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Hraunvallaskóli

Iceland

Growth mindset

Focus Area

Growth mindset and practicing mindfulness

Target Group

Students, staff, and the broader community

By Sigurlaug Rúna Guðmundsdóttir, Björg Kristín Ragnarsdóttir and Guðbjörg Pálsdóttir teachers at Hraunvallaskóli, Hafnarfjörður, Iceland
Editor: Ingibjörg Guðmundsdóttir and Sólveig Karlsdóttir, DOHI, Iceland

Purpose and Goals of the Growth Mindset project

Hraunvallaskóla is a health-promoting compulsory school and is therefore committed to promoting the health of students and staff. The importance of good mental health in one’s overall health is undeniable (Ingibjörg Guðmundsdóttir and Sveinbjörn Kristjánsson, 2013). Enhancing a growth mindset and practicing mindfulness can be important elements in improving health prospects because both can increase resilience and optimism and reduce stress (Renshaw et al., 2022; Schroder et al., 2017; Waters et al., 2015). With an improved mindset, we see challenges and tasks in brighter colours and therefore it is fundamental in everything people undertake.
The implementation seeks to utilize both a growth mindset and mindfulness to create a learning community characterized by trust, a positive mindset, individual self-confidence, and good relationships among students and staff at Hraunvallarskóli. With a strong mindset, everyone will be better equipped to tackle their tasks and challenges in their studies and work. All of this aims to increase well-being and accomplishment. The project is based on psychologist Carol Dweck’s (2017) research on growth and fixed mindsets. Implementing a growth mindset in schools has several benefits for staff and students – better communication, greater motivation, greater well-being, increased courage to tackle their studies, and greater academic success (Brock and Hundley, 2016; Mesler et al., 2021; Nalipay et al., 2022).

Focus Area and the implementing project

Hraunvallaskóli has been working on the implementation of Health Promoting Compulsory school since 2011, but the work has been up and down during that time. However, the aim has always been to maintain the original goal, i.e. to work on a whole school approach in collaboration with staff, students, parents and other stakeholders. Checklists have been filled out that show the school’s status and then actions have been prioritized based on that. In recent years, we have been concerned about the mental well-being of our staff, and therefore it was decided to implement a project on Growth Mindset (Dweck, 2017) that began in the fall of 2022 and became our pilot project in the SHE4AHA project.
The Growth Mindset implementation program is a four year intervention among all staff and students at the compulsory level of the school. The implementation seeks to use both a growth mindset and mindfulness to create a learning community that is characterized by trust, a positive mindset, individual self-confidence and good relationships among students and staff. With a strong mindset, everyone will be better equipped to take on their tasks and challenges. All of this is aimed at increased wellbeing and better accomplishment.
The implementation process is based on a holistic approach by Hoare et al. (2017) on how it is feasible to implement what is intended to promote positive mental health and well-being in schooling, i.e. Learn it – Live it – Teach it – Embed it. The arrangement of the implementation is based on devoting one school year to each part of Hoare and colleagues’ approach (Learn it – Live it – Teach it – Embed it) so that it is estimated that all the work components of the implementation will take four school years in total.

About Hraunvallaskóli

Hraunvallaskóli is located in Hafnarfjörður, one of the five municipalities in the capital area. The school is surrounded by old lava but the school name has reference to it ”hraun = lava”.
The school’s guiding principles are:
      • Friendship
      • Cooperation
      • Responsibility
Uniquely, Hraunvallaskóli houses both a pre-school and a compulsory school under one roof.
In the beginning of the school year 2024-2025, there were 655 students in the school, ranging from 18 months to 15 years old. In pre-school there were 131 students and in compulsory school there were 524 students. The pre-school and compulsory school, work closely together, particularly through collaboration between pre-school teachers, who supervise the oldest pre-school children, and compulsory schoolteachers in the first grades. Although the two levels cooperate, their management and operations are distinct, with each having its own principal. The health promoting school teams are also separate, one who works as health promoting compulsory school and the other as health promoting pre-school. The Health Promoting Compulsory school team is participating in the project not the team from pre-school.
Hafnarfjörður, the municipality is a Health Promoting Community and follows the structure of the national network approach, that is a support for the schools in the municipality. In Hafnarfjörður are nine public compulsory schools and two private schools, seven public schools are participating in the national network of Health Promoting Compulsory school approach and one private school.
The enabling factors for Hraunvallaskóli to become a Health Promoting Compulsory school are to increase the health of staff and students, to encourage other schools to participate in the approach and to be visible in the community. Hraunvallaskóli has been participating in the Health Promoting Compulsory school network since 2011.
By learning about what is to be implemented, employees get the opportunity to gain a deep and good understanding of the implementation topic. By living it, they can get to experience it first-hand, and through this, a common interest and sharing can be formed. After that, the staff is better equipped to teach the subject, and this leads to further loyalty and follow-up. If the subject is embedded or integrated into all aspects of the school work with follow-up and solid management, there is a greater chance that the implementation will become entrenched.

Phase 1 – 2022-2023

The first work component of the implementation was the 2022-2023 school year, where all school staff were provided with extensive training on the growth and determination mindset and its impact factors in both life and work. One of the basic implementation tools is the Brock and Hundley Handbook (2016) – The growth mindset coach: A teacher´s month by month handbook for empowering students to achieve – which is intended as a guide for teachers and staff to create a school culture that is characterized by a growth mindset. The book is structured as a lesson plan that spans an entire school year or 12 months from August to July and it was followed in substance for the most part in the teaching during the winter. But the plan is to follow the book in the third phase (2024-2025) of the implementation when it is time to disseminate education to students (i.e. teach) and the staff have then experienced the content of the book themselves.

Phase 2 – 2023-2024

The second work component of the implementation was the school year 2023-2024 and it aimed to give employees the opportunity to live the growth mindset to promote common interest and participation in the implementation. As mentioned above, employees need to be given the opportunity and space to try the growth mindset on their own before they start working to promote the growth mindset among students and to integrate it into their working methods. Increased awareness of one’s own inner voice is an effective way to work with one’s own mindset according to Brock and Hundley (2016). When people are more aware of their own thoughts and well-being, they notice if they are using their fixed mindset and are therefore better equipped to work on it. In addition, in growth mindset training, it is helpful to spot unhelpful behaviours and situations that can encourage a fixed mindset.
Therefore, it was decided to use mindfulness as a tool for employees to help them apply a growth mindset in their lives and work. Decades of research have demonstrated great physical, psychological, and social benefits from practicing mindfulness, which includes paying close attention to one’s thoughts, emotions, and environment. Mindfulness is a powerful training because it allows people to be more present in the moment, which can make them react to external situations and their own thoughts more effectively. Mindfulness practice is a way to cultivate conscious positive qualities. It can lead to increased empathy, both towards oneself and others, and reduce the risk of psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, and burnout (Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Research on teachers who practice mindfulness has found that the teacher-student relationship improved, their teaching became more effective, and students’ problematic behaviours and other stressors had less of an impact on them (Zakrzewski, 2013).
The workshops of the school year 2023-2024 did therefore consist of building on the knowledge that staff had received in combination with education about the benefits of mindfulness practice. In addition to participating in both mindfulness exercises and other projects aimed at strengthening the ability to deal with challenges, obstacles and effort as well as one’s own thoughts in such situations and in communication with other people. A collaboration was established with a Mindfulness Center and a member from them did participate in the workshops, with education and implementation of mindfulness exercises. During the school year, six workshops were held for professionals and three for general staff. Unlike the focus of the first phase of implementation, where all employees received the same training, the focus of the workshops of this phase was implemented more based on the working environment and work emphases of each employee group.

