Do we spoon feed our pupils too much?

I have been teaching pupils of upper primary and lower secondary age for many years. I see many absolutely first rate primary teachers who are very good at supporting individual children and helping them reach their full potential.

This all sounds like a perfect recipe for good education and, indeed, results in terms of tests suggest that this is so. At a recent inspection the enthusiasm for learning was something that was commented on by the inspection team as was the fact that they were very good about talking about their learning.

This all sounds like I am boasting about the school where I am fortunate to work. I certainly am not really meaning to and, in fact, I am more keen to talk about one of the unexpected consequences of this excellent education.

By supporting the pupils so much they become used to getting things right and they come to expect success. As things get harder in subjects such as maths and science as they move into the secondary years we often see previously successful pupils struggling when they find something difficult.

I would suggest that this is directly down to the fact that these same pupils were not allowed to get things wrong in earlier years. We now face the challenge of developing resilience in the pupils and we have developed a policy where we are regularly using a "language of learning" and we emphasise the following attributes:

• Resilience
• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Independence
• Participation
• Reflection
• Organisation

Things would be so much easier, and pupils would develop into better long term learners if only they were given more chances to fail at younger ages. There has been too much emphasis on the importance of success in the last few decades. What we really want is pupils who can cope with getting something wrong and who see this as a learning opportunity rather than a problem. This can only be achieved in a school where all stakeholders buy into this.