Here at St. Andrews International School Sukhumvit S107, we feel responsible for moulding young children into successful individuals in the future with our holistic system of learning.

Part of that holistic learning system—which also covers academics, extracurricular activities, co-curricular programmes, and even playtime—includes fostering a growth mindset.

What we mean by that is instilling into the youth a sense of self-reliance and incentive to improve rather than to just go on with life doing the bare minimum. We show them the benefits of growth so that they’d want to mature and improve on their own.

The growth mindset in St. Andrews’ holistic system promotes social and emotional development as well as self-motivated academic improvement.

What’s Involved in Fostering a Growth Mindset?

The holistic development of St. Andrews children truly involves developing every aspect of themselves, including their mental, physical, social, academic, extra-curricular, and co-curricular abilities.

We emphasise the importance of getting better at your skills daily to optimise their daily life and face the struggles of tomorrow today.

We foster a growth mindset in our youths in order to give them a sense of empowerment. They’re more receptive to growing from dependent children to fully developed independent adults once they realise the power of self-improvement.

“Fostering a self-motivated growth mindset in children will give them more of a fighting chance in their future success.” (Teacher Quote)

Beyond rote memorisation and step-by-step instruction, instilling a sense of self-reliance will pay dividends to their future success more than anything else.

The idea here is to have the empowered, motivated kids take more ownership of their learning. They’re not just doing it because their parents, teachers, or authority figures told them to. They have to realise early on the value of maturation and the freedom of independence.

Our young learners will be taught the importance of hard work and dedication through our holistic promotion of their self-worth and the value of believing in their burgeoning abilities.

Developing Abilities Through Hard Work and Dedication

Your children can do anything they put their heart and soul in. That’s what St. Andrews Sukhumvit wishes to instil in the children in our institution. We want to promote the belief that they can develop abilities through hard work and dedication.

There is no free lunch. If they wish to survive in this dog-eat-dog world, they have to grow up and have the mindset to want to grow up. They need to avoid arrested development.

Many Millennials and Gen Z have issues coping with adulthood and “adulting” because they had been spoiled by their helicopter parents. We wish to improve upon those mistakes in upbringing by holistically teaching today’s youth the value of growth.

Our teachers encourage the St. Andrews kids to embrace challenges and see them as growth opportunities instead of hindrances. Learning from failure is the key to success.

Those who develop a growth mindset are more likely to develop themselves holistically. They’re more built to have grace under fire and to persevere in the face of adversity because they know what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger.

View Setbacks as Temporary and Seek Feedback for Improvement

The young minds of St. Andrews are holistically trained to view setbacks as temporary and seek feedback to improve themselves. It’s holistic in the sense that these values can be applied socially, academically, and physically (as in sports or physical education).

Across the board, a growth mindset proves essential because children and adolescents are likely to face some sort of challenge or wall that impedes their progress.

They shouldn’t be easily discouraged and should learn to take calculated risks in order to improve on their Maths tests, their English exams, or their ability to win at sports and other extracurricular activities they’re interested in.

They should have a positive attitude towards problems so that they could tackle them in a problem solver or trouble shooter sort of way, with the end goal being their maturation.

Thus, our educators in St. Andrews provide constructive feedback that focuses on optimising effort and getting more self-improvement rather than just thinking about the end result. How you go about holistically improving is as important as the improvement itself.

The Growth Mindset is Self-Motivated Achievement and Fulfilment

We first encourage our kids to indulge in their interests, whether they’re subjects that are part of their academic curriculum or they’re extracurricular activities, in order to demonstrate better than words how fulfilling it is to have a growth mindset.

From there, we also teach them about the science behind how the brain can develop and improve with regular practice, which is otherwise known as neuroplasticity.

Teaching our learners how to adopt a growth mindset is extremely beneficial to them because it provides them motivation to succeed and fulfil their innate purpose. Instead of just being human beings, they’re humans who think, act, and enact change in themselves and their environment.

The cultivation of a growth mindset empowers the young minds of St. Andrews to believe in their own potential and develop a passion for learning that goes beyond grades.

The children should be taught that their intelligence is malleable and can grow over time. The more they study, practice, and socialise, the better they become at academics, sports, and partaking in society.

How to Teach Self-Improvement and Foster the Growth Mindset

We understand that the growth mindset gives kids motivation to academically, socially, emotionally, psychologically, and physically succeed in whatever endeavour before them.

It’s due to them seeing a link between their efforts in learning to the results. Instead of the malaise of generations before them that view effort and self-improvement as wastes of time, they know better and understand that success takes time and energy. Because of this understanding, they will gain the wisdom to apply patience and determination in working toward their goals.

We believe that the first step that St. Andrews Sukhumvit needs to do to teach their youngsters about the benefits of this mindset is by actions and success directly linked to their effort.

Here are just a few ways our teachers can foster the development of growth mindsets in our St. Andrews children:

• Tell them about applicable thinking skills.

• Teach them strategies to better learn the material.

• Link approval to learning a strategy or task on their own.

• Motivate these young minds with praise and constructive criticism.

• Instruct the young learners on how to access useful resources from libraries or the Internet.

We teach our kids how to overcome any challenge through sustained effort and learning from their mistakes (experimentation) to find out which method works best for them.

Summary

We at St. Andrews believe in helping youngsters achieve success in current and future endeavours by making them realise their capabilities through the development of a growth mindset and how fulfilling it is to become better than you were yesterday.

St. Andrews International School Sukhumvit S107 is part of the Cognita School Group umbrella. Cognita is a global company that operates various schools from across the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the like.

If you wish to learn more about St. Andrews Sukhumvit, please fill out our online form to book a school tour. You can also watch our school’s personalised interactive virtual campus tour for more info.