Encourage pupils to take on new challenges and experiences

This intention is about making challenges part and parcel of every pupil’s school experience. Pupils can be given a list of possible challenges appropriate for their age, from which they can choose to attempt. Challenges could include academic, sporting, musical, performance, projects, swimming, presentations, leadership and other new skills. These challenges could be accomplished termly or yearly.

Consider each subject area and phase of your school and what reasonable challenges could be set for your pupils. These could be project-based activities that spark pupils’ curiosity or take them out of their comfort zone. You could compile a range of challenges that pupils can choose from each year. Teachers should help pupils choose the most appropriate challenge for their personal situation, ability or aspiration. This could be done during PSHE lessons. Emphasise to pupils that taking on a challenge may not be successful at first but that is ok.

The challenges could be framed as fair, medium or difficult. For example, the three levels for a learning to play tennis challenge could be (Key Stage 2 onwards):

• Fair – hold a rally for 10–20 shots with a partner three times.
• Medium – win a set three times against someone of a similar standard.
• Difficult – get to the finals or win a tennis tournament.

Or a reading challenge could be structured as:

• Fair – read two books in one month and speak about the story and content to an adult (primary).
• Medium – read three books and include one non-fiction in one month. Write or present your views of the books you’ve read (primary and secondary).
• Difficult – read three or more books per month which include fiction, non-fiction, poetry/a play and write or present your recommendations for the library (primary and secondary).

Before you start, ask pupils to undertake a baseline assessment on their attitudes to risk and challenge – parents can complete this on behalf of younger children. Be sure to adapt the assessment to suit your school context.

Encourage pupils to reflect on the challenges they experience with some prompts:

• What did you learn from today’s challenge?
• How did you keep going when you struggled?
• What steps did you take to make you successful today?
• What are some different strategies you could have used?
• If you had more time or a hint do you think you might have been more successful?

Top tips

• Consider the pupils who might benefit from specific challenges – for example, shy ones to take on small-scale, low-threat challenges such as presentations to a small group, or inactive/passive ones to take on a new sporting challenge.
• The range of competitions should be inclusive so that all pupils can participate.
• Keep records of pupils’ participation rates.
• Encourage pupils to reflect on their experiences – good and bad – by keeping a resilience diary.
• Pupils with significant mental health or anxieties will need careful and sensitive support and expert advice from the SEND department.

Further resources

• Find out more about the importance of children taking on challenges.
• Read about why challenge should be fostered in all years.

It’s important that staff and parents are aware of the benefits of providing challenges to overcome. To help with this, you should aim to give guidance about supporting sensible risk-taking, learning new skills and the importance of having stickability.

It would be useful to train staff to use the language of resilience when supporting pupils to take on new challenges and setting personal targets. These include:

• ‘Never give up.’
• ‘I can’t do this yet, but I will keep trying.’
• ‘Failure is part of learning.’

You can also offer parents tips on helping their child take on challenges and help parents decide age-appropriate risk-taking.

A workshop for parents could follow a similar format to that for staff:

• Ask participants to consider their own attitudes to risk. They could complete an ‘attitudes to risk’ survey.
• Ask participants to discuss their own experience of how they were raised and how this may have affected their confidence, resilience and success in later life.
• Present findings on the economic and societal impact of a risk-averse society.
• Present examples of age-appropriate ways to develop independence and resilience, such as:
  • using resilient language (‘you can’t do this yet…’)
  • encouraging children to persevere with things they may initially find difficult or not to their liking (even food)
  • encouraging the use of praise when staff and parents observe them being resilient. (By doing so, children learn what adults value and this becomes part of their self-efficacy.)

Provide a hints and tips list of ways to encourage resilience (see ideas below). Better still, supplement this with ideas participants come up with from their own experience.

Top tips

• Use your school’s communication systems to send helpful reminders about keeping up the good work with developing pupils’ resilience.
• Signpost helpful tips to support age-appropriate risk-taking, including encouraging positive language on this matter on your school’s website.
• Teachers might want to consider the different challenges posed within subjects. Challenging targets and aspirations could be discussed regularly with pupils; helping them to reach short-term goals is also part of this intention.

Further resources

• Read more about the importance of taking on challenges for young children.
• Discover how to support children to manage stressful experiences proactively.

Take pupils out of their comfort zone. Being away from home and learning to cope without home comforts and support builds resilience. Schools are increasingly using residentials or nights away to help build pupils’ confidence to try things they would not ordinarily try. Consider the different experiences you want pupils to encounter and how pupils can take on different challenges while being away from home.

