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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iuPewWbp2U

Mental toughness is the secret to success

How does a child, at the age of 17 get back up?

We need to train our 17 year olds to take charge of themselves.

Think of your C grade student, How much of your effort went into getting them their grade?

Now think of your A* student, How much of your effort went into getting them their grade?

It was my mum that believed in me and for that I believed in her

It was my teacher that believed in me and for that I believed in them

Little by little, coming in to do the rehab, step by step, you started to see improvement

Little by little, studying for my own understanding, step by step, starting to see improvement

I was able to jog and then run, but there were loads of injuries on the way

Can we relate to this in terms of our students experiences in our own subjects from Year 1 to Year 2?

The only thing that stands between success and failure is mental toughness, its about being
resilient

Some people train brilliantly but in a race, they don’t win!

Think of that student who does all their HW, focusses in the class, works hard and studies hard but
when it comes to exams, they still get a B instead of the A* you would expect of them based on their
work.

What do they lack? Could it be mental toughness? Could it be that they are not confident in difficult
situations like exams? Could it be that they lack resilience? How can you build that?

They are already doing all the work that you are telling them to do and so they’ve done everything
they can to please you. But are you there for them during the 2 hour exam? Or will they be there
only for themselves

Being an athlete isn’t like another job, the gym, the strengthening, the mind work, the fitness. For
one shot… for 11 seconds.

The waking up early for 9 o clock lessons, the 4 long lessons, the effort to maintain attendance, the
punctuality, the experiments, the write ups, the coursework, the research, the hours of typing, all
the homework, week in week out, the study, the revision timetable, the sacrifices, the class tests,
the mock exams, the note making, the book reading, doing past exam papers, the effort in
understanding mark schemes, the questions asked in class, the successes, the failures, the
competition with classmates, THE TWO YEARS of my life!

All for 2 and a half hours in June.

If they are not resilient in those two hours, aren’t we wasting our time?

Because that is what it boils down to.

Youre on a start line with seven other women

Youre in an exam room with 24 other students

You have a man holding a gun

You have an invigilator standing by a clock

Theres so much going on, your family in the crowd, everyone screaming wanting you to do well

Family pressure to do well

How do you put that all aside and say ok, I have to focus on myself… focus on my lane… focus on
me

If you train them to help themselves, they will focus on themselves, on their lane because in the
exam room, only they can help themselves.

Go after your goals and balance it out the right way

In the end its about knowing whats important to you and what makes you thrive

That’s not just athletics

That’s life.

What does student Resilience mean to you? (post it and place on a whiteboard)

While you are here have a look at what others have written

Resilience studies seem to start with disruption and return to normalcy and have helped many
natural systems survive over the years.

resilience is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” (Merriam
Webster).

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines resilience as the process of adapting well in
the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress.

The APA also stresses that building resilience takes time and intentionality.
Individual resilience involves

positivity,

motivation,

self-belief,

emotional ability,

perseverance,

self-reflection,

It is more satisfying for a young person to partly understand something completely independently

Willingness in helping themselves

Feels a higher degree of accomplishment – ‘I did this mostly on my own, with some help from my

Feels a sense of achievement that is purely owned by themselves with little external guidance

It is more satisfying for a young person to fully understand something after a teacher led
explanation

Willingness in being helped

Feels accomplished – ‘I owe my success to my teacher without whose help I couldn’t have done it’

Feels a sense of achievement because they did everything as they were told

In Bartusevičienė et al. (2021), the student and faculty perceptions about the migration to online
learning during Covid-19 were examined

The key aspects that emerged was that resilience depended on

availability of resources

A scaffolded support network

Continuous communication between teacher and student

Building the knowledge base