VIP Partnership

VIP Partnership is the VIP Programme's practical initiative aimed at a better start to the school year. It has gained popularity very quickly. In 2017, a research project at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) was started to study the possible effects of this initiative. The materials for 2018/19 were sent to all registered schools on the 15th of June. If your school lacks any materials, please contact us at VIP.

The start of the school year can have crucial importance for the students’ future learning environment. This is when important relationships are formed, but not everyone always fits in. The VIP Partnership can be carried out as part of the psychological and social work at the start of the school year. The activities within the VIP Programme are linked to a practical tool which benefits the learning environment.

On the first school day, the class is split into two-person partnerships. These partnerships belong to a partner group. Partnerships and partner groups have mutual responsibilities and eventually swap roles.

The schools that use the VIP Partnership are very positive about the initiative. They report that it is easy to implement, and the students like the initiative and find it useful. You can read more about the programme organisation at the bottom of this page.

Here you can see an overview of the schools that have carried out the VIP Partnership

Materials Update

We revise the materials related to the VIP Partnership before the start of a new school year. Among other things, this is inspired by the feedback we receive from teachers through our evaluation forms. Teacher guidelines for 2018/19 have undergone a few changes, such as a new exercise on communication.

All schools that have registered as participants of the VIP Partnership will be sent revised materials for the upcoming school year in the beginning of June.

If your school has not received the revised materials for this year, please contact us at the VIP Programme

Evaluation and Training

The VIP Partnership was tested out in 12 Vg1 classes at Rosenvilde Upper Secondary School in Akershus during the 2014/15 school year. The pilot project was very successful, with both the teachers and students reporting safer classroom environments where they got to know more people. We also noticed that the project tends to have a positive impact on the absence rate.

The group that was involved in the pilot project has written a report called “You always have someone to sit with and nobody feels an outsider” (2015), which presents the pilot project and the evaluation results. 2885 students from 18 schools in six different counties took part in the evaluation of the initiative results in the 2015/2016 school year. The feedback is collected in the report “A place for everyone” (2016). The evaluation of VIP Programme results happens every year. Schools that are interested in the most recent statistics can contact us to learn more.

Training

We recommend that schools and teachers go through a brief training session before they start implementing the VIP Partnership for the first time. As part of the VIP Programme, regional, and in some cases local, training sessions are organised for the student services/management employees who then implement the initiative at their schools.

You can find an overview of upcoming training events in the VIP programme's Activity Calendar

Electronic Evaluation

For the schools that notified the VIP Programme that they would like to take part in electronic evaluation, the students and teachers can fill in an evaluation form here: — Please note that the forms are in norwegian.

Evaluation form for students, for evaluating VIP partnership 2017(18)

Evaluation form for teachers, for evaluating VIP partnership 2017(18)

The VIP Programme and VIP Partnership

The VIP Programme focuses its attention on topics related to mental health in everyday school life. The Partnership Concept is taken from the Danish Netwerk, and developed so that it can be linked to the general VIP tuition that the contact teacher and health workers are responsible for.

Those of us that organise the VIP Programme believe that a classroom environment where students are seen prevents mental health issues and makes it easier to detect whenever someone is having a hard time. As we see it, the VIP Partnership creates a solid foundation that can make the VIP Programme easier to implement.

The main purpose of the VIP partnership is to create an inclusive classroom where fewer students will feel like they do not fit in. This main purpose is expressed in five goals:

The VIP Partnership will help ensure:

a smoother transition from a secondary to an upper secondary school
that the students get acquainted with more of their classmates
a more intimate and safe classroom environment at an early stage
an increase in the students’ social competence
good work relations that will increase the educational drive

Organisation

Partnerships and partner groups are a starting point for the academic and social pedagogical work in a class. The VIP Partnership begins on the first school day and continues for several weeks with the students changing their partners along the way. The partners will have mutual responsibilities and work together on the lessons. It is important to highlight that the VIP Partnership is about being a good colleague. The project prepares the students for work life and does not aim to force friendships.

Although the VIP Partnership is not revolutionary in its form or difficult to introduce to a school, it still requires some preparation in order for it to work. In cooperation with our pilot project at Rosenvilde Upper Secondary School, we have developed our own materials and exercises. Every year we offer regional training seminars for management or student services employees. It is common practice for these employees to present the VIP Partnership to the teachers at their schools.