Junior Mental Toughness Development Toolkit

SINKING SHIP A challenge and team working exercise Running the exercise – you will need a length of rope or similar material. You can deliver this exercise to a whole group or break it into smaller groups. Each group will need a length of rope. Explain to the students you are creating the perimeter of a sinking ship and that they all have to stay on board to get to land safely. 1. Tie a piece of rope to form a loop large enough so that all the group can fit inside it. Place it on the ground and get the students to sit inside the loop. Congratulate them and now tell them that you are going to challenge them even more. 2. Make the loop smaller and place it on the floor. Ask them again to sit inside the loop. If they do this successfully congratulate them and ask them if they are ready for another challenge. 3. Again, make the loop smaller and ask them to fit inside. Make the loop smaller until they are finding it difficult to come up with solutions. 4. Explain that: It is about team working and encourage them by asking questions or to think about the various ways they can go about trying to fit everyone in. Prompt them to think about different ways of ‘fitting’ inside the loop. The total time for this exercise is 10-15 minutes. Teacher Review It may be useful to give them some ideas around fitting in the loop if they are becoming frustrated/running out of ideas. How about putting only feet inside the loop? Or fingers? You can set a timer to complete each exercise, this will add an element of pressure. NOTE – Teacher review: By doing this exercise in smaller groups you will find some of the less outspoken students contributing more effectively than they would in one large group. This is an excellent way to praise and support students – a great confidence booster. © AQR International 2016

SINKING SHIP Background This is a group game which was designed to get people communicating between each other to come to a solution. Used with most age groups it gets the group(s) cooperating and talking. As the loop gets smaller it’s usual that some of the group with greater leadership qualities or greater interpersonal confidence will go on to offer suggestions first, but they may not always be the best solutions. By working as a team to decide on the way forward they are developing active listening skills as well as their ability to accept challenge. Teacher notes This exercise can be used successfully at any stage of the student’s school life. It will help to build confidence and challenge. By adding time constraints on the activity it will also assist students in dealing with pressure. Something they can use for positively with exams or school work Support Materials & Resources Length(s) of rope/string Room to lay loop(s) on floor © AQR International 2016

Pre- Exam Nerves - Tips Overview Generally developing mental toughness in individuals will help most to deal with pre-examination pressures. The mentally tough will see the examination as an opportunity to show the examiner what they are capable of. However, there are things that all students can do to manage pre-exam nerves. These include: Revising before you sleep Apparently, people remember best what they do just before they go to sleep. Students can make audio recordings of material they want to remember – key points, facts, important themes etc. and listen to them just before they go to sleep. Both the act of creating the audio and to listening helps retention. This works especially well in groups. Students can prepare material together and record topics using different members of the group. They will often associate a particular theme or idea with a voice – also helping retention. This is a technique often used by actors to memorise their lines. Research shows (University of Basle) that mentally tough students are able to sleep better than mentally sensitive students are and it translates into better performance. Creating Visuals Students can often remember material in visual form more easily than they can recall words or sounds. Adding to flow charts, images, pictures, outlines, etc. to revision material can help learning. Stimulating Long Term Memory When taking on board new information, the brain often needs time to process it and make sense of it. That is another reason why revising before sleep can help. Another approach to improving long-term memory is to take the material and prepare it in another format. If verbal – create a picture. If visual – describe it in words. Create lists, acronyms, mnemonics, and flow charts – especially when building knowledge about a subject. High performers will often take time to re-organise material so that they can remember it better. © AQR International 2016

Pre- Exam Nerves - Tips Managing Anxiety Everyone experiences nerves and anxiety before any stressful event such as an examination. The more successful are able to manage their anxiety. Many of the breathing and muscular control exercise described elsewhere in this kit are extremely useful as are some of the visualisation exercises. There are some easy exercises that can also help:  A couple of weeks before an exam, students can write down their concerns and fears on a piece of paper. It is easier for them to be objective about those fears if they are transferred out of their heads and onto the paper. Individually or in groups, they can consider or discuss how they might deal with these fears.  If possible, sometime before the real exam, allow the student to sit where they will take the exam or sit in a room/setting which is very similar. This can also help to allay fears. Working in Bursts It is useful to improve attention span. Some of the exercises in the Commitment section of the toolkit help people to do that. However, revision can be an intense activity and it is useful to encourage people to work in bursts of 20 minutes, taking a break for a few minutes before embarking on another burst. It can also be useful to change what is been worked on regularly. Background These tips work for many but may not work for all. They are all worth trying. Support Materials & Resources No special materials required. © AQR International 2016

The Paper Tower Exercise A Goal Setting Exercise Running the exercise – This is a problem solving and teambuilding exercise which typically takes around 40 – 60 minutes including group discussion. Best worked in groups of 5 or 6 students, they are challenged to design and build the tallest free standing paper tower they can manage using only the materials provided. Explain that: This exercise runs in two phases – a design and planning phase and a build phase. You are going to work in teams of X. Your goal is to build the tallest free standing paper tower using only 50 sheets of paper and some sellotape (and a pair of scissors). The paper tower cannot be attached to anything other than the floor and, on completion, must say upright for at least 15 seconds. We can see who builds the tallest tower. For the first phase you will be given 10 sheets of paper, sellotape and scissors. Each team will have 10 minutes during which you can design your tower, practice using the paper provided and create a plan for the build. This paper will be discarded at the end of the planning phase. You will also need to estimate how high you think you can build your tower. In the second phase you will have 50 sheets of paper with which to build the tower. You will have 20 minutes to do this. I will tell you when to start and stop each phase. Options (for re-run of exercise at a later date)  Team must operate in silence for whole or part of build phase  Only one person can speak during build phase  The tower must support a paper sup ½ full of water Teacher Review Ask students to describe how they feel. Do they feel good because they have achieved something? How does that compare to when they don’t deliver on time? Did everyone contribute to, or participate in, the exercise. If not, why not? what could each individual have done to improve their contribution? If asked to do so again, could they build a better/taller tower? Why and How? What did the “winning” team do that others didn’t do? © AQR International 2016

The Paper Tower Exercise NOTE – Teacher review: This exercise works well with with introducing SMART goal setting (Cue Card xx) and with Think Three Positives (Cue Card xx). Its very effective exercise to get students to think about how they interact with otehrs – both in termsor commincations and getting things done Discussion Guides: For the group: Why do students feel good when they have completed a task – even a simple task? How did those who failed to achieve feel? How does that feeling compare to when they fail to achieve a task? What difference does this make for them? Does it make them more or less positive about achieving the next task? How did they approach the task – did they believe they could do it? Why do they think that thinking positively helps performance, wellbeing and behaviour? How could they have set goals more effectively. For individuals: How effective did they think their contribution was? How could they have been more effective? Did they have ideas which weren’t voiced? Why? What is the one thing they have learned that they can work on? Support Materials & Resources Simple – 60 sheets of A4 paper per group (50 for the build phase and 10 for the design and practice phase). It’s a good way of using A4 printed paper which might otherwise be scrapped. A roll of sellotape per group. A pair of scissors per group. A tape measure to measure height (ideally up to 3 metres) © AQR International 2016