In his address to the union’s annual conference in Birmingham last week, Ian Bauckham warned both teachers and politicians from making sweeping statements about IQ.
He quoted the work of Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, who has advocated the theories of growth and fixed mindsets.
The research shows that praising students’ effort rather than their intelligence, creates learners who believe that by trying hard they can improve and achieve more.
Conversely, by praising intelligence, we create learners who believe they are either good or bad at something and there is little they can do to change this.
Mr Bauckham, who is headteacher of Bennett Memorial Diocesan School in Kent and a SecEd editorial board member, said Prof Dweck’s book Mindset had been “inspirational” to his school leadership. He attacked a speech last year in which London’s mayor Boris Johnson compared people of varying IQs to cornflakes and said “the harder you shake the pack, the easier it will be for some cornflakes to get to the top”.
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