Friday Mindset #186

Happy Friday!

We’ve got one more newsletter to go after this one, then we’re disappearing for two weeks. But don’t worry, there’s enough in the next two issues to last you a month, honest.

Before we start, thanks to those who showed up for the catch-up webinar - lovely to see you - and thanks for the positive comments and messages afterwards too. If you’ve requested the powerpoint, it should be with you by now. Shout if it hasn’t yet arrived!

Right, let’s jump in.

Something we're reading...

OK so this is an interesting one.

Sweden used to have a strong reputation educationally, and appeared towards the top of PISA rankings. But then something went wrong. Post 2012, they began to drop, and more recently, have arrived at a point where there are more problems with functional literacy amongst Swedish students than there are in the UK and (gulp) the US.

So why’s it all gone pear-shaped? One argument is that the troubles began upon the compulsory introduction of screen-based technologies at Primary level. Now there’s an attempt being made to reverse this.

OK, before you read, disclaimer time: we’re not going to pretend to know much about Swedish politics, and the phrase ‘right-wing coalition’ doesn’t sound great, but the Education Minister’s previous role was as Leader of the Liberal Party, so… point is, we can’t comment on the composition of Sweden’s government or decisions and policies made outside of this one. It’s the old ‘views expressed by Sweden’s ministers may not reflect those of The Friday Mindset’, basically 😂

Now all that’s out of the way - this is a really interesting piece, and there’s a half-hour documentary hyperlinked within as well. It’s well worth reading, and could make a good tutorial discussion.

Portal Talk...

VESPA Videos have been live for subscribers for a while… but we’ve been working on a simple log-in system for you folks.

If you’re short on a tutorial idea, or you’re out of inspiration for an upcoming assembly, maybe a brilliant 3-minute video will do the heavy lifting for you.

Yep, subscribers, a reminder you’ve got total access to our VESPA video library, a curated collection of handpicked favourites and original content covering Vision, Effort, Systems, Practice and Attitude. Think of it as a nicely organised cupboard of useful clips except without the dried-up glue sticks, mystery cables and mystery laminated sheet from 2009.

You can use the videos in tutor time, PSHE sessions, assemblies, or share them directly with students. You can search by topic, browse by VESPA dimension, or use the “Find by student challenge” tool to match a video to what your students actually need right now. We’re tagging them so that you can select a problem such as…

‘Low motivation’
‘Poor organisation’
‘Revision panic’

…and many more. Got a student who has highlighted an entire textbook and called it “active revision”? There’s probably a video for that too.

Good news if you’re already using the portal at your school — VESPA Videos are already included as part of your school’s VESPA subscription. No extra cost, no separate login,
no new password to forget, reset, write on a Post-it, lose, and then blame on IT. You’ll find the full video library in your Staff Resources area, alongside VESPA Slides, the Curriculum Hub, and VESPA Posters. Just sign in as normal at:

app.vespa.academy

Free-tier subscribers, you folks can upgrade for £5/month and get full access to the video library. And if you’re new to all this, and you’d like to see VESPA Videos in action, or have a look around the new VESPA Academy 2.0 platform we’d be very happy to show you!

Something to try...

Often we’ll work with schools and colleges who want VESPA to be more seamlessly embedded into classroom practice, not just something discussed during tutorial sessions.

We’ve developed a resource that gives them a starting point. It’s called VESPA Departmental Audits, and it’s a document that sets out a number of ideas and expectations for classroom teachers to consider and reflect upon; a chance for them to effectively self-assess.

There are five sections, one for each element of the model, and we thought we’d share a section with subscribers today…

Subscribe to our premium content to read the rest.