The A Level Mindset: 40 activities for transforming student commitment, motivation and productivity - Tapa blanda

At a time when too many of us lament the way A level teaching sometimes feels like a bit of a conveyor belt, here's a book designed to give responsibility for learning back to students. It s an ingenious compilation of techniques to manage our learning in these times of information overload and endless distractions. The book is more than a set of tips; it's an empowering and optimistic practical approach which will help students to become more reflective learners and better at managing their studies. I learnt a great deal from The A Level Mindset and would see it as an essential part of any sixth form programme. --Geoff Barton, Head Teacher, King Edward VI School, Suffolk

A thoroughly enjoyable book; The A Level Mindset has successfully integrated research and practice into an excellent user guide. It will be a valuable resource for students, teachers, parents and carers. The tools and techniques described are both workable and relevant. --Professor Peter Clough, Chair of Applied Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University

Oakes and Griffin have produced a remarkable resource that offers a significant guide to enhancing teaching and learning at A level, but with implications beyond years 12 and 13. The resource is firstly a very practical guide to support the how of effective learning as well as the what. As such it provides a necessary antidote to an approach based on managing information and develops a coherent strategy to empower students understanding and help them become confident self-managing and self-aware learners. The second important point about this resource is that it provides a model that will stimulate professional dialogue around such approaches in primary schools and years 7 to 11. The materials will also serve as a very powerful preparation for studying in higher education and employment. Oakes and Griffin are to be congratulated and thanked for a highly practical, relevant and supportive resource. --John West-Burnham, Professor of Educational Leadership, St Mary's University College

Those students who make real and sustained progress at A level aren't necessarily the ones with superb GCSEs. Some students leap from average results in Year 11 to outstanding results in Year 13. Others seem to hit a ceiling. But why? It was in trying to answer this question that the VESPA system emerged. Steve and Martin have cut through the noise surrounding character development and identified five key characteristics that all students need to be successful: vision, effort, systems, practice and attitude. These characteristics beat cognition hands down. Successful students approach their studies with the right behaviours, skills and attitudes: they understand how to learn and revise effectively, they're determined and organised, they give more discretionary effort and they get top results. Success at A level is a result of character, not intelligence. Much has been written about growth mindsets and character development in recent years, but teachers are still left wondering how to apply these ideas in their contexts: how can these theories help learners in practice? Taking cues from the work of Peter Clough, Carol Dweck and Angela Lee Duckworth, and informed by their collective 30 plus years of teaching and coaching, Steve and Martin have spent years researching how character and behaviours affect student outcomes in their sixth form. After identifying the core traits that contributed to student success, they developed practical activities to help every student develop the A Level Mindset. Discover 40 concrete, practical and applicable tools and strategies that will supercharge learners' ambition, organisation, productivity, persistence and determination. Suitable for teachers, tutors, heads of sixth form or anyone else who wants to help A level students achieve their potential, The A Level Mindset offers 40 easy-to-use activities to develop students' resilience, commitment, buoyancy, motivation and determination. It could be your key to transforming student outcomes.