Psychological resilience is defined as an individual’s ability to properly adapt to stress and diversity. It can be learned and should therefore be seen as a process rather than a personality trait. Enjoy success by all means, but experiencing failure is just as important.

People with resilience are not free from negative emotions, rather they navigate their way through them. Adapting to challenging and adverse situations is a skill that can be learned and a skill we should be teaching our children. We can introduce some protective factors which assist our boys with coping, and even growing, through disappointments and failures.

There are several skills which can sustain a person’s resilience such as making realistic plans and taking realistic steps towards achieving them, possessing a positive self-concept and knowing one’s key strengths, being able to communicate well and solve problems with assistance, and manage one’s own impulses and feelings. Resilience is a central theme at Newington, appearing in our Vision, our Learning Framework, and our Co-curricular Cultural Framework.

The ability to persevere, to persistently work towards a goal, even if success is not immediately forthcoming, is known as ‘grit’. Grit can be linked to Positive Psychology, and particularly persistence and endurance. The ability to continue trying and not to give up is a huge indicator for success. To our boys these can seem quite abstract terms but with specific examples from their day-to-day lives, they can contribute to their own success.

I have long been a fan of the marathon as an athletic event. It does not have the dramatic excitement of the 100m, but it shows athletes when they are physically and mentally exhausted who continue to work hard and push on. This event shows incredible resilience and grit.

Recently we celebrated the success of many 2015 students who excelled academically. They could not have achieved their success without resilience and grit. Talent alone could not have led to their achievements. And what about our rowers? On 12 March, the whole school will support them at the Head of the River out at Penrith. There can be no doubt that they have shown incredible resilience and grit. Things have not always gone their way this season but we admire their endurance and persistent effort, often without a single supporter in sight.

Failure to achieve something immediately is a good thing in the long run. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, and a corporate icon, encourages us to “heed the lessons of failure”. He adds that “success is a lousy teacher; it seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose”.

Our advice to our boys at the school is to manage failures appropriately. Avoid shying away from shortcomings and aim to improve them. There is much support here at Newington. Their mentors, teachers, counsellors and Heads of House can plan the reasonable and realistic steps to achieve and to manage some failure. Our boys must develop this skill of resilience for their own benefit; a skill that will be with them for life so when they do experience disappointment and failure, they are better able to cope with it and grow from it.

Mr Bob Meakin
Deputy Head of Stanmore (Students)