A mistake is a reason for less good results at school. But it also gives an extraordinary opportunity of reviewing some notions and seeing where the pupil has gone wrong. “The status of the mistake – which should be an opportunity to point at a lack or misconception – might have to be reviewed,” says a source in the education sector.

It is no tragedy and actually offers an opportunity for teachers to do their job. Research on this has been going on since the end of the sixties and tends to point at the fact that the term itself has to be freed from guilt. “It is nothing new that learning can’t take place without making mistakes,” says a teacher in a primary school. Even parents tend to make their children feel guilty when they make mistakes at school while these same parents may not be particularly upset when their children make some mistakes in the way they speak at home.

<I>“When pupils are given some work to do in class or at home, they often appear tense when they are given back their copy books by the teachers - even more so when they are given marks.”</I>

But it seems the main problem actually comes from the attitude of teachers and school in general. “Mistakes actually contain much information on the way children learn and teachers would be better off basing their teaching strategy on these mistakes,” says a pedagogue. This would be a system that takes the needs of children into consideration and there is no doubt that it would make teaching more constructive.

But pupils must be told that they have made mistakes and showed the right way. This is obviously not possible if work is not corrected in the classroom with the teacher. Homework or class work seem to be of absolutely no use if the teacher does not take the time to correct it with the pupils and explain to them that making mistakes is not inevitable.

Giving work to pupils is important because it will help the child put what he’s been taught into practice. However, leaving the work in his or her bag afterwards will be totally useless. The whole point of the work is to get corrections and to remedy the difficulties that have been analysed by the teacher.

When pupils are given some work to do in class or at home, they often appear tense when they are given back their copy books by the teachers – even more so when they are given marks. And this points at one of the main difficulties of changing the status of the mistake in schools.

It comes back to the usual problem of a highly exam-oriented system where both teachers and pupils are obsessed by results. This leaves little room for constructive criticism, as it forces the child to focus on success only. Naturally,mistakes made by a pupil in an examination will still “bring down his marks”, but this does not mean that mistakes cannot be a positive aspect of learning throughout the year.