Professor Perseverance

Once upon a time there was a little girl who went to Devonshire Infant School. She was very happy and always enjoyed being at school.

One day the little girl was given a tricky maths challenge. She wasn’t quite sure how to solve it? She tried using counters but the teacher said it wasn’t quite right. The little girl didn’t want to try anymore so she just sat in her seat and had a look out the window.

When the teacher saw the little girl just sitting there, she felt a bit disappointed.

Then it was time to sit on the carpet. The children all brought their maths to share. The little girl saw that some of the other children hadn’t got the answers quite right. But the teacher was really pleased with them because they had tried their best.

Some of them had tried to solve the challenge using their fingers and had not got it right. But they hadn’t given up. They tried using counters and a number line and kept on trying until they got it right.

The little girl wished she had tried a bit harder. She was sure she could have solved the challenge if she had had another go.

The next day the children had to write a sentence using tricky words. The little girl couldn’t remember how to spell ‘was’. She tried to sound it out ‘w o z’, but that didn’t look right. She was just about to put her pencil down and give up when she remembered what had happened the day before.

The little girl knew if she kept trying she would find a way to spell ‘was’. She went and got a word card to help, but it was the wrong one and ‘was’ wasn’t on there! The little girl still didn’t give up. Suddenly she remembered the teacher had put the tricky words up on the wall to help the children. There it was……’w a s’. She had spelt it. When the teacher came to look at her work she had a big smile on her face and said ‘well done’ for persevering. The little girl was so proud of herself.

From that day on the little girl never gave up! She always persevered however hard the challenge was. Her teacher called her ‘Professor Perseverance’ because she tried and tried and tried. All the other children in the school wanted to be like Professor Perseverance. The little girl didn’t always get things right but she always tried her best and that was the most important thing of all!