I recently came across an interesting article titled “Straight Talk About Children and Sport”. The article discussed the way that young children describe success in sport and outlined a British study by Dr Jean Whitehead in which 3000 primary children were surveyed on this topic. As I read through the research findings, I began to wonder what our students at CCSC might have to say about “success” and decided to do a little research of my own.
I surveyed the 50 students in Stage 2 to see how they perceive success, both in general, and in relation to the different programs at CCSC. The questions were open-ended so that no responses were prompted and students were free to express their own ideas in full.
When asked to define success in general, 72 per cent of students’ answers described the completion or achievement of a goal. Only 18 per cent believed success involved winning something and another 3 per cent perceived success to be making an effort or improvement.
When it came to identifying a successful experience in their sporting/training program, 60 per cent of students described their achievement of a skill or personal goal. Twenty per cent identified their improvement in a skill as successful and the final 20 per cent wrote about an experience of winning.
When it came to identifying a successful experience they had had in the classroom, 70 per cent of students described their mastery of a skill or a special achievement. Twenty two per cent of the class identified an improvement in their learning as successful, 6 per cent believed that coming first in something was a success and 2 per cent wrote about a moment of fun.
It turned out that the results from our class had indeed been on par with that of the article I had been reading – that “children don’t see winning as the only kind of success” and that they are “more concerned with mastering their own environment and developing skills than with beating others.”
It was awesome to see that several students’ responses outlined the importance of having a growth mindset and “never giving up” when it came to achieving success. Many identified that the successful moments they have had in both sport and in the classroom were when something had been difficult or challenging to start with, but that they’d persisted and eventually achieved their goal.
Another pattern that emerged from responses was that for 16 per cent of students, teachers and coaches played a significant role in their most successful classroom or sporting moments. It became apparent that for some students, positive feedback and staff guidance through challenges really does have a large impact on their self-confidence and personal perception of success.
The responses from this survey made me very confident that even from an early age, CCSC is having a very positive impact on the way our students perceive the notion of success. We are helping them to see that it is not by comparing themselves to others that defines how successful they are, and that whilst their individual definition of success may be different to others, it is achieving that success that is meaningful to them personally that will lead to greater fulfilment in their lives.
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