The Friday Mindset - Issue #50

May 06, 2022

Four day weeks - we should do these more often. It only seems like yesterday we were signing off on last week's newsletter. Happy Friday again everyone!

Thanks, btw, for the thumbs-up on last week's stuff. It's always great to know we've got something right and helped someone somewhere. As you probably know (though we had some new subscribers this week, so you might have to dig through the archives...) we've been focusing on how to keep exam-classes positive, purposeful and motivated. In the last few issues we've done:

  • tackling procrastination

  • environment design and habit formation

  • getting out of your own head

  • working in sprints

...and this week, it's the turn of the student manifesto.

Hope there's something here that's useful for you!

Something to try...

This week is all about building self-control and impulse control. So many of our students would benefit from making better decisions under pressure; those temptation-busting moments of certainty where they say a confident and firm 'no' to something that will disturb their exam preparation.

But how come some can do it so well, and others seem to succumb as soon as there's a potentially ruinous disruption to revision?

Part of the answer lies in identity and language use (see the paper below!) so in this week's brief session, we've put together an activity around manifesto writing that helps students build an identity that will last for the six weeks of the exam season.

It's worked a treat for us - hopefully it will for you too.

Enjoy!

A powerpoint to help students design their own manifesto

Something we're reading...

"I don't" versus "I can't" is a great paper to pair with this week's activity. In it, Professor Vanessa Patrick (University of Houston) looks at impulse control - specifically how hard it is to say 'no' to something you want to do.

There are two ways to resist temptation outlined in the paper;

  • Tell yourself "I can't" (ie. "I've created a series of rules for myself, and to do this would be to break my rules")

  • Tell yourself "I don't" (ie. "This is who I am. I don't do this. Not to do this is simply my identity.")

The "don't" option utilises a degree of personal empowerment, and it supports temptation denial in a significantly stronger way. As usual, we've given you some options here. If you'd like to read the whole paper, dive in - it's excellent:

If you want a word doc that details the first of four experiments the researchers conducted, check it out here. Spoiler: 'don't' rather than 'can't' pretty much doubles your chances of resisting temptation:

One of four experiments conducted by Prof Vanessa Patrick

Our latest offer…

A reminder: we’ve put Thursday 7th July in our planners for an in-person training day in London. We’ll book somewhere central and we’ll plan a day which covers the following…

  • An introduction to the system using all-new activities

  • Implementation guidance, with clips from schools and colleges using VESPA

  • How to coach students and encourage behaviour change that sticks

  • Measuring impact and using the psychometric

We’ll also cover anything else you want to know about, so if the date looks good and you’d like to come along, feel free to specify what you’d like us to cover! We’re going to try and keep the session small - maybe 10-12 delegates, so we can really get detailed about stuff.

More details next week.

Right folks, that's it for now. We're off to film ourselves jumping off a high building with a flimsy parachute in order to boost interest in our flagging Instagram account. Have a great weekend,

Steve and Martin

p.s. our remaining training slots for the summer term are dwindling fast. If you're interested in getting us in to support staff with some quality CPD or plan for next year, you'll have to be quick. Dates for August and September are looking good...June and July are almost full!