Providing Opportunities

I am really enjoying the book Bounce, by Matthew Syed. Syed introduces the idea of many who go on to achieve great things have been in the right place at the right time. In his own experience as the top table tennis player in Britain, he writes about four factors that gave him an advantage over other aspiring players:

1. His parents bought a table for his family when he was a child
2. He had a brother who also became passionate about table tennis
3. A teacher at his school was a sports fanatic, especially in regards to table tennis, for which he was one of the nations top coaches
4. There was a local club that his teacher ran that provided Syed almost unlimited access to the facility.

These four factors were key influences to Syed's later success.

From a teaching and learning perspective, we need to look at being factors that could have the same sort of positive influence on our children in all manner of areas: running a chess club; providing music tuition; coaching sports teams; a computer club; teachers with a passion for creative writing; teachers who have a love of numbers. There are so many ways that a school can provide opportunities for children to take initial steps towards achieving great things.