Celebrating academic success
Celebrating academic success is such a pivotal part of children's learning! It helps them to develop a success mindset, share in each other's success, creates positive associations around learning and builds up learning motivation and confidence. All too often we tend to focus on what’s not working or is needing to be changed and forget to purposefully stop and celebrate. However, reviewing progress and celebrating little steps can be a great way to encourage young learners.
Read on to learn more about these techniques to transform your child's learning through celebrating:
1. Developing a success mindset
Developing a success mindset in your child from a young age is so important and can really change their entire attitude towards learning concepts and their own abilities. A large part of success is about your state of mind; having a success mindset rather than a fixed view of your abilities, and developing this success mindset requires cultivation. A way to cultivate this mindset is to focus on small accomplishments, rather than a huge goal or full year of learning. Celebrate every learning gain, no matter how small the win; such as that child who started the school year with a limited mindset that they weren’t good at computers, now having a go at working on the computer on their own. Through celebrating these small steps you can cultivate a success mindset gradually over time. Learn more about the power of a growth mindset in our blog here.
2. Sharing success
Celebrating success isn’t necessarily just about one person. It can also give others the chance to join in with your celebration, be motivated and share in your success. You can do this at home by having the family celebrate through an activity such as cooking your child's favourite meal. Teachers can teach their class to share in success by hosting class celebrations, pausing to commend achievements and giving out activity awards. At NumberWorks’nWords, when a child achieves a significant learning milestone, we celebrate together with a big round of applause! Enabling children to share in each other’s achievements helps by motivating them to strive for success or sustain high achievement themselves which you can read more about.
3. Positive associations
One of the best things about celebrating academic gains is that it boosts children’s happiness and positive associations around learning. It feels good to celebrate, as it’s to do with the chemicals in our brain. Dopamine, known as the ‘feel-good’ hormone, is released into our brain when we accomplish or anticipate achieving something. From an evolutionary standpoint, dopamine is designed to reward us when we are doing the things we need to do to survive. Our brains are wired to seek out behaviours that release dopamine. When we have the right balance of dopamine, we feel happy, motivated, alert and focused. Stimulating dopamine in your child’s brain by celebrating learning victories can help motivate your child to stay on track. Celebrate daily and remember every small victory adds up! You can do this by finding moments throughout the day to praise students for the effort they put into a task, for their attentiveness, for asking questions, and so on.
4. Motivation
Celebrating success is great for children’s confidence and motivation. When we celebrate success with children this builds their confidence, as they see themselves as successful already, rather than someone who is trying to succeed. Celebrating each small win keeps motivation on track. At NumberWorks’nWords we break down learning goals into different sections and award each part so children know how much they have progressed. You can practise this at home with reward charts and work towards a bigger celebration your child would really like to achieve, such as a special day out or a tangible reward.
Make sure you incorporate celebrating academic success into daily life. It can really help children's development, through sharing success together, creating positive associations around learning and confidence and developing a success mindset. At NumberWorks'nWords, we offer outstanding maths and English tuition that suits all types of learners. Our tuition covers essential skills such as reading, comprehension, language, and maths for children aged 5-16, where we focus on reinforcing positive learning behaviours and motivating children. If you would like to learn more about our after-school tuition, get in touch with your local centre, and book a free assessment!