You will need to be well-funded to ensure that all pupils have equal access. These opportunities could be funded through the pupil premium allocation, fundraising activities or a charity contribution.

The kinds of experiences during the residentials could be:

• outdoor activities such as climbing, potholing, abseiling, orienteering, white-water rafting, team building activities
• organisational and leadership activities such as cooking, setting tables, planning meals, shopping and cleaning.

If the residential is abroad, consider setting navigation challenges and sightseeing experiences/activities.

Examples of experiences for younger pupils could be:

• packing clothes and making beds
• working in pairs or teams to complete activities.

Teachers can observe how well each child copes with being away from home and how well they have managed their emotions and remained positive.

Top tips

• Older pupils (primary and all secondary) could record their experiences in a ‘resilience diary’ or even via a video diary. Pupils should comment on their confidence, teamwork and independence, especially how they problem-solved or overcame challenges.

Further resources

• Organise a sleepover at the British Museum.
• PGL offers a wide range of activities and experiences.
• Explore the educational experiences available through Plan My School Trip.

Many schools set academic targets for pupils in their reports but this intention asks schools to develop personal development targets as well. Helping pupils to be more reflective on their personal (including character) development helps build the skills and attributes to become resilient.

Your policy should begin with the rationale for tracking pupils’ personal skills. This could include your school’s drive to promote a growth mindset, promoting lifelong learning, preparing pupils for life beyond school, helping pupils learn to deal with setbacks, preparing pupils to be active and responsible citizens, helping pupils to take care of themselves and others.

Consider how well pupils have developed these resilient skills:

• being aware of and coping with their emotions
• controlling their impulses
• being optimistic
• finding solutions/problem-solving
• empathy
• being independent/believing in themselves
• developing relationships/working in teams
• being persistent and not giving up.

The EYFS framework and Development Matters are useful for tracking these types of skills. By reviewing these skills with pupils, you can discuss what they could do next to develop their skills further.

For these targets to be meaningful, it is important that the curriculum is explicit how these skills might be promoted. In addition, all staff should report and record times when they have witnessed pupils demonstrating resilient skills. Conversely, they should also note when they have witnessed pupils struggling with their resilience. This information can be collated over the year on the school’s management information system.

Teachers would need to highlight opportunities for pupils to demonstrate these skills in school and lessons – catch them being resilient! Teachers should use their observations and discussions with pupils to set targets. Download this example template of a target-setting form that pupils can complete with a teacher. When reporting to parents, staff should identify two strengths and one area for further development annually.

Top tips

• Pupils with significant mental health or anxieties will need careful and sensitive support from the SEND department.
• Adapt and develop the criteria to match your school’s context.

To complete this intention, schools will first need to publicise the range of opportunities available for pupils to develop their character and personal skills. These can be in the form of participation in school performances, assemblies, leadership positions, school trips, representing the school in sporting or musical competitions, projects, charity fundraising and community work. Therefore, you will need to encourage all pupils to participate and take on new challenges to take themselves out of their comfort zone.

Over the year, pupils should keep a record of the new experiences and challenges they have undertaken which can form a kind of passport/portfolio that demonstrates their commitment to develop their personal skills. By undertaking as many opportunities available as possible, pupils should feel connected, valued and positive. Pupils can then draw on this when they experience setbacks.

Ask pupils to identify the experience or challenge and then explain how it has helped them personally. They could put together their experiences in a scrapbook (encourage them to collect memories in photos, tickets, brochures, etc.) but they don’t have to produce a hard copy – a media presentation may be more appropriate and engaging for older students.

Top tips

• Operate an awards scheme for pupils who have undertaken a number of ‘challenges’ and/or experiences over the year.
• Adapt the range of challenges/experiences to suit your context.
• Teachers should check in with pupils termly to ensure that they are working towards their portfolio of challenges to ensure that all pupils focus on their resilience.

There is nothing more inspirational than hearing about people you know or who are just like you and have experienced triumph over adversity. Almost everyone can describe times when they have encountered very challenging situations in their lives. Pupils will find hearing about stories of both their teachers’ own experiences and past pupils’ experiences of undertaking challenges in their lives extremely helpful when navigating their own life experiences. Current pupils could also be encouraged to tell stories of how they have overcome obstacles or challenges too.

Top tips

• Try compiling the stories of triumph over adversity, or how people dealt with challenges and overcame them, into a series of assemblies. Pupils could try to work out who the person is. The assembly title could start with, ‘little known fact…’.
• If you’re in a small school with a small pool of achievements to draw from, consider telling the stories of famous people who pupils may know instead.