Student Led Goal Setting Meetings

We are underway with our goal setting meetings with our teachers and parents. 

Why do we set goals? 

Martin Seligman says that achievements are required for us to feel masterful in our environments and in our lives, it’s about finding meaning.

1. Goals direct our attention, both cognitively and behaviourally, toward what matters.

2. Goals energise people, and difficult goals are more energising than easy goals or no goals.

3. Goals impact persistence, and hard goals particularly impact persistence because they prolong effort - impacts performance

4. Goals lead to the discovery of our skills and resources

The Positive Accomplishment Literature Review from the Institute of Positive Education says that, "an essential aim of positive education is to help students develop their potential through striving for and achieving meaningful outcomes. Within the model of positive education, a focus on wellbeing and flourishing is interconnected with efforts to help students learn, achieve academically, and develop skills and competencies. Positive accomplishment involves helping students embrace opportunities, learn from disappointments, and maintain effort in the face of adversity. In the increasingly challenging, global, and competitive environment schools provide invaluable opportunities for helping students to deal proactively with both opportunities and setbacks. In addition to benefits for themselves, it is hoped that students will pursue goals and objectives that have beneficial consequences for the greater community. Integral to positive accomplishment is the pursuit of goals. Goals are believed to provide mental sign posts that direct and sustain cognitive and behavioural efforts (Covington, 2000). Helping student to develop self concordant goals is believed to be especially powerfully in increasing motivation and perseverance (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Similarly, helping students to cultivate mastery goals and growth mindsets ensure they will seek out feedback and view setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow (Grant & Dweck, 2003). By nurturing hope, it is believed that students will become increasingly excited about future possibilities, understand that challenges and set backs are an inevitable part of life, and develop the grit and resilience to persist when times are tough (Snyder et al., 1997). Similarly, Duckworth et al.’s (2007) work on grit emphasises that no great accomplishment is achieved without persistence and effort. Overall, it is proposed that helping students strive towards meaningful outcomes and embrace new opportunities with grit, hope, and a growth mindset equips them for success in the present and the future. "

Read more on their website: https://www.ggs.vic.edu.au/Institute/Resources/literature-reviews