Phase 3 – 2024-2025

Following the first and second work component, there is a greater likelihood that staff will be more willing to teach what is to be implemented, which can lead to greater loyalty and follow-up. In the school year 2024-2025, it is therefore time for the third task of the implementation, or to teach the growth mindset to students. This part of the project consists of teachers using their knowledge and experience in the field and following the year-round lesson plan of Brock and Hundley (2016) in the handbook: The growth mindset coach in teaching. Teachers in each year group received a copy of the book. In addition, it was suggested that their general teaching and working methods consider the ideology of a growth mindset with an interface and phrases to make it easier for students to adopt it in life and work. The assignments in the book are being translated into Icelandic and stored in the school’s central database for teachers and other professionals. Posters have also been made that aim to cement the emphases and phrases related to the growth mindset among students and staff. The excellence of posters as a reminder is also for other school staff who are more involved in general school activities that take place outside the classrooms in the school’s corridors, dining hall, after-school activities and community center. Furthermore, the education that students receive, and experience firsthand will benefit the staff in the school’s support services and they can use the ideology of a growth mindset alongside their methods in working with students.
In this school year, the participation of parents and guardians is also added. They have been introduced to the implementation and the education, and the tools that their children are receiving during the school year, with the aim of strengthening the application of a growth mindset both in school and at home. Throughout the school year, parents and guardians have also received regular information on each month’s activities and news about what their children have been up to.

Phase 4 – 2025-2026

The school year 2025-2026 will reach the fourth phase of the implementation, embed it, where the goal is to support the implementation of a growth mindset in all activities within the school so that there is consistency between working methods and what is taught. It involves collecting data related to the growth mindset as well as updating policies and practices in its spirit.

Results and Evaluation

The evaluation of the project is based on:

    • At the beginning of each school year, a mindset survey is administered that measures the growth and fixed mindset of staff (Brock and Hundley, 2017). Measuring students’ mindset began in the third phase of the implementation. The survey consists of 10 statements with six response options from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The possible combined number of points is from 0 – 50 where 0 – 12 represents a high determination mentality, 13-25 determination mentality with characteristics of a growth mindset, 26-37 growth mindset with characteristics of a fixed mindset and 38-50 a high growth mindset. A higher value with each claim thus means an increased growth mindset. The results of the mindset survey are the basic measurement of the implementation.
     
    • In October each year during the implementation period, employees will also answer the PERMAH questionnaire (Kern, 2014) in an Icelandic translation by Björg Kristín Ragnarsdóttir et al. (2022), which measures well-being at work based on five factors of positive emotions, engagement, good relationships, meaning and accomplishment. The questionnaire also asks about one’s own assessment of health and negative experiences at work. In line with the focus of the implementation, two questions were added that measure relationships with managers. In total, the questionnaire contains 25 statements on an 11-point Likert scale with response options ranging from 0-10 where 0 represents never or not at all and 10 always or completely.
     
    • In October 2023 (Phase 2), staff responded to a shorter version of Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale Short Form (SCS-SF). The measurement consists of 12 statements that measure six sub-components: kindness towards oneself, interpersonal factors, mindfulness, self-criticism, isolation and hyper-identity. There are five possible answers: from never to always. The possible composite score is from 1-5 where 1-2.49 represents little empathy for oneself, 2.5-3.5 medium empathy for oneself and 3.51-5 a lot of empathy for oneself. Thus, a higher value with each statement means increased empathy for oneself. Employees will respond to this survey each year during the implementation period.
     
    • In September 2023 and 2024, staff responded to a perceived stress scale (PSS-10) (Cohen, Kamarch, & Mermelstein, 1983). The survey consists of 10 questions about the experience of stress in the past month. The answer options are five from never to very often. The possible composite score is from 0-40 where 0-13 stands for mild stress symptoms, 14-26 moderate stress symptoms and 27-40 severe stress symptoms. Thus, higher values at each question represent an increased experience of stress over the past month. Employees will respond to this survey every year during the implementation period.
     
