The Friyay Mindset - Issue #12

April 23, 2021

Welcome back to the chalk-face! We hope you've had a restful Easter break. We're back in the saddle, running training at schools in Kent, Manchester, South Wales and Steve has started a new adventure in the UAE, so it's been a whirlwind, but great fun to hear from ambitious and committed staff implementing VESPA-related projects in their contexts. This is brave work; often work that requires creativity in the face of myriad challenges, courage when met with resistance, faith in the direction of travel, and compassion and emotional labour working with students who - now more than ever - can feel put-upon, listless, unlucky or directionless. It's hugely important we continue to support and challenge them, and we've been endlessly impressed with the commitment shown by staff this week.

Here’s something to try…

We've been working with a number of schools recently who are interested in trying to introduce some version of coaching into their KS3 curriculum. We've got a bank of 200 coaching questions we find useful at KS4 and 5, but often students respond well to them because they have a greater degree of self-awareness and maturity. KS3 is a different ball-game, so recently we've been working on stripped-back, entry-level coaching questions that pupils in years 7, 8, and 9 might be able to tackle, perhaps working in small teams or pairs as they discuss their responses.

These could make good 'coaching questions of the week' - we have a suggested order for these across a few PowerPoint slides if KS3 is your bag and you fancy seeing what we've put together. Let us know at [email protected] and we'll send them over to you.

Anyway, here's our 25. What do you think? Feel free to feedback, let us know whether these might be useful...

V: What does success look like for you?

V: What is most important you get right this year?

V: What is your favourite subject/which subject do you enjoy most?

V: What obstacles do you think you may have to overcome to succeed at school?

V: What would be important to you in a job? Describe a good day at work.

E/S: Do you have a workspace in which to do your work? Could you describe it to another class member?

E: Describe the last time you set yourself a piece of work.

E: Have you ever worked hard before? How would you define it?

E: How do you use a week’s study periods? Where are you and what are you doing?

E: How many hours do you think you should be studying? What should you be doing?

E: Name a student who works harder than you. What do they do?

E: When working, how do you know you’ve done enough? What amount of effort deserves a reward?

S: How do you organise your subject notes?

S: If you could change one aspect of the way you organise yourself, what would it be?

S: Suggest one object, thing or action that would improve your organisation.

S: What is next week looking like for you? How do you plan to tackle it?

P: Describe the challenges presented by tests in _______________.

P: How comfortable is the process of revision for you?

P: What do you do with your homework or test scores when you get a low grade?

P: What is revision? What revision techniques do you prefer to use?

P: What’s the hardest test question you expect to face? What are you doing about it?

P: When was the last time you tested yourself?

A: Advise your friend if they have a low grade and they’re feeling down.

A: Describe your most challenging topic/subject. Why? What are you doing about it?

A: What’s the biggest study mistake you’ve made so far? What have you learnt?

Something we’ve been reading…

Geekily obsessed as we are, we spent part of our Easter reading Leslie Gutman and Ingrid Schoon's paper, A Synthesis of Causal Evidence Linking Non-Cognitive Skills to Later Outcomes for Children and Adolescents, (Gutman and Schoon, UCL, 2016) This is an impressive meta-analysis of the research on commonly-studied non-cognitive constructs. It's detailed, fascinating stuff, and we've created a word doc that summarises the main points. If you'd like to skip the paper and read our digest, just let us know at [email protected] and we'll send one through to you!

There's a link to the full paper below.

A synthesis of causal evidence linking non-cognitive skills to

later outcomes for children and adolescents

Here’s our latest offer…

In case you've missed it, our publishers are now providing a digital licence for both the GCSE and A-Level Mindset Workbooks. These writable PDFs contain all 40 activities from each of the workbooks. This could be a fantastic resource to use in lockdown and for the remainder of the year. You can view a sample here:

Read about The A Level Mindset Student Workbook from Crown House Publishing

The workbooks include all 40 activities!

The good news is that these can be purchased for only 60p per pupil and can be added to your school or college platform or emailed to students.

Get in touch at [email protected] if you’d like to know more or if you have any questions about anything you’ve read. Finally, if you want to send any feedback - let us know what’s been useful, what you’d like to see more of, what’s been a hit…or what’s been a complete waste of your precious time - let us know. You can always say hello at [email protected], or on social at @vespamindset on Twitter.

Stay safe!

Steve and Martin

p.s. There are three training slots left this summer. If you've finally cleared your desk and are thinking about summer CPD, get in touch with Martin via email or the website.