Cultivating self-belief

The two presenters have very different backgrounds. Gavin Jinks is a senior lecturer in social work. Denise Harber has been a teacher, head-teacher and school adviser. Both have concluded that the ability to create self-belief in a student group, be they primary school pupils or students in higher education, is fundamental to their achievements. Gavin has been the project leader for an award winning student mentoring project on the BA Applied Social Work at the University of Derby. Denise Harber was an adviser on a team that designated a primary school in the south of England as a 'cause for concern'. She then took on the role of Head-teacher and led the school to be designated as good in a subsequent Ofsted inspection. Underpinning both of these pieces of work was a commitment to develop the self-belief of the students. This was seen as being a fundamental building block in bringing about real change in the achievements of both the students and the pupils concerned. This workshop will explore how Gavin and Denise went about these pieces of work. They will explore the transferability of these ideas to other educational settings and situations, particularly settings with traditionally low academic engagement. They will also be encouraging participants to consider how it might be possible for them to cultivate a culture of self-belief in their own students/pupils.