It's the last Friday in February and I’m still wondering where this academic year has gone!
As occasionally happens, my inspiration for today’s post came on Monday this week. I had the pleasure of accompanying a group of students to NACIS for the inaugural BISS/NACIS Performing Arts collaboration. Part of what I want to talk about today is directly related to its collaboration, however my spark was from something completely unrelated…
As we all know, our children love the climbing frames we have here at school, so the opportunity to use some climbing apparatus at a different school was super exciting! I am always nervous about such things, so stationed myself close to the monkey bars as my duty position. A small group of our younger girls were crowding around one of the ends and I saw the attempt to lift one girl up so she could get started. I wasn’t comfortable with this as a strategy, and explained that I really didn’t want any broken bones or hurt children; it would spoil our collective days. I could go on to explain to you the specifics of how these girls managed to coach each other to success, however that would not only be tedious, but not really the point. What I do want to explore is the sheer determination of this young girl and the refusal to give up. The sense of achievement when she dropped to the ground having managed to swing along the first few bars was palpable. Grinning widely, she did it again. And again. Each time more successfully until she was exhausted. We shared the beautiful moment of the joining of advice, demonstration and determination resulting in something which was seemingly impossible. To put this into ‘eduspeak’, this was growth mindset and peer coaching at its best.
So my word of the week is ‘determination’. I said earlier that my thoughts were related to the Performing Arts collaboration, and it is. The bringing together of 330+ students aged between 5 and 18 for 3 days from two different schools to learn and perform several pieces from scratch doesn’t ‘just happen’. It requires thought, planning and probably literal blood, sweat and tears (I am imagining I haven’t actually enquired). Just in case this wasn’t challenge enough, an unscheduled school closure for one of our schools immediately before the CNY holiday was announced. We would have to cancel or re-schedule. Bearing in mind the challenges of finding one date which was workable for two very different and busy schools with different holidays had been difficult enough, but needing to do the same again? Really?! I was with the team over lunch time when this was discovered and the disappointment in the room was tangible. The morning, although a challenge, had such a buzz that it was not really an option not to re-schedule. The team had come this far and the children were in flow. The team would make it work. They were determined.
Fast forward over a month between day 1 and days 2 and 3 and we got to the performance. Again, the team were both ambitious and determined. ‘Everything’ went to plan (as much as these things ever do… 😊) and the concert was spine-tinglingly amazing. With everything from the KS1/lower primary choir performing ‘Sing!’ to the symphony orchestras to traditional Chinese music from the Guzheng and a Chinese marching band as well as the whole stage (and more) filled with all performers from Y3 upwards to perform ‘Earth’. It was just incredible and the fact that it was achieved in such a short time just comes back to sheer determination.
I could carry on writing for a long time more about this because, coincidentally, my 'walk to the metro podcast' this week has linked to the same topic. (Is there such thing as coincidence in the day and age of AI?! Or did I subconsciously link the ideas together in my own head?) However, these aren’t supposed to be essays or entire book chapters, but I feel like I am not doing anyone justice if I don’t carry on for a little longer. So if you’re done your ‘quick read’ and are happy to stop, please do so. This next bit is definitely ‘deeper’, although still linked to the concept of determination.
I have been thinking about the power and benefit of the synergy of social media and real life; I'm glad I have been able to take the time to formulate these thoughts because it’s all too easy to ping out a post or photograph on one’s social media channel of choice, but it is much more satisfying to really think about it before doing so.
This particular podcast is the ‘The High Performance Podcast’ with Jake Humphry and Prof Damian Hughes. This particular episode (Dylan Hartley: Learning independence and responsibility) was with Dylan Hartley, ex-England rugby captain with a career peppered with disciplinary issues (an unusual choice, some may say, but an incredibly successful one) rugby enthusiast or not (I am not – we played football in my part of the Black Country) I would definitely recommend you listening to it – it is fascinating.
So here are my highlights:
When he is coaching, he doesn’t tell them what the players are doing wrong, instead he asks them "Are you thinking about what you're doing? Tell me what you're thinking." In order for them to coach themselves and for him to guide them.
Professional sport is a challenge, way more so than any of ‘us’ (the exceptions probably being Marlon, Michelle and Tom) could ever imagine or realise. Look up the ‘Dunning-Kruger effect’.
Q: How did you react to your greatest failure?
A: Depends how you perceive failure...
Q: Do you think failure is good?
A: 100%. Again, it’s struggle… it’s a good thing as long as you don’t let it define you.
Then linked to this (no pun intended) and thanks to LinkedIn this morning...
"FAILURE doesn’t mean the game is over, it means try again with experience" (Business2success)
Extra-curricular experiences are so powerful. Sport, music, performing arts etc. are all so worthwhile. I have so many wonderful memories of singing in the choir and playing (not awfully well) in bands and orchestras of the camaraderie as well as the simple pleasure of performing. We must re-frame our thinking so that we are not saying students are ‘missing’ learning time, but instead it is being re-purposed. You can learn content, but this ‘teaches’ so much more.
So that really is all from me today and thank you to those of you who read right to the end and didn’t just scroll to see this week’s musical reference.
Which is…
‘Stand by Me’ by Florence and the Machine. Thanks Spotify, I LOVE it!
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