Friday Mindset #161

Happy Friday!

Here we are again, strapped into our speedy little time machines, ready to ride the academic roller-coaster once more. Lots of exciting twists and turns in the term ahead, but for now, we’re celebrating the end of week one and we’ve got lots to share. So let’s dive in…

Something we're reading...

Steve, Martin and Tony banging on about the importance of reading? Who’d have thought it? 😂

Last year a colleague put us onto the University of Sussex’s inspired Fast Reading project. It ran a decade ago, and its findings are special. (There’s a great video in the hyperlink above that’s worth a watch.) In the project, English teachers choose two complimentary texts - one of them contemporary - and simply read them quickly in class.

That’s it. Just reading whole books quickly - 20 - 40 minutes of continuous reading with very short breaks to define words or clear up confusion. Expressive, exciting and quick. Jane Eyre in 6 weeks, The Hate U Give in 6 weeks. No skipping bits, no looking only at extracts, no tedious line-by-line analysis of the famous passages - just blasting through the whole thing, enjoying it all, and done.

And when students were tested at the end? Blimey. “Students in both groups made 8.5 months’ mean progress on standardised tests of reading comprehension, but the poorer readers made a surprising 16 months’ progress.”

We can do that with our students too, outside of an English classroom. So we’re going to continue recommending quick tutorial reads and listens as we deliver your weekly issue.

OK, so the Sussex University paper’s here:

And this week’s quick tutorial read (shall we call these QTRs?) is below. A great little article about what the writer calls location-boxing; that is, choosing a location (a canteen table, a spot in the library, an empty classroom…) and associating it with a certain type of task. It helps the mind to switch into concentration mode.

Your students could read and discuss this together before touring the campus and choosing their spots!

Portal Talk... Case Study: A VESPA Questionnaire Report

We thought we’d share an example report with you this week, and add some of the thoughts we had when discussing it. It’s a real, anonymised year 12 VESPA questionnaire report - the three of us gathered round and had a chat about it…

Steve: The practice score jumps out doesn’t it. I might start the coaching conversation by asking the student to read the description generated, and reflect on how accurate they feel it is. In the description it says, “often your revision is passive.” Exploring what ‘passive’ revision looks like, and how ‘active’ study might differ, could be a good place to begin?

Tony: And there’s the systems score to consider, particularly if this is early year 12. The description says you “sometimes meet deadlines.” It might be worth starting with that. “Tell me the story of a recently-missed, or almost-missed deadline” might be a question to get the chat going.

Martin: There’s the coaching questions to look at too, on the right hand side, if you’re stuck for what to say. One of the suggested coaching questions for a low practice score is “Choose a subject. If you had one hour to spend on it, and no homework, what would you do to help your learning?” I like that one. It often gets a decent discussion going.

We thought we’d share another report and chat in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out. As ever, if you want to find out more about the VESPA questionnaire and coaching report, get in touch with Tony ([email protected]).

Something to try...

Over the summer we were really struck by Professor Karen Caldwell’s explanation of the importance of active learning. In today’s powerpoint, we have a lovely simple and clear clip of her talking through a particular study, explaining the impact that actively engaging with study can have on student progress. It’s perfect for this time of year!

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