Impact & evidence

What changed when schools used us

56% → 74% GCSE Maths resit pass rate over two years
Rochdale Sixth Form College

7.5% rise in A*–A grades, 2019–2023
Central South Consortium, Wales

ALPS 5 → 2 for disadvantaged students
Rochdale Sixth Form College

14% greater grade improvement, scholarship students
Bangkok Preparatory School

BESA Awards 2026 — Outstanding Training and Career Development shortlist — **Shortlisted, 2026** Outstanding Training and Career Development

BESA Awards 2026 — School and Supplier Collaboration shortlist — **Shortlisted, 2026** School and Supplier Collaboration

Teach Secondary Awards Best CPD Winner — **Best CPD — Winner, 2025** Teach Secondary Awards, for The VESPA Handbook

BESA Awards 2025 — Evidence and Impact shortlist — **Shortlisted, 2025** Evidence and Impact, BESA Awards

Multi-academy trust

E-ACT: one approach across six sixth forms

Academy trust · England

How it runs across the trust

E-ACT wanted one evidence-informed approach to learning behaviours across six sixth forms — a shared framework that still let each academy respond to its own context. Every student completes the questionnaire each cycle; staff CPD and student workshops run alongside; and after every cycle we sit down with trust leaders to work through what their data is saying and what to do next.

6 sixth forms on one platform

3 cycles a year, each with a feedback session

Both staff CPD and student workshops delivered

1 shared language across the trust

The CPD has helped staff develop greater confidence in supporting students with independent study and learning behaviours. It has also created greater consistency across our sixth forms in how staff talk to students about study habits, motivation and preparation for assessments. Working across six academies could have been complicated. It hasn’t been — accounts, syncing and reporting have been straightforward, and the team respond quickly to everything we ask.
Amy Gill Trust Director of Sixth Form, E-ACT

Running a trust? We can show you how the same model looks across your academies — shared language, cycle feedback, and a director view of every site.

Request a quote

E-ACT trust portal showing six sixth forms on one platform

A unique trust dashboard lets directors manage and compare progress and results across a range of sites — one place to see every academy, jump into each school’s data, and keep a shared view of how the cohort is moving.

Results

What schools measured

Rochdale Sixth Form College

Resit pass rates, tracked over two years

Learn more Show less

Rochdale’s questionnaire data pointed at Vision and Systems, so that is where they put the extra coaching. Over the two years that followed, they tracked GCSE resit pass rates and ALPS scores for their disadvantaged students.

Their ALPS score for disadvantaged students moved from 5 to 2 over the same period.
Nick Vile Rochdale Sixth Form College

56% → 74%GCSE Maths resit pass rate, over two years

61% → 82%GCSE English resit pass rate, same period

ALPS 5 → 2for disadvantaged students

7.5% rise in A*–A grades, 2019–2023

Learn more Show less

A partnership with the Post-16 Education Team since 2019, supporting schools across South Wales.

The platform assigns activities from questionnaire outcomes and gives post-16 leaders immediate feedback on their cohort.
Emma Lloyd Central South Consortium, Wales

14% greater grade improvement, scholarship students

Scholarship students working with VESPA improved more than their peers over the year — the school’s own comparison of the two groups.
Bangkok Preparatory School Thailand

Coaching, not telling What changed for Progress Coaches

Learn more Show less

Staff had used VESPA language for years; the portal got students using it too.

It allows our Progress Coaches to actually coach, rather than just suggest solutions and see if anything lands.
Steve Dann Principal, Long Road Sixth Form College

It has shown a clear way why it’s given me the score it’s given.
One student

A baseline for mindset Undergraduate independent learning

Learn more Show less

Using the questionnaire as a baseline measure of student mindset and the development of softer skills.

The VESPA resources have been instrumental developing our students’ academic and independent learning skills… we see real impact on students’ academic performance.
Michael Tambling Hartpury University

Research partnerships

Research with Manchester Metropolitan University

Learn more Show less

MMU validated the questionnaire back at the start. The current work is a live project on their foundation programme, and it has drawn interest from other universities.

Running now · 2025–26

100 foundation students in psychology

Learn more Show less

Foundation-year students narrowly missed the grades for their degree, and the course has traditionally high drop-out — often down to workload mismanagement rather than ability. MMU’s foundation degree in psychology is running VESPA with 100 students: tutor training, three questionnaire cycles, and coaching conversations built into the year.

It’s early — the hard data comes at the end of the project — but feedback from staff and students has been really promising, and the project has already drawn interest from other universities, including MMU’s international students team, who want to run the same model.

