Here’s a short lesson in critical thinking to help improve your attitude to your students being wrong. A young child in your class says: “It flies because it’s a bird, obviously!” Question: is the child right or wrong?

We know that successful students are those who are resilient, and there has been increasing amounts written about how to develop resilience in our students. There is lots of excellent advice, lots of good strategies, lots of excellent applications of Dweck’s growth mindset or Claxton’s building learning power. But I think there is one simple thing that we can do in class every day that will go a long way to helping students become more resilient, or at least giving them permission to build the confidence and perseverance needed.