A Level Mindset Curriculum

6th Form Information & Guidance Evening – for parents

VESPAThe plan for the form tutor period will now provide an opportunity for staff and students to consider the VESPA model. This looks at various aspects of studying, taking into account not just subject knowledge, but time management, effort and strategies to support stress. Each activity that you complete during form time will relate to one of the key components below.

VISION: They know what they want to achieve

EFFORT: They put in many hours of proactive independent study

SYSTEMS: They organise their learning resources and time

PRACTICE: They practice and develop their skills

ATTITUDE: They respond constructively to setbacks

Week VESPA component Activity

Wk 1 - November Vision Your 21st Birthday

Wk 3 - November Effort Working Weeks

Wk 5 - December Systems Snack, Don’t Binge (Weekly Review)

Wk 1 - January Attitude Falling Forwards

Wk 3 - January Attitude Stopping Negative Thoughts

Wk 1 - February Vision Fix Your Dashboard

Wk 3 - March Effort The 1-10 Scale

Wk 5 - March Practice The Revision Questionnaire

Wk 1 - April Systems STQR / The Energy Line

Wk 3 - April Practice Know the Skills

Xmas Hols

Half-term

Easter

Half-term

Your 21st Birthday

Purpose:

By creating a vision of what you would like to be in the near future, in different areas of your life, you can reflect on where you are and where you want to be.

Task:

Write down what you think each family/friend member may say and what you need/want to do between now and then to achieve the desired description.

Scenario:

Imagine its your 21st Birthday. You need to picture an unusual 21st at which your family and friends stand up and describe the type of person you are for them.

Key Questions:

1. What would you like them to say?

2. What qualities do you think they would describe?

3. When they list your achievements what would you like the list to include?

4. What would you like to be included that you still intend to do in the future?

Working Weeks

Intro:

In The Recipe for Success (2009), hundreds of high earners were interviewed and the author identified 10 characteristics to gain success. She termed these as the “tenth graft”, by which she means putting in the hours.

• A student that does not use free study periods = 23 hours per week

• A student that works during all of their study periods = 35 hours per week

• A 9am-5pm job = 40 hours per week

• The average UK worker = 43 hours per week

Task:

What does a working week look like?

A fifty hour working week

An eighty hour working week

Review your working week

How many hours are you putting in? How do you compare to your parents, or to the average UK worker?

Plan where you could get some extra hours from.

Start the day at Take a lunch break from/to Go home at

Start the day at Take a lunch break from/to Go home at

Snack, Don’t BingeIntro:

Studies show that cramming or bingeing or your learning into one large block is not productive. Snacking or reviewing your learning little and often is much more effective.

Top tips:

Try to develop the following habits to help your productivity

1. Set aside an hour a week where you must not be disturbed (put your phone on flight mode). A good time maybe Monday period 1 or 2 or Friday period 5 or 6.

2. Split the hour up in 4 x 15 minutes segments if you are studying 4 courses or 3 x 20 minute segments if you are studying 3 courses.

3. Now spend the allotted time reviewing what you have covered in each course. Some strategies that nay help you with this are;

1. Check and read through your class notes

2. Summarise your learning into mind maps

3. Highlight material you have found hard this week – this will be the areas you work on in your study periods

4. Go through your up and coming deadlines (homework, coursework) and make a prioritised list of what you need to complete, when you will do it and in which order.

4. Once you have completed this for each of your courses you should feel more organised, in control of what you need to do and have your private study periods planned out for the week.

Purpose:

Students that make this weekly review a habit are generally calmer, less stressed and leave school on a Friday knowing they are top of things, meaning any free time over the weekend can be spent on more enjoyable activities, rather than keeping them up all night!

Task: Now plan this weeks worth of private study sessions and get your jobs organised.

Failing Forwards

Failing Backwards Failing Forwards

• Blaming others • Taking reposnsiblity

• Repeating the same mistake • Learning from each mistake

• Expecting never to fail • Knowing failure is part of the process

• Expecting to fail continually • Maintaining a positive attitude

• Accepting tradition blindly • Challenging outdated assumptions

• Being limited to past mistakes • Taking new risks

• Thinking "I am a failure" • Belieiving something didn’t work

• Withdrawing effort • Persevering

Info:Dan Coyle (author of the Talent Code) argues mistakes are pieces of information. You become brilliant at something because you made lots of mistakes to begin with. Some people try to avoid failure and some see it as an opportunity to improve. You job is to see failure as part of a process to get better at something.

Task: (Now try and reflect on a recent failure and use the terms from the right hand column)• Describe the failure in a paragraph• Look at the teachers feedback – what are the areas of weakness? (rephrase these using the

right hand column)• Now make a simple list of what you would do next time.

Stopping Negative Thoughts

Info:What type of student are you?