The staff training was brilliant — it gave staff so much confidence, and led to consistent implementation: all students got a similar experience, which can be very hard to achieve.
Dr Jen McGahan · Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University

Where it started

Validating the questionnaire

Learn more Show less

The relationship began with the research: the 28-item questionnaire was developed and validated with Dr Neil Dagnall and Dr Andrew Donovan at MMU, with confirmatory factor analysis concluding it can be considered an internally reliable measure.

1,669students in the trial

0.85Cronbach’s alpha

28validated items

Independent research

Three studies we didn’t run

Learn more Show less

Colleges and consortia have tested VESPA themselves and published what they found — including the parts that didn’t work. All three reports are public.

Runshaw College · GCSE maths resit · 2020–21

GCSE maths resit, with a control group

Learn more Show less

Two teacher-researchers at Runshaw College in Lancashire ran VESPA across a GCSE maths resit cohort of around 450 — students in a subject where, nationally, fewer than one in five resit candidates had reached a grade 4 in the years before. Every student took the questionnaire. Eight activities went into the scheme of work, and a smaller group had one-to-one coaching. A comparison group had neither.

Then a national lockdown landed in the middle of it. The activities moved online, and the comparison still came out the same way.

On the questionnaire, the VESPA cohort’s overall score edged up while the comparison group’s fell across four of the five elements. The biggest single movement was Attitude, where the most common score rose from 1 out of 10 to 6. One student described feeling “more relaxed and organised when it comes to deadlines”.

Griffiths, K. & Wilson, V., Runshaw College, with Nelson and Colne College Group — published by the Education and Training Foundation through Centres for Excellence in Maths.
Read the full report →

Grades at the end of the year

Students who improved on their previous best grade

VESPA 59.6%

Comparison 47.8%

Average grade improvement

VESPA 0.58

Comparison 0.21

Learn more Show less

285 students in the VESPA cohort, 67 in the comparison group. Grades that year were teacher-assessed, so the report is careful not to compare the cohort against previous years — only against the students alongside them. The college went on to roll VESPA out to the whole resit cohort.

Buckinghamshire College Group · 2020

Activities built into English lessons

Learn more Show less

The college had more than 800 learners sitting GCSE English — in a sector where, on the Department for Education figures the report quotes, nearly 80% of learners who fail the exam at school go on to fail the resit at college. Staff built VESPA activities into the GCSE English curriculum itself, alongside skills ‘heat maps’.

Their finding was that the resources “have given a structured approach to tackling learner motivation and resilience”, opening up conversations about what was actually stopping learners — and that running the activities inside English lessons, rather than in tutorial time, was what made them stick.

Outstanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment (OTLA) Phase 6, Education and Training Foundation.
Read the project report →

Central South Consortium · Wales · 2020

Why Runshaw picked VESPA up

Learn more Show less

The consortium published its own account of running the VESPA system across post-16 provision in South Wales, reporting sixth form results in “the top 5% of UK Alps schools and colleges”.

That published account is part of why Runshaw picked VESPA up in the first place — their literature review cites it as the reason to think a shift in mindset might move attainment, and not just self-reported scores. One team writes up what happened; the next team has a reason to test it properly, with a control group. That’s the chain we’re trying to keep going.

Cited in the Runshaw College report above. Our own partnership with the consortium’s Post-16 team, which has run since 2019, is covered earlier on this page.

Independent initiative · Supported by VESPA

Global Sixth Form Network

Learn more Show less

Leading a sixth form is unlike any other role in education — and too many leaders still do it in isolation. The Global Sixth Form Network (GSFN) is a separate project that connects leaders of British-curriculum sixth forms worldwide to share ideas, research and practical solutions that improve leadership and student experience.

GSFN is not a VESPA product or sales network. VESPA Academy supports and contributes to the initiative as it grows. Founding membership is free for the first 100 schools — permanent founding status, early access to webinars and working groups, and a seat at the table while the network takes shape.

Visit globalsixth.org Register founding interest

International

International schools

British School Al Khubairat

Abu Dhabi, UAE

“The questionnaire results provide valuable talking points for academic mentoring sessions. Students appreciate the objective assessment of their study habits and the concrete suggestions for improvement.”

Kellett School

Hong Kong

Learn more Show less

The British international school in Hong Kong, using VESPA to develop independent study behaviours across its sixth form.

Coffs Harbour Senior College

New South Wales, Australia

“Staff feedback on Martin’s training was exceptional, with many describing it as the best and most practical professional learning they had undertaken.”

Learn more Show less

Trained live from the UK at 11pm to fit their morning INSET.

VESPA schools worldwide

Around 130 schools this year

Ask us for the detail

Learn more Show less

We’ll happily share the fuller data, or put you in touch with a school like yours. Reference customers are available on request.

Request a quote See the features → See the training →