STRENGTH OF THE WEEK

peserverance

What is it?

Perseverance means you can stick with things even when they get hard. You can turn your Sifting Sooty on and tell it to focus on the work you need to get done. If you are growing perseverance, you can try setting a goal and seeing that you achieve it.

What does it look like in our classroom?

If people put our work down, we keep going.

When we make mistakes we learn and grow from them as we know where our thinking will take us on the growth mindset tree.

What does it look like on our playground?

We try a new game and we find it hard but we stick with it until we get it

We want to master a new skill and find obstacles keep getting in our way but we STICK with it until we feel confident,

Person of the week: J.K Rowling

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default."

Watch full video lesson or read below description

This is a plortrait (playdough portrait) of J.K Rowling, a British author, philanthropist, film producer, television producer, and screenwriter.

J.K is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies!

J.K’s story however had many bumps before success! J.K was working as a researcher for Amnesty International in 1990 when she started thinking about a character in her head called Harry, who catches a train to a school of magic. However soon after J.K began writing she was pulled away from her work by the devastating death of her mother, sh felt unable to write and became grief stricken and depressed. A desire to shift from her low feelings, J.K decuded to take a job teaching english in Portugal for a year. Her aim had been to continue working on her book and to enjoy the sun.

J.K soon fell in love, became pregnant and then quickly got divorced. She came back to the UK with nothing, no job, no finished book and no money. She started having to live of unemployment benefits in her desperation to feed her baby and herself. It was freezing cold and while her baby daughter would sleep, JK would seek refuge in a warm cafe. Here she would continue writing her book about Harry.

When J.K finally finished the first three chapters, she sent the manuscript off to a publisher and they quickly rejected it. She sent it to another publisher. Again, the answer was no. Her mailbox filled up with rejection letters, but she didn’t let it stop her.

After sending her manuscript to 12 different publishers and getting rejected by every single one, J.K. began losing confidence in her book. However, she persisted, sending it on yet again to another publisher.

Finally, the editor at Bloomsbury Publishing company sat down to read the manuscript. And so did the editor’s 8-year-old daughter. The little girl loved the opening chapters and begged to read the whole thing. This made the publisher agree to publish J.K’s novel. But J.K was left with a warning: that she should get a day job because she wouldn’t make any money writing children’s books.

Well J.K. has since become one of the best selling authors of all time!! In fact, she was the first female to become a billionaire author! Harry Potter is now the best-selling books series in history.

J.K. Rowling went from being a jobless single mother living off unemployment benefits to one of the best selling authors of all time.

The Forbes Rich list has however reported that J.K. lost her billionaire status after giving away much of her earnings to charity. These include Comic Relief (a charity that raises money for people suffering from famine in Ethiopia) ,Gingerbread (a charity that support single parents to find employment, and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, as well as launching her own charity, Lumos (a charity that helps children living in harmful orphanages and other institutions, find a brighter future).

think pair share

K - 2

What would have happened if J.K Rowling had given up on writing after her first rejection?

If you made tonnes of money like J.K aside from buying nice things for yourself, who would you donate it to? And why?

J.K has lots of perseverance, do you think she has another strength too? Why or why not?

3 - 6

If you could write a book on any topic what would it be and why?

J.K Rowling made and continues to make a lot of money. Aside from buying things for yourself, which charities would you support if you had endless money? And why?

J.K has come under fire for views she has expressed about transgender people. Do you think we should no longer spotlight J.K has a Guess Who character? Why/why not?

Create your own perseverance card. What does perseverance look like to you?

See lesson ideas for all stages on DIY character strength cards