Strategies to Build Resilience
BMS motto ‘Aspire to Achieve’ has at its foundation, the idea of resilience. Indeed, as a community, we work hard to develop students who can embrace the challenge and emotionally...
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BMS motto ‘Aspire to Achieve’ has at its foundation, the idea of resilience. Indeed, as a community, we work hard to develop students who can embrace the challenge and emotionally...
Posted by Claire Till
At this point in our year 8 drama curriculum our students would usually be creating plays to communicate the problems with social media – cyberbullying, lower social skills,...
Posted by Greg Knowles
This week’s focus was on the reign of Elizabeth I which took in the events such as the Spanish Armada and the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. It has been great to hear...
Posted by Sara Ash - Deputy Headteacher
A couple of months ago on Wednesday 26th February, I had the pleasure of taking a group of 50 year-8 students on a trip to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London to see a...
Posted by Lee Cox
When Mr Knowles reminded me that it was my turn to write an article I initially panicked. What could I write about? The articles in the newsletter have been stories of...
Posted by Morag Waring
In the maths department, we are constantly impressed by the work ethic displayed by our A Level students. It is no secret that A Level maths is difficult and comes with a lot of...
Posted by Lara Timmins
Posted by Di Mcildowie
This week I was delighted to receive an article from a year 8 parent, responding to my plea to share mini and mega gains during this lockdown period. So it is with great pleasure...
Posted by Lauren Wright
This house believes that drug use should be treated as a mental health issue rather than a criminal offence. The Final Verdict: Through all of these strong arguments made by the...
Posted by Suresh Varsani
Posted by Sara Ash - Deputy Headteacher
BMS motto ‘Aspire to Achieve’ has at its foundation, the idea of resilience. Indeed, as a community, we work hard to develop students who can embrace the challenge and emotionally cope with them to continue learning and progress both their knowledge and skills. For instance, getting students used to being challenged is one of the most important things we do at BMS and really proves to students that we have high expectations of them all.
Similarly, explicitly sharing with students that we know the remote learning being set is difficult for them to do encourages them to problem-solve and understand that a high level of effort is required to be successful. One relatively easy strategy that can be transferred from the classroom to the home is to chunk the task into smaller achievable goals that students can tick off as they go.
A second successful strategy to build resilience in learning used at BMS is questioning and discussion around the topic being studied. Indeed, effective questioning is a non-negotiable of our stretch and challenge provision. A well-structured question can reveal a student’s thinking as well as set off other questions in the student’s mind and is something that parents/carers can engage with at home during this time of remote learning.
Examples could be asking your child to summarise the learning they have completed in three sentences, giving a counter-argument to what they have been reading or asking what part of the information do they think is most important and why. As such building resilience by asking them to clarify their thinking, challenge assumptions, and build arguments.
Finally, as teachers at BMS continue to reward students with R points just noticing and commenting on the positive qualities that students demonstrate can nurture these behaviours such as empathy. Qualities that are central to building positive relationships on a wider scale outside the home. Importantly, building resilience in our students is made effective through the partnership between BMS and parents/carers and is a life-long learning process where mastering it takes effort and engagement with the wider community be it in person or remotely.
During this weird time of social isolation and public announcements, I will be the first to admit that I focused on my physical health primarily with Joe Wicks slowly becoming a...