    • At the end of each school year, the staff answer four open-ended questions about their own experience of the focus points of the implementation at any given time, the advantages and disadvantages, the arrangements that were used and what could have been done better. Employees’ responses provide important information on what they think is well done, and where there is room for improvement in refining the methods of implementation over the period.
The results from the evaluation have shown:
    • The Mindset Survey has been administered three times among staff, in August 2022, 2023, and 2024 and the results were comparable. Since the implementation takes four years it is not time to make a final assessment of whether the goal has been achieved or not. The majority of the students answered the measurement in the 3rd phase and the results have not been calculated.
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    • Until now, the focus has been on increasing knowledge of the growth mindset and its determinants, as well as the ability of employees to apply it in their own lives. Knowledge has been created and people’s awareness of their own mindset and the importance of each individual for improved well-being has increased. Staff’s awareness and understanding is assumed to be further enhanced as they have now, in the 3rd phase (teach it), started to share their knowledge to students.
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    • The same applies to the well-being survey, which has been administered three times, in October 2022, 2023, and 2024. Although the results were comparable, a comparison of the results of each year indicated a slight increase in wellbeing in 2024 after decreasing between 2022 and 2023.
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    • The empathy survey has been administered two times, in August 2023 and October 2024. The results in both years were comparable with the majority having high self-compassion and the minority low self-compassion.
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    • The stress measurement has been administered two times, in September 2023 and 2024. In both years roughly half of the respondents experienced moderate stress symptoms, around 40% low stress symptoms while around 10% experienced highly perceived stress.
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    • Staff responses to open-ended questions at the end of each school year have been useful because they have shown project managers what works well for staff and what can be improved. In this way, this measurement is a kind of a collaborative forum for those who are in charge of the implementation and those who will pass it on to students and their guardians.

Challenges

Since the implementation of the growth mindset is a whole-school approach, every staff member must participate. The disadvantage of this is that some were unhappy about having to do the self-study that must take place in the Learn it and Live it phases. In this light, it is pleasing that the majority of staff are satisfied with the emphasis and arrangement of the implementation and as it has progressed staff has become more positive towards it.

Other challenges:

    • Lack of time. It has been difficult to find time for the implementation in the packed schedule of the school days and few suitable times actually exist, but it has been achieved with good will and solution-orientedness.
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    •  Work and task load. There is a lot of workloads on the staff in school, so it is important it is not increased. Efforts have been made to minimize extra workload, so teachers get lesson plans and teaching material to use with students. The project is intended as a tool in the toolbox of employees that will actually reduce stress in the future and strengthen well-being.
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    • School authorities, both within municipalities and nationally, need to take steps towards improving the working conditions of school staff that further contribute to their well-being, such as class size and staffing within the schools, and consider how to better accommodate the diverse and ever-changing student population. These are stress factors that can undermine the growth mindset from taking root.

Promoting Factors – Success Factors

There has always been support from school administrators. We believe that this is a key factor for the project to be part of the school’s curriculum. Support from the school management gives security with the project and that we are doing well.
    • Positive management and goodwill towards the project. There is also a fairly general consensus among staff towards the implementation.
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    • The project is part of the Erasmus+ project School health in Europe for active and healthy ageing (SHE4AHA).
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    • Sponsorship. The project has received two grants from the Public Health fund and a grant from the Start-up Fund.

Future Perspectives

A Health Promoting School is a program that needs to become sustainable in the school and be a part of the school curriculum, so continuing is likely.
The Growth Mindset Project is a 4-year project, and the third year is 2024-2025 so it will continue and hopefully be well managed after the implementation ends. The subjective outcome of the project is an increased growth mindset among staff and students. With such a mindset, it is expected that communication will improve in the school community between all parties, where criticism is given and received in a constructive and positive manner. Also, all parties will show increased courage, resilience and tolerance towards mistakes. Obstacles and challenges will be better dealt with, and effort will be viewed more positively (Dweck, 2017; Brock and Hundley, 2016; Mesler et al., 2021). In addition, the skills and confidence of employees to communicate and teach growth mindset are enhanced when they have received good training on the topic, which is a prerequisite for a successful implementation process (Hoare et al., 2017; Knoster, 1991).

Recommendations for Health Promoting Schools

National network and website or intranet with checklists are a support and help leading the implementation of Health Promoting School, whole approach.
It is important to use the Health Promoting Schools checklist to start the work. Familiarize yourself with the guidelines and checklists of Health Promoting Schools. Immediately set down meeting times to enhance the likelihood of the project being attended to in the busy schedules of schools. Don’t try to change everything right away but fill out the checklists and find where you score lowest and prioritize according to that.
Schools in municipalities implementing health promotion programs are also a support for the schools in the community.
Coordinators in health promotion work in schools need to have time and resources to prepare, work and evaluate the work.
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© 2023 SHE4AHA