The Friyay Mindset - Issue #23

September 10, 2021

Only hours ago these corridors, classrooms and offices were a thrumming hive of intellectual activity. Now, the only people left are the entrepreneurial sixth former in detention for trying to sell e-cigarettes on the waste ground behind the Design Technology block, the sobbing year 7 who's messed up their arrangements for a lift home and been shouted at on the phone to their mum, the site manager... and you.

It can mean only one thing! It's newsletter time.

Here’s something to try…

As you know, over the summer we dived deeper into the study habits and behaviours we’ve seen strongly associated with those who thrive in difficult times. (You might have seen us discussing these on Twitter.) What we thought we’d do is make them available here for further discussion and exploration. We’re referring to them as the #100behaviours, and we’ll be sharing them here, 20 at a time.

This week is the turn of effort. Effort has had a rough history in academic research. Papers from the 80s famously found no link between effort and academic outcome - though subsequent academics pointed out that students were self-reporting in inconsistent circumstances. Other papers found - bizarrely - a link between weekend effort and grades, but not weekday effort. More recently, though, researchers have had a heightened awareness of how to collect data, and much stronger correlations between effort and grade have come through.

Effort has many components for us; it's not simply 'the hours', but a series of proactive study strategies. We've listed 20 here.

How are these useful? Well, in a number of ways:

  • Students could complete a simple never-sometimes-always analysis

  • Students could arrange them into three groups ‘comfort’ (I already do this) ‘stretch’ (This is unfamiliar but I could give it a try’,) and ‘daunted’ (I’m uneasy/challenged by the thought of doing this)

  • Coaching conversations could revolve around a discussion of them

  • Students or staff could pick which ones they think are most important

  • They could be modified and shared with parents

We hope you find them useful!

Here’s something we’ve been reading…

Higher levels of academic effort often come as the result of culture; that unseen network of shared beliefs, values and expectations that seems to be emitted in every corridor, conversation and lesson.

A great book on culture creation is Dan Coyle's The Culture Code; a must-read for leaders, and those of us who want to be the architects of a better culture. We couldn't recommend this readable study more highly:

From the author of The Talent Code comes The Culture Code, a book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups & the tools they use to build their cultures.

Here's our latest offer...

The question we get asked most frequently, is "how do you get VESPA to stick in a school/college?" We've added a new chapter on implementation in the updated A Level Mindset book and over the summer we've been putting together an implementation checklist. On Thursday 23rd September at 3.45 pm, we are going to run a FREE session to take you through the 21 steps of implementation. If you'd like to join us, send us an email at [email protected] and we will send you a zoom invite.

Cheers all. Have a good weekend!

Steve and Martin