space to learn by doing, and to occasionally fail, but not to see that as devastating".
Coping effectively with disappointment and building resilience is a key part the St Mary’s ethos; one of our Mary Ward ‘characteristics’ is ‘dealing with disappointment’, and from the Junior School through to Senior School and Sixth Form, St Mary’s girls have the support of staff who, alongside pupils’ families, guide them and help them develop resilience over time as they prepare for life beyond school.