Friday Mindset #192

Happy Friday!

We do believe this is our penultimate newsletter of the academic year. Blimey, that caught us on the hop - thought we had a few more to go, had our eyes on #200 and forgot we wrap up on July 10th, since no-one wants anything but sunshine and fine wine on the last day of term.

(Subscribers - you’ll have two more newsletters over the summer, so keep an eye out for them!)

Next week we’ll do our usual round-up of the year, sharing some of the articles, ideas or activities folks seemed to like. In the meantime though, we’ve got some interesting stuff for you, so let’s dive in…

Something we're reading...

We’ve been slow picking up on this, but it finally found its way to us a few weeks ago, when a reader emailed it in. (Thanks Ollie!)

It speaks to a real issue we’re thinking about at the moment - we shared an article adjacent to this topic last week - how to engage students who are isolated; how to get them off their phones and out into the world. Get them touching grass, man*. Clearly, there’s a way to go with a proportion of our young people if this week’s read is anything to go by.

Here’s one student in this article, “The fact that I have my phone means I can use it to just reach all my friends back home. Especially within first year. I was terrified to make new friends, so I just relied on the fact that I already had some and I didn’t really bother reaching out much because I knew I already had some people, but I didn’t realise living so far away from them would be such an issue.”

This is one all year 11s, 12 and 13s should be reading and discussing in tutorial with you:

And here’s a further resource to consider. In Martin’s latest book, co-written with Dr Jo Phillips of Sheffield University, The Backpacker’s Guide to University, there’s a series of ‘passport stamps’ for students to try, all covering various aspects of life away from home. Here’s a shonky picture of the section on joining clubs and societies, in order to make new friends and have a laugh:

(Subscribers, you’ll have an extra extract from The Backpacker’s Guide as a pdf lower down - it’s a section focusing on ‘building a network’ of connections, friends and contacts.)

*sorry. Embarrassing use of Gen Z slang is not acceptable in any circumstances.

Portal Talk...

Interest in VESPA 2.0, our updated platform, has been building fast over recent weeks, with more schools and colleges booking demos every day ahead of September.

If it's on your radar for next year, this is the week to act! Sign up before Friday 10th July to qualify for a 10% summer term discount — after that, the offer closes. Fancy a look-before-you-leap free trial? You can explore the new portal for yourself:

Or book a demo with Tony here:

Something to try...

We’ve been deep on a topic over the last couple of weeks, in response to a couple of staff training requests, and we’re going to share one of our interesting discoveries with subscribers. The requested session was one on building student resilience.

We already had quite a bit of material on the topic, but in exploring further, we’ve discovered something really interesting…

Subscribe to our premium content to read the rest.