Friday Mindset #147

Happy Friday folks.

We’ve made it. Another week down, another step closer to Spring. We’re typing this in the University of Sheffield’s Student Union caff, sipping Earl Grey while we’re between gigs. Old-school adidas are back in a big way and apparently, dog life-drawing classes are a thing.

A word about training; our next available training slots are May, June and July - and there are still spaces if you’d like staff training (with Martin - [email protected]) or student training (with Tony - [email protected].) Autumn term dates are beginning to fill; last week of August is full, first week of September has a couple of slots left.

Get in touch if we can help. Most popular staff sessions at the moment are: (i) introducing VESPA, (ii) raising ambition and aspiration (a vision session), (iii) evidence-based revision (a practice session) (iv) effective coaching conversations and (v) building a culture of independent learning (an effort session). For student sessions, this time of year is all about effective, evidence-based revision.

Anyway. Onward. Got some good stuff to share this week - let’s dive in.

Something to try…

We often set aside time in February and March to get the latest on university interview questions. Any student comes back from an interesting interview, we’re often waiting with a notebook to record their experiences. It doesn’t give us a huge sample size, since a lot of them, quite naturally, forget what questions they were asked, so finding questions online becomes important. But it can be an irritating process - they’re often subject-specific, whereas we’re interested in more general ones; they’re sometimes odd or, we suspect, inaccurately recorded; they can be context-dependent and seem very strange outside of that context; or they’re hidden behind a paywall. Nevertheless, we’ve done our best to combine questions we’ve heard about over the last few years, with lists we’ve found online… and here’s our most recent document.

It’s a work in progress, but it might be useful.

If any of you have similar, please share - we could post some more up here so we’ve all got access to a wider range. If you like the resource, there’s a great tutorial activity here: interview question of the week. Enjoy.

Something we’re reading…

A few weeks ago, Martin appeared on Ben White’s late night Teacher Talk Radio slot, Classroom Chronicles. The format’s an intriguing one - Ben’s interested in the power and purpose of storytelling in schools, and has a series of questions on the topic that he asks guests: positive stories we tell each other, schools as storytelling machines, stories about learning we might accept or reject.

The discussion must have been a half-decent one because afterwards, Ben went away and wrote a piece inspired by the ideas covered in the chat. He’s been gracious enough to allow us to share it. Ben writes with great insight and reflection here, weighing and assessing the challenges of leadership in fast-moving organisations, and the stories it requires us to tell ourselves and others.

It’s a great piece. Set aside fifteen minutes, brew up, swipe a Breakaway from the RQT training rooms, and settle in for a fascinating read:

…and if you want to listen to Ben and Martin’s conversation, there are hyperlinks in the piece itself.

Portal talk…

Tony’s working on the front of the online portal, adding useful little apps that students can use.

One is an online version of Pending, Doing, Done from The VESPA Handbook, a great little systems activity that introduces the idea of taskboards. The app’s fantastic - a simple tool that can really help students get to grips with what’s on their plate and what needs prioritising.

Here’s a video giving you a two-and-a-half minute tour. Images by Tony ‘piano practice’ Dennis, voiceover by Martin ‘one-take’ Griffin. Enjoy.

For those of you subscribed to the online portal, you may have noticed a big change to the student page.

Here are some slides which will be available for one week only! Please feel free to use these to explain this activity to students.

We are developing a number of useful “Productivity Apps” for students to use, the Taskboard activity is one such “App”, which students can start using straight away. We would love you feedback on these, so please let Tony know how they are being used in your setting - [email protected]

If you are not you subscribed to the VESPA Portal and would like a free demo, please use Tony’s link below to arrange a quick 15min call.

Our latest offer…

Last week’s offer garnered just the right amount of interest, so we’re doing it again.

We’re going to set aside a few thirty-minute slots to help talk through a problem with you. If you’re wrestling with a VESPA-related, or VESPA-adjacent issue, and you want some help pulling it apart, now’s your chance to grab half an hour with us.

Email at [email protected], and outline (i) your issue (ii) three alternative times and dates you’d be available for a 30-minute chat so we can try and calendar it.

If last week’s anything to go by, we seem to be in a goldilocks zone of ‘just the right amount of intertest’, so if you get in touch, chances are we’ll be able to help - unless there’s a significantly different response this week.

One last thing…

This newsletter is the 100% hand-typed output of three real people.

We toggle every AI co-pilot setting to ‘off’, do everything ourselves, and say no to every eager advertiser of mattresses or micro-dosed mushrooms. But, every now and again, to cover the cost of books and postage, we’ll ask if you wouldn’t mind buying us a coffee. If you’re enjoying our work or finding anything useful, why not sling us a hot drink.

Cheers!

OK, that’s it folks. We’re done. Get out into that Friday night sunshine and smell the changing season in the air! Cast daffodils across the dashboard of your Vauxhall Corsa!*

(*we’ve all got Vauxhall Corsas right?)

All the best to you and yours,

Martin, Tony and Steve

p.s. Late to the party, but someone put us onto The True Size, a great website for comparing the true size of countries, and a great tool for demonstrating the difference between our estimations of a country’s size - as a result of its cultural dominance, for example, as well as the distortion you get from flattening a globe into a 2D map - and the reality.

Worth a demo with students. Here it is: