| Grit, tenacity, perseverance, and resilience | ||||
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I usually give up when I face an unexpected challenge or receive negative feedback. When a task or experience is too hard, I am unable to work through the challenges to find a solution
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I need a lot of support to deal with setbacks, negative feedback and difficult challenges. I am starting to work through challenges but still need to be supported and encouraged not to give up.
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I am learning to persevere and to not give up even when tasks are challenging. Major setbacks or difficulties may throw me off track sometimes, but I can deal with small or medium challenges by pausing, reflecting, adapting, and finding new solutions.
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I persevere and never give up, even when working on the most challenging tasks. When faced with major setbacks or negative feedback, I pause, reflect, adapt, and work through the challenge to find a solution. I understand and can talk about why the character qualities are important for my life.
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My grit, tenacity, perseverance, adaptability, and resilience allow me to work through any challenge or setback and to help others do the same. I seek out feedback and use it to help my learning. I understand that the character qualities are essential for creating meaningful change in my life and the world.
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Year 11 students hiking to Mount Kosciuszko while on retreat in Jindabyne.
Working towards achieving your goals
Working towards achieving your goals
By Mrs Louise Wallace-Richards, Acting Deputy Principal, Head of Secondary School
It's the end of Week 3 already and the Secondary School has begun the year’s learning in earnest. For example, the Year 12 student leaders have undergone leadership training and set goals for their various portfolios for 2025, and Year 11 students have attended a retreat in Jindabyne focused on building their grit and resilience for tackling their senior studies over the next two years. Year 12 students have been having one-on-one goal meetings with senior staff, discussing their ATAR estimates and how they will seek to maintain and build on their Year 11 results.
I spoke to Radford Secondary School staff and students at the first assembly of the year about how we build our community culture. We want every student to feel safe, known, valued, supported and engaged. I also spoke to the students about their responsibilities to build a positive school culture by being:
- actively engaged in their learning,
- taking responsibility for their behaviour,
- respecting all members of the school community,
- respecting the property and facilities of the College, and
- wearing the uniform with pride.
Please encourage your children to wear the uniform according to wardrobe guidelines outlined on Nexus or in the College diary correctly, adhering to the rules around tucking in shirts for seniors and wearing skirts or dresses to the right length – just above the knee.
Uniform unites us as a team and gives us a collective sense of identity. We encourage our students to wear it with pride.
I also reminded the student body at our first assembly about our classroom expectations, which are outlined in the poster on the right and in every classroom. All of these expectations can be reduced to our Radford Learner traits of self-regulation and being principled. Ensuring devices are away in lockers, for example, helps our students to concentrate in class; and being prepared for class with the right equipment helps students to complete tasks. It also means they are well-organised and ready to learn.
At the Year 11 retreat and during a Z-line lesson for Year 12s this week, we discussed how to build grit and resilience so they can manage the highs and lows of College life and thrive. Grit is about sustained, consistent effort toward a goal, even when we struggle, falter, or temporarily fail (Positive Psychology.com), while resilience is one of the Secondary School Learner Traits.
One of the experts on grit and resilience in the education world is psychologist and former teacher, Dr Angela Duckworth. An excellent clip that summarises her work and has been shared with Year 11 and 12 students can be found at this link. The diagram from the clip below clearly shows the premise behind her work.
Duckworth argues that talent is nothing without effort. She then goes on to state that effort is the defining factor for achievement and that if we all work hard every day at something we want to improve in, and have the mindset that we can improve, we will have a much greater chance of being successful in achieving our goals.
I invite you to have a conversation with your child about their grit, perseverance and resilience using the AISNSW Deep Learning progression below. Discuss which strategies they will implement this year to help them move right along the progressions to ensure 2025 is a year they will not only learn content and skills in subjects, but also develop the character traits of grit and resilience to help them keep working towards achieving their goals, even when everything does not go to plan.