The Friyay Mindset - Issue #15

May 14, 2021

Hey! It's Friday. The playground is empty, the corridors echo, the receptionist is clock-watching and the office staff are cackling at obscure jokes and listening to Radio 2... it all points to one thing - it's time for the newsletter.

If you read our newsletter last week, you’ll have seen that we're obsessing about transition at the moment. And you'll also know that we’re taking some time over the next few weeks to look at transition through the lens of VESPA, making some observations and suggestions under each element of the model, and sharing some new activities.

Here’s something to try…

OK - the activities. Remember we've never published these anywhere before and they're all written since lockdown so if you had a go at them with a class, you’d be among the first to try them (after us…). Feel free to give us some feedback and suggest alterations! ([email protected] to say hello)

So off we go with today’s session, an effort activity called Becoming Indistractable. This was written specifically for students who've acclimatised to WFH-related chaos, and now see it as the norm. They're wondering why they don't seem to get much studying done in the very same moment they're trying to hurriedly finish homework whilst eating toast, playing FIFA and catching up on the Whatsapp chat. They need a chance to declutter their spaces and routines in preparation for a new phase of study... and this activity should help.

Let us know what you think.

You can download here.

Here’s something we’ve been reading…

More on transition, this week. This paper, from the University of Rotterdam, studies Dutch students during their first year at university to figure out which non-cognitive factors seem to most accurately predict their likelihood of continuing their studies. It's a complex paper but easily navigable. Read the start and the end for a flavour. One element of the VESPA model comes up trumps... and it's this week's theme; effort.

Pre-university effort positively predicted 1st-year retention.

Our latest offer…

If you follow us on Twitter @VESPAmindset, you’ll have seen our publishers are now offering the digital licence for both GCSE and A-Level workbooks. If you teach vocational courses, there’s also an FE version that has no references to A-Levels. At 60p per student, we think this is a top-draw offer. You can re-badge the material, take out activities you don't want, re-word stuff, add your own material, re-order the activities... the possibilities are endless! To order, you can contact Jess at Crown House, at [email protected].

Have a great weekend!

Steve & Martin

p.s. We think our email server has been playing up recently. We’re at inbox zero right now - every single email we can see has been answered. Trouble is… we suspect we might be missing a few. So I’ve you’ve got in touch recently and not received a reply, something’s gone wrong. Please could you try again?

Many thanks!