Want to help students to succeed?

Sue Overy, National Lead Trainer for 'You Can Do It!' Education of Prospects describes how a programme that helps students to achieve to the best of their abilities is being used in primary and secondary schools

From Careers Adviser magazine. Volume 5 issue 4

Published: 31 January 2002

What is You Can Do It (YCDI)

The "You Can Do It!" Education Programme (YCDI) has been developed over the last ten years by Dr Michael E. Bernard, Professor of Psychology at California State University. YCDI is a way of helping young people to develop their academic, interpersonal and emotional potential. For some years, it has been used by teachers and parents to help young people develop the competencies, key attitudes and behaviours to achieve their best at school, increase their effectiveness as learners, improve their life skills and have good social and emotional development. Michael Bernard has developed YCDI as a framework for adults to help children to develop these competencies. He believes that these foundations should be taught explicitly to promote high achievement and success for an individual as defined by an individual doing the best that he or she can. In other words, an individual performing to the best of their ability.

What does YCDI consist of?

For students; a PSHE taught curriculum called Programme Achieve, available in six volumes covering year groups 1- 13

For teachers; professional development activities and resources with distinctive methods to help individuals perform to the very best of their ability

For mentors; a framework for mentoring students and other learners offering help with setting targets and monitoring progress

For careers and personal advisers; activities and a method for developing confidence and persistence in clients, particularly individuals in transition in learning or from school into work or work based training

For parents; an education programme that will give them skills and knowledge about how to help their own children succeed at learning at home

The Power of YCDI

Personal attitudes and competencies – as seen in the way an individual thinks, feels and behaves – are crucial influences on the level of an individual's achievement. Dr Bernard has carried out research over the last 10 years as he has been developing YCDI. His research in England, Australia and the United States indicates that effective learners have four personal competencies and associated attitudes. These are:

confidence; defined as not being afraid to make mistakes, being willing to answer questions in class and do new things for the first time, not giving into peer pressure

persistence; such as sticking to doing things that individuals find hard to do or are boring, not being easily distracted

organisation; such as in helping students to set goals, manage and plan their use of time, developing skills to help them get their work done and the importance of having all the necessary things they need with them when they need them

getting along; which is about working co-operatively with one another, resolving conflict and dealing with problems in a reflective way rather than getting angry and then breaking the rules

The programme promotes social emotional behavioural well-being and helps to reduce poor psychological health. It emphasises the importance of work organisation and work persistence. YCDI helps students to recognise that not everything in life is fun and exciting and that sometimes we have to accept hard work in our lives in order to achieve the things that we want. It helps them to believe that making the effort to do something can prove worthwhile.

A major theme in YCDI is that students are able to control what happens to them. Using a quotation from Shakespeare: "Things are neither good nor bad, but thinking makes them so," YCDI shows students that the way they think about things determines what happens to them. Crucial to this is the idea that students must believe in their own capacity to influence their achievement positively in all areas of life and to cope with the pressures of growing up by learning and applying these four foundations. YCDI shows students how to replace a negative mindset with a positive way of thinking, so that they learn to bring an "I CAN DO IT" attitude and approach to things they have to do. Students learn to replace "I can't" with "I Can" and "I won't" with "I will".

Having trained a number of teachers, mentors and careers and personal advisers to use YCDI. I have noticed that one of the things that many of them like is how it makes them think about and even change the way they communicate with students. There is a focus on process and effort rather than outcomes. We train them to use behaviour specific feedback as a technique to acknowledge an individual's efforts and give praise and compliments. Another feature of the programme that goes down well is the Programme Achieve PSHE pack because it provides an excellent range of worksheets and activities using relevant examples in the activities, such as going for a job interview. Teachers and careers and personal advisers increase their enthusiasm for YCDI as they see how it can be delivered across the curriculum and can reinforce Key Skills, study skills and careers education. Subject teachers have been attracted to the activities that help students to be better prepared and organised for assignments and for their homework.

Who uses YCDI?

Dr Bernard believes that parents, teachers, advisers, mentors and other adults who work with young people have a central role to play in helping their students to develop the four Foundations and associated habits of the mind. The Government's Green Paper of February 2001 encourages a broader vision of education and advocates "education with character" as the combination of personal attitudes, skills and habits of the mind. "You Can Do It" will assist the delivery of this education with character. "You Can Do It" is in use in primary and secondary schools throughout the country. There are schools using it on their own as well as schools as part of a local network of users through being part of an Education Action Zone or through the support of their Local Education Authority. One particularly effective model is where secondary schools and their feeder primary schools have developed a partnership so that YCDI helps with the critical transition from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3.

Ways in which "You Can Do It" can be implemented include:

Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)
Key Skills
Citizenship
Whole school integrated across the curriculum
Within careers education
Within programmes for target groups of students such as those who are needing additional learning support
An intensive course to prepare students for taking exams
Targeted at underachievers
Individual mentoring particularly for pupils at risk of underachievement and with those who need regular goal setting
Out of school activities such as summer school programmes, breakfast clubs
Use of the YCDI parent education programme known as the Compass Programme
Using some of the activities from the Programme Achieve or the Student Workbook as part of a tailor made programme for a particular group