Developing dispositions

In sport, we often refer to what is known as a ‘challenge vs threat’ state: the idea that performers need to feel they have the knowledge, resources and external support to take on the challenges that face them. Similarly in a classroom context, each time a student walks into a class, they make a judgement as to whether they should attempt a task, based on their perceived level of capability (Jones M McCarthy et al., 2009). The goal within the 14 schools that form our trust is to shift as many students as possible from the ‘What’s the point of me even trying?’ or ‘I can’t do that’ mindsets towards the ‘Yes, I’ll give that a go’ mindset. In order to do this in a persuasive and relevant way for students at a primary and secondary level, we have engaged with the work of Costa and Kallick (Costa and Kallick, 2006) on the ‘habits of mind’ (Figure 1), with habits of mind defined as ‘the characteristics of what intelligent people do when they are confronted with pr