From the Head of School

Executive Skills

Graham Potter is the manager of Chelsea football club.  They are not doing well at the moment, and every day the media speculate when he will be sacked.

Six months ago, he was the manager of Brighton football club, who had been doing far better than expected.  Every day, the media speculated about what big club Potter would move to and when he would become manager of England’s national side.

When things were going well people marvelled at his even disposition; now he is criticised for a lack of fire.  The media judge his qualities in the light of one criterion only: results.

That might be fair enough for elite sports - it is not my field (so to speak), but for schools it would be disastrous: no learning would take place.  Failure is part of the learning process. To learn is to move forward into the unknown, to take a risk, to be willing to reflect on what worked on what didn’t and to keep going forward.  To learn to mastery level takes resilience and courage as much as any particular talent.

On Wednesday, our middle school boys football team travelled down to Dundee to take part in the second round of Scotland’s Under 14 Cup. They were met by a team attached to Dundee’s training academy; a team with more time to polish skills. ISA boys were justly proud of the two goals they scored, even though it was in the context of five goals conceded.  

On the bus back they reflected on their moves and their tactics, and learnt from a good team.  But they also had to process disappointment.  At ISA, we emphasise participation in sport more than the competitive aspect.  But that doesn’t mean that it disappears or ceases to be important to children.  

During their free time, children play football not just for the sheer joy of kicking a ball about.  They keep score. At the end, they want to know who won.  Especially for younger students, this winning and losing can create difficult emotions to process.  But it is part of life, and of learning.

If you have a child in elementary, you may have come across the ‘zones of regulation’ - or if they are a bit older - the wheel of choice, or other similar tools to help them think about their emotions. Teachers use these to explicitly develop executive function skills: the ability not just to experience emotions and react to them, but to think about them and to choose the best course of action.

Students in school will experience both positive and negative emotions - we can try to mitigate the latter but we cannot avoid them - nor should we: it is the only way to learn how to better regulate our emotions, and to grow in character.

Whatever happens to Graham Potter in the short term, he will bounce back and be successful again.  In addition to his skills as a coach, he has first rate executive function skills.