The Friyay Mindset - Issue #9

March 12, 2021

We hope that everyone has had a safe return to school. It's been an incredible effort by school staff to get so many pupils tested and back to learning. In addition to our day job, this week we've been back in Wales sharing some VESPA strategies with parents. We were a little apprehensive about how many parents would attend. The thought of another zoom session at the end of a long day isn't something most people would relish; however, we were unnecessarily worrying. The response has been fantastic and we've had hundreds of parents attend online over three nights. It's great to see so many parents supporting schools and helping get their children back into successful study habits and routines.

Here's something to try...

Last week we provided 50 statements, describing learning behaviours. The statements work as a great starting point for a structured discussion about clear expectations. What exactly is it that we want from our learners? You might ask staff or pupils to identify which behaviours are most important, and they build a list of their top ten. Or, if your staff and pupils are familiar with VESPA, you could ask them to select two they think fit vision, effort, systems, practice, and attitude. We've also had a go at arranging all 100 statements under the VESPA headings. Last week we covered the first fifty - here's part 2!

Download above.

Here's something we've been reading...

There’s a link below to a thought-provoking paper by Professor Angela Duckworth and Professor David Yeager. We often use the term noncognitive to describe the focus of our work; however, it’s been argued that the term is too broad to be useful as it implies that there are features of human behaviour that are devoid of cognition. In this paper, Duckworth and Yeager discuss some of the difficulties of using the term but struggle to offer an alternative that isn’t without flaws. They also provide a useful discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of using questionnaires to measure noncognitive skills. It’s a fascinating read!

Angela L. Duckworth and David Scott Yeager

Our latest offer...

OK - listen up, here's something we're really excited to share!

Over the last five years, we’ve been developing and working on an online platform that allows students to develop their approaches to study and independent learning. There’s a number of people we need to thank for this development. Firstly, the team of psychologists at MMU has been a huge support. Dr. Jennifer McGhan is always on hand to offer her critical eye over any development and, in the GCSE Mindset, Dr. Neil Dagnall and Dr. Andrew Donoven provided us with a full chapter on the development of the VESPA questionnaire. Second, we are always grateful to our publishers (Crown House) for supporting the development of the resources. Thirdly, we have to give a huge thanks to our IT wizard Tony Dennis. Without Tony’s dedication and persistence to build this platform (although we won’t miss his late-night calls) we would have never got this far! And finally, big thanks to our programming guru in the states, Kelson Erwin.

There's a short video below showing how it works. If you'd like a demonstration of how you could use this with your GCSE and A-Level students email us at [email protected] and we will set-up a zoom call.

We're thrilled at how the project is turning out - it really is going to offer next-level student support.

Have a great weekend!

Steve & Martin

Click above.