Task:Now reframe the following statements using a more positive mind-set1. I’ve never been god at exams2. Stuff like this always happens to me3. If my report is bad my mum and dad are going to kill me4. I’m only going to fail so what is the point in trying5. The teacher doesn’t like me6. Nothing goes right for me. Why should [subject] be any different?7. I’m not going to get the grades to get into university, so I’ll end up without a job and have a

miserable life8. If I fail this mock then it means the whole term was a disaster9. This is typical of my life. Nothing is easy or straight forward and I’m sick of it.

Not Fair Thinking I don’t deserve this treatment Illogical ThinkingIf this bad thing happens then another will surely follow.

Catastrophe ThinkingIf things go wrong it’ll be a total nightmare

Blaming Thinking It’s his fault Its everyone's except mine

Stopper Thinking I’m useless, I can’t do this. Over GeneralisingI never get the breaks. My life is acomplete failure

Fix Your Dashboard

Info:

Dashboards are often the thing that people see both on the way to and from work (in the car).

Task:

Imagine somebody that you admire and respect. Take your time to choose because often the first choice is not always the best. List 5 or 10 people that come to mind.

• What do they have in common?

• What qualities do they have that you admire?

• Do you already share any characteristics with these people?

Now write a paragraph on the type of person that you would like to be in each area of your life (career, finance, family, relationships, education, qualities, activities etc).

Practise “no limit thinking” – where time, money or fears do not cloud your judgements.

The 1-10 Scale

Key questions:

1. What level of effort have you given to all of the work you have produced so far in term 1 and 2?

- What is the issue with this type of question?

- (Using the scale it is subjective – you maybe basing your answer against what your friends do or don’t do and not what is required to achieve higher grades)

2. Now try the question again but this time the following criteria can be applied to the scale

- 1: 0-2 hours of independent study per week

- 5: 10 hours of independent study per week

- 10: 20 hours of independent study per week

Info:

AS students that achieve 3 A’s tend to do 20 hours per week of independent study. This is assuming that 4 subjects are being studied, meaning 4-5 hours are spent per subject. When research was conducted on A level students the number of hours increased to 30 hours per week.

How many are you doing and how can you manage your time to accommodate some extra hours?

The Energy LineInfo:

Many students feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to do at same time due to never ending deadlines! As a result some students create lists and then cross off a job when it has been completed. The problem is the list does not tell you what to do first!

Task:

Prioritising your jobs in terms of how much effort is required is a good strategy to use. Does it require you to work really hard or can you relax a leave it until a later date?

Now try this with your own jobs. Try and include coursework submissions datesto help your prioritise. Draw the table out below and with post-it notes write down the jobs you have and put them in the relevant columns to help you organise where to start. them

Extreme High Medium Low Idle

Know the SkillsInfo:

It is almost impossible to practise and improve in a subject if you do not know the skills that are required. Sports psychologists often work with athletes using a performance profile wheel where each of the skills required are associated with a segment of the wheel and then in discussion are graded. The better/more confident the athlete feels then more of the segment is coloured in.

Task:

Create your own skill/performance profile like the one below but give each segment a tile that relates to a skill in that subject. For example it maybe the assessment objectives from the course specification. It may be some key terms that arise in discussion with your teacher.. Yours may include; Research skills, describing key terms, Analysing data, Concluding investigations, Apply skills practically.

Now do your own; either one for all subjects or even better one for each subject that you do and see where your strengths and weaknesses currently lie.

The Revision Questionnaire

Revision Method Always Sometimes Never

Reading Through Class Notes

Using resources on the J Drive

Using Course Textbooks

Mind maps / Diagrams

Making / Re-making Class Notes

Highlighting / Colour Coding

Flashcards

Using a Revision Wall to Display your Learning

Writing Exam Answers Under Timed Conditions

Reading Model Answers

Using Past Exam Questions & Planning Answers

Marking Your Own Work to a Mark Scheme

Studying Mark Schemes or Examiners Report

Working With Other Students in Groups / Pairs

Comparing Model Answers Against Your Own Work

Creating Your Own Exam Questions

Handing in Extra Exam Work for Marking

One to One Discussions with Teachers / Tutors

Intro:Research shows that a variety of revision methods are more effective than just one or two. If you revised 15 hours per week from one of the coloured zones you are less likely to perform as well as someone who revised for only 10 hours per week but had used methods from all of the coloured boxes.

Red = Content TechniquesOrange = Skills TechniquesGreen = Feedback Techniques

Task:Answer the questionnaire based on your own revision techniques.

Now plan out what methods you would like to use and for which topic in a specific subject and try it this week to see if it helps.

Interactive ActivityTask:

1. Read through the resource on the highway code – highlight key pieces of information

2. Create a few flash cards based on what you can recall3. Now transfer this information from memory to a mind map – can you

join up any key points?4. Can you answer the question – you have 5-10 minutes5. Using the mark scheme, now mark your own answer

1. What score did you achieve2. What do you know well?3. What areas need developing?

6. Make your own exam question (& basic mark scheme) for a peer to answer

7. Using your mark scheme, mark your peers answer 8. Compare your answers and discuss how the answer(s) could be improved