Winning Scotland’s Mindset Teams programme, a professional learning approach for both teachers and education leaders, has gained official accreditation from the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS).

Mindset Teams is our unique, immersive blended learning programme that supports classroom teachers and school leadership to work together in teams to create a growth mindset learning environment across subjects and throughout whole schools.
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In gaining the award, Mindset Teams is now:

• Professionally recognised by GTCS, Scotland’s leading self-regulating body for teaching
• Endorsed by Education Scotland, the national agency charged with supporting quality and improvement in Scottish education.
• Accredited at Masters Level 11 (15 points) by Glasgow Caledonian University

A new professional learning course is helping teachers improve their knowledge, shift perceptions of pupils' ability and increase pupil engagement.

Developed in partnership by Winning Scotland and Renfrewshire Council, ‘Limitless Learning’ is a growth mindset professional learning programme comprised of 6x 60-minute e-modules and 6x 60-minute twilights.

The objective of the approach is to provide teaching professionals with easily accessible and instantly applicable learning to support the recovery effort following school closures and restrictions.

A cohort of 61 Renfrewshire teachers took part in a numeracy focused version of the course, between January and June 2021. An evaluation report demonstrated a range of positive outcomes including:
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• Prior to the course 52% of teachers agreed that ‘some people are born with a maths brain’. This drops to 17% post course.
• 100% of teachers felt the course improved their knowledge. 94% felt the course made them a better teacher.
• 11% of pupils reported that they wanted their teacher to set maths problems every day
• 97% of participants completed the entire course.

 
“We’d done some growth mindset work before, but this was like they’d perfected it,” said a transition teacher taking part. 

42 teachers from West Dunbartonshire have started Winning Scotland’s Mindset Teams course.

They join more than 500 education professionals from across Scotland, including cohorts from Dundee, Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire, the Northern Alliance, the South West EIC and Edinburgh Napier University.

Mindset Teams is Winning Scotland’s flagship professional learning programme. It supports teaching professionals to establish a growth mindset culture in their schools.

We recently published our Mindset Teams Impact Report, where participants told us:

• 97% of participants feel the Mindset Teams course will make them a better teacher.
• 100% said the course content was relevant to their teaching practice
• 90% say it improved their relationship with pupils.

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Mindset Teams is endorsed by Education Scotland and accredited by GTCS. Participants can gain 15 accreditation points at (Masters) Level 11 from Glasgow Caledonian University. 

In January, we launched our new Limitless Learning programme in partnership with Renfrewshire Council.

In light of the ongoing disruption to education caused by the pandemic, Limitless Learning is designed to ensure every child can progress in their learning without any lasting negative effects from school closures and restrictions.

The need for Limitless Learning is clear. The Scottish Government’s recent ‘equity audit’, a broad study of literature alongside a detailed survey of 54 Scottish schools, identified that:

• the mental and physical health and wellbeing of children and young people may have been negatively impacted during school building closures
• the closures are likely to have had a negative effect on pupil progress and attainment, and socio-economically deprived children and young people are amongst those who may have been most negatively affected
• Additional training for staff, parents and pupils increased user confidence and knowledge and this remains an important ongoing focus

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Limitless Learning uses growth mindset principles and practice to provide teachers with access to a series of e-learning modules that offer practical learning and pedagogy to support the return to formal education.

The modules are supported by a complementary series of ‘live’ virtual seminars to allow collegiate discussions between teachers, where they can share ideas and best practice, and embed learning. 

A group of 124 teachers have become the first in Scotland to achieve a qualification in the widely acclaimed ‘growth mindset’ approach to education.

Education professionals from schools across 19 Scottish local authorities and one university (Edinburgh Napier) completed a 12-month blended learning programme as part of our Mindset in Education programme.

The teachers developed a deep understanding of how to integrate growth mindset practice into their day-to-day teaching and classroom culture.

Having a growth mindset in school helps young people approach tasks with the intention to try their hardest, learn from mistakes, develop strategies to solve problems and to persevere when faced with challenges – all critical to successful learning and attainment.
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The education professionals gained 15 accreditation points at Masters Level 11 in ‘applied growth mindset’ from Glasgow Caledonian University.

Between November 2020 and January 2021, three new ‘Mindset Teams’ cohorts were launched, all with a STEM oriented focus.

Mindset Teams is our flagship growth mindset professional learning programme, supporting 700+ teachers across Scotland.

Mindset Teams invites groups of three school staff or more to form an ‘implementation team’ to apply and embed growth mindset across their learning community. Visit our Mindset page for more information.

In November, we kicked off with 38 teachers and school leaders from schools across Scotland on our ‘secondary maths’ programme.
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This was followed in January with 33 teaching professionals joining our new primary science course, and a cohort of 63 mindset maths learners from North Lanarkshire.

Our executive director Morag Arnot reflects on the challenge of rebranding during a pandemic….

In 2020, despite the global health, social and economic crisis, Winning Scotland undertook a brand refresh - new logo, new name, new narrative, new website - it was no small undertaking and I learned a lot from the process.

I’ve been reflecting, as you tend to at this time of year. I was thinking about what was occupying my mind last January. We were in the midst of trying to discover more about our organisation, its perception, positioning and offering. With my background in communications and marketing, this was something which had been an ambition of mine for some time.

Having undertaken research with our present customers and partners earlier in October 2019, in January 2020 Winning Scotland was just about to commission focus groups to start the process of understanding how we were perceived among audiences that didn’t know us. 
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It was the first formal market research we had commissioned for years. 

Positive Coaching Scotland Plus (PCS Plus) is Winning Scotland’s national programme that uses sport and physical activity to help young people develop confidence and resilience.

​PCS Plus is widely used in formal sports like football and rugby. However many young people enjoy their sport more informally, through local charities and community groups

The coaches and volunteers in these settings do not have access to PCS Plus development and training.

In 2019-20, we piloted PCS Plus in a range of community sport settings to test its effectiveness. The pilot was funded by the Baillie Gifford sponsorship committee