Gumption

Danes Hill School considers gumption as the combination of skills we need to give our pupils to ensure that they have the best chance to succeed at ‘life’.

I suspect that this is not a word that you would see on a school website, or in a prospectus. In fact most children would not have a clue what it meant and probably a few parents would look slightly perplexed. And yet the aptitudes and attitudes of a youngster with gumption are a stepping stone to success in life.

All good independent schools will provide an excellent education for your child, small classes, dedicated teachers and great resourcing allow for individualised attention, support and stretch. They will also provide excellent pastoral care, if we do not get it right for your children emotionally, then none of the academics are going to land well. Sport, music, art, drama, engineering, computing, all enrich your children’s days and ensure they love school and all it can offer to them. But we need to do more. Education is a privilege and one of the key things we must teach our pupils is that with this privilege comes the responsibility to give back.

This can be relatively easily achieved by turning to the bank of mum and dad for the money on charity days, or raiding the cupboards for Harvest offerings. But what does that teach our children? Nothing. So maybe we should be asking schools what they do to teach ‘gumption’.

The first thing that your child will need to develop gumption for is to face adversity. Things going wrong, challenges and disappointment are part and parcel of life and we need to expose children to situations where they are not always getting things right, or solving problems first time. One of the best things about competitive sport is that it teaches pupils how to win with dignity and lose with grace. We all have experience of the gloating successors who leave a bad taste in our mouths, celebrating victories with jubilant selfies in front of the score board. Not a picture I would ever want my pupils to be part of. I am far prouder when I see the pupils pick themselves up after a tough first half and show fortitude, courage and determination by getting back out there for the second half - and playing their socks off even when they know they are not going to win.

How though do we encourage pupils to develop the other skills which make up the concept of showing ‘gumption’, how do we encourage tenacity, initiative and grit? Many schools will operate a programme similar to the Raven Award that we run at Danes Hill, which requires the Year 7 pupils to demonstrate leadership skills and also to take part in some community service, all good stuff.

Better still though is the charity challenge that I have seen run successfully both here and in other schools, where pupils are seed funded for a fund raising idea, returning the investment to the parent or school when they cease trading and adding their profits to a charity collection.

I have seen some great initiatives including the perennial cake baking, car washing and dishwasher loading and unloading. I have also seen some with a little more flair, including the pupils who used their money to buy seeds and compost and germinated and cared for their young seedlings over an extended period of time. They took orders from their customers and then ensured that the young plants were delivered in a timely manner, with care instructions attached. The pupils involved had to show resourcefulness and ask for an extension to their project, as the seeds did not grow in the time frame allocated. They developed strength of mind as they discovered that 200 seeds does not lead to 200 plants. They had to show grit and resourcefulness when faced with a holiday which would leave the seedlings untended over an Easter break. They learnt how to set up an excel spreadsheet and to understand profit and loss. They showed boldness of enterprise when they considered whether to ask for more ‘seed’ funding to extend their business and maximise the potential money raised. They learned a huge amount not just about science and maths but also about the need to be resourceful, tenacious and show grit.

Another brilliant example was the boy who a few years ago raided his dressing up box and unearthed a mask of the Queen. His home-made sign offered a selfie with the Queen and explained a little bit about the charity he supported. With his mum in tow, he set himself up at one of London’s greatest landmarks and made a fortune being snapped with visiting tourists. That young man has audacity, grit and a great big dollop of nous!

We are educating our children for lives that are unrecognisable, for jobs that do not yet exist and for a world where AI is changing things faster than we can comprehend. We need our children to have sound practical judgement and every school has the duty and responsibility to help their pupils develop some ‘gumption’. This is an essential skill.

I have heard the word ‘gumption’ described as the degree we get from the university of ‘life’, my view is that it is the combination of skills we need to give our pupils to ensure that they have the best chance to succeed at ‘life’. It will certainly help them to become confident, responsible individuals who can be thoroughly decent human beings.

This article appears in the 2024 edition of John Catt's Preparatory Schools, which you can view here: