Come on girls, fail better! The schools that teach it's okay to not always succeed

Teaching children to fail has become trendy (Getty images)

You might have thought, on hearing this week that a British girls’ school is going to start setting its 11-year-old pupils a test that it’s impossible to get 100 per cent in, that the teachers have snapped. “That’s it!” I can imagine an anguished denizen of the staff room bellowing. “Give the toerags a test so tough they’ll be begging for mercy next term!” But no. Oxford High School for Girls wants to teach its scholars that it’s acceptable “not to get everything right” and that they shouldn’t be too concerned about being “little Miss Perfect”. Blooming heck, I can’t imagine my old headmistress going for that.

However, teaching children to fail has become trendy. At Wimbledon High School, there’s even a failure week, during which students learn not to fear screwing up.

Still, if the gals are anything like the alpha 11-year-olds I know, it’ll be a fight to see who does best… by scoring zero. After me, children, if at first you don’t succeed, try again. Fail again. Fail better.