School Newsletter: Building Grit and Perseverance in Students
Grit and perseverance are skills that can be taught, practiced, and reinforced across the school day and at home. Schools that communicate clearly about what they mean by these skills, how they are developing them in students, and what families can do to support the work turn a school-based program into a community-wide practice. This newsletter covers what that communication looks like.
Define what you mean by grit at your school
The word grit has become common enough in education that it risks meaning everything and nothing. A newsletter that defines specifically what your school means by the term, and how you are building it, is more useful than general language about resilience. Do you teach students to use specific strategies when they are stuck? Do you deliberately give students tasks that are harder than they can complete easily? Describe the actual practice.
Share the research without overreaching it
Angela Duckworth's research on grit and Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset are genuinely useful frameworks that families benefit from understanding. A newsletter that describes the research foundation in accessible language, without overpromising that grit is a universal solution, helps families understand why the school is investing in these skills. The research shows that effort-focused mindsets predict achievement. It does not show that effort alone overcomes all barriers.
Show what grit looks like in your classrooms
Abstract character education is hard for families to support at home. A newsletter that describes specific classroom practices, students are expected to work on a challenging problem for five minutes before asking for help, students learn to say "I don't know yet" rather than "I can't do this," mistakes are displayed and discussed as evidence of learning, translates the program into something families can recognize and reinforce.
Give families specific home practices
The most useful section of a grit-focused newsletter is practical guidance for parents. Praise effort rather than outcomes. Allow your child to struggle with hard homework before stepping in. When your child says they can't do something, ask what strategy they have tried. Discuss your own perseverance through difficulty at dinner. These specific, actionable practices extend the school's work into the home in ways that matter for student development.
Celebrate effort stories, not just success stories
A newsletter that celebrates the student who tried ten times before getting something right alongside the student who got it right on the first try communicates that effort is what the school values. Consider featuring student-shared stories about persistence in specific subjects, sports, or projects. Effort stories are more instructive for other students than success stories, because they show what the road looks like.
Be honest about the limits of grit messaging
Some students are dealing with food insecurity, family instability, trauma, or learning differences that affect their capacity to persist in ways that other students do not face. A newsletter that acknowledges this reality, while still communicating the value of effort and persistence, is more honest and more trustworthy to those families than messaging that implies all outcomes are a matter of individual will. Schools that teach grit alongside equity and support communicate that they understand the full picture.
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Frequently asked questions
How should schools communicate about grit and perseverance programs in newsletters?
With concrete descriptions of what the program teaches, specific examples of what grit looks like in the classroom, and practical guidance for how families can reinforce these values at home. Abstract references to building grit are less useful than specific descriptions: we teach students to stay with a hard problem for at least five minutes before asking for help, and here is what that looks like and why it matters.
What is the research basis for grit and perseverance education that schools should communicate?
The research on grit, primarily Angela Duckworth's work, and on growth mindset, primarily Carol Dweck's, shows that students who believe effort leads to improvement and who persist through difficulty outperform students with equivalent ability who give up when challenged. Communicating this research foundation in accessible language helps families understand why the school is investing in these skills alongside academic content.
How do schools avoid teaching grit in ways that ignore legitimate systemic barriers?
By being careful about the language. Grit messaging that implies all students face the same obstacles and that success comes purely from individual persistence ignores the reality that some students face structural barriers that effort alone cannot overcome. A newsletter that names grit as one important tool among many, rather than as a universal solution, is more honest and more useful.
What can families do at home to reinforce grit and perseverance?
Praise effort rather than results, allow children to struggle with hard problems before helping, model persistence in their own lives, discuss failures openly as learning opportunities, and avoid rescuing children from every difficult situation. A newsletter that translates the school's perseverance framework into specific home practices extends the program beyond the classroom.
How does Daystage help schools communicate character education programs like grit to families?
Daystage makes it easy to send targeted newsletters that explain character education programs to families with the specificity that makes them useful. A newsletter that describes what the school is doing and gives families concrete guidance on how to reinforce it at home doubles the program's reach beyond the classroom walls.
Adi Ackerman
Author
Adi Ackerman is a former classroom teacher and curriculum writer with 8 years in K-8 schools. She writes about school communication, parent engagement, and what actually works in real classrooms.
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