Celebrating achievement, rewarding success and consistent good behaviour at secondary level

[roisin]

A little research if I may:

1a)Does your children's school do this at all?
1b) Do they do it well?
1c) How could they do better?

2a) What praise/reward schemes do they have?
2b) How do they celebrate achievement?
2c) Do your children like them/respond to them?

3a) Does your school have incentive schemes for under-achieving students or poorly-behaved students?
3b) Are these perceived as being 'fair'?

Thank you
Roisin

[southeastastra]

the only thing i can think of is that at the end of summer term they have a little presentation type thing where pupils are given medals for certain achievements.

b) yes it's a fun evening with school bands, singers, dancing, readings.

c) it's fine as it is imo

1. have certain days out planned for good students.

b. same as above
c. yes

no sure about 3

hth!

[frogs]

1a)Does your children's school do this at all? Yes, very structured system of rewards (mainly) and sanctions (rarely)
1b) Do they do it well? Yes, very well.
1c) How could they do better? Not really, but might not work with less academically-motivated children (it's a state grammar school)

2a) What praise/reward schemes do they have? A system of subject stickers for particularly good achievement or effort in a particular subject. Four stickers gets a praise postcard sent home from head of department. Three postcards in any combination of subects gets a head's commendation (certificate presented at assembly). Occasionally they can get a commendation outright for something truly outstanding.
Sanctions are: verbal warning, red written warning in homework diary, detention (either on its own or for three or more red warnings in a term).
2b) How do they celebrate achievement? As above.
2c) Do your children like them/respond to them? Yes, they get v. competitive (but in a good way) for the incentives. Dd1 who had coasted through primary noticeably upped her game halfway through term 1 of Y7 when she realised that other children were getting stickers ahead of her.

3a) Does your school have incentive schemes for under-achieving students or poorly-behaved students? As above for sanctions really, but they do work on the assumption that most children are motivated to do well. Occasional incidents dealt with via mediation and discussion rather than punitive measures, which seems to work well.
3b) Are these perceived as being 'fair'? Yes, I think so.

hth

[roisin]

This is interesting. Thank you.

Any more?

[portonovo]

1a) Yes they do
1b) pretty well I think
1c) not sure

2a) merits for particularly good work or great effort. 'Smily faces' for good work - 3 smilies equals one merit. Community stickers for being involved in school/community activities - 3 stickers equals one merit.

For every so many merits (think it's 10), you get one entry into that year group's termly prize draw - prizes include choccies, gift vouchers and electronics like DVD players or MP3 players.

There are also certificates for various things - each Faculty nominates 2 people form each year group once a term for a Faculty Award, which gets them a certificate and extra entries into prize draw. You might also get certificates for things like playing music in assembly or being in a school debating team or similar.

Full attendance for a term is also rewarded by certificates and extra entries in the prize draw.

Praise postcards - each subject sends a certain number of these each term for good work and/or effort.

2b) In addition to the above, the fortnightly newsletter mentions any important achievement - sporting, musical, community projects or whatever.

Each tutor group has a 'pupil of the month'.

Once a year there is an awards evening, to reward academic and other achievements, great improvement in an individual's work, community actions etc.

2c) Most children seem to respond well, although I have to admit that my children and their friends are all motivated types, so perhaps that's not a true sample.

1. Bit hazy on this, because we haven't experienced any, but there seems to be an established system of sanctions for misbehaviour. From what I've seen with one of my son's friends, the school does try to work with individual pupils to see why they are having problems and they have individual targets to help them improve. Year heads, class tutors and the school counsellor seem to get involved.

[percypig]

Not about my children, but the school I teach in! I think we do pretty well, but could be a bit more inventive.

A previous school I taught in by the way, launched a big and quite complex incentive scheme - or rather, one of the VPs started it, ignored the advice of many staff members, and though it had a fairly positive effect, there was a feeling that it was a bit unfair to the good but quiet pupils who aren't outstanding but just get on with work etc. (sorry that sentence was so long, can't be bothered to re-punctuate) It also became v expensive - to have rewards the pupils will value costs a lot of money, especially in a big school.

In my current school we do internal reports roughly every 6 weeks - not based on academic achievement, but on ongoing work in class, behaviour, attitude etc. Pupils get a grade for each subject. Head of Year collates results and those with a certain number of A+ grades (A is the expected level)are sent a letter of congratulations from the Principal. Those with a certain number of B/C grades also receive a letter...and are then put on a report card to monitor their effort and work. The Year heads keep a running total throughout the year, kind of like a league table, and the top three get an additional reward at the end of the year.

The kids do respond well to this, especially at Key Stage 3 - a couple of weeks ago I had a big chat with a 13 year old boy in my form class who was close to tears because he hadn't got a congratulations letter. His effort and work had slipped, and the system helped him acknowledge this and begin to improve.

In my classroom, each Key Stage 3 class has a star chart, they receive stars for good work, homework, behaviour etc. Often I'll link this to a target for individual pupils. Every half term the 'star' of the class gets a v unhealthy chocolate prize. Again, the kids respond well to this, especially the lower ability classes, they often point out when another pupil deserves a star. In fact, some of my GCSE and A level students have been known to ask for stars!

We don't have specific incentive schemes for pupils with poor behaviour or attainment, however we do have quite a lot of trips, random days off timetable, residentials etc. We make a conscious effort to involve pupils from the bottom classes in some of these, and some have had a really positive impact.

That was long and rambling - hope it helps!

[fizzbuzz]

Yes, my 6th formers are particularly keen on star charts . Do they ever grow up

[Blandmum]

Yes we do this. merit points which work for the lower school, upper school are less interested. We also send postcards home for good work. These are better recienved by all.

The school is looking to introduce more tangable rewards, such as HMV vouchers.

I use star cahrts for porrly behaved classes (tend to do the whole class becayuse it is more even handed). they work very well, and the kids love them.

Sixth formers 'fight' for my Martianbishop says 'well done' stamp!

[saffy202]

DS1's school has started doing this. Next week they have aranged a Y8 Social Evening for those who behave well, have good attendance and complete homework.

My first reaction was finally they are rewarding those who are always well-behaved and not those who don't behave. Not that ds's school does but many schools do.

We also received a letter a while ago praising ds1 for his commitment to school and at the end of year there is an awards day and throughout the year a merits scheme.

[roisin]

Thanks this is really helpful and interesting.

Our school do have merit points, reports of course, and some departments do send postcards home. But there isn't much public acknowledgement of academic achievement.

I would like to see a setting where it's cool to be clever, and where academic achievement is publicly acknowledged and celebrated: but it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation; and it's not clear to me how you get to that position from where we are now.

(I'm not in a position to effect this kind of change btw, this is just my potted philosophical ramblings!)

To get round the 'rewarding is expensive' problem our school does quite a lot of prize draws: so for attendance, for example, if you have good attendance you're entered in a prize draw for a few good prizes - MP3 players, cinema tickets, pendrives, CD players, etc. But some, consistently good but unlucky students, view these as grossly unfair.

But the best prizes are perceived to be for the intervention programmes. So you get a small group of borderline children on a competitive intervention programme for a short period (say 4 weeks or so), and the winning team get to go on a day out from school on an outward bound trip or similar.

[twinsetandpearls]

1a)yes all the time,
b) yes
c) if all teachers used the system

2) merits, merit badges, certificates for beating target, stickers, some departments do raffles that kids are entered for beating targets, , pupils of the month scheme,well done postacrds home, coffee mornings with the head teachers and trips and activities that only hardworking well behaved kids go on. We also have special breakfasts to which we invite special guests for the kids to meet.

In my own classroom I have a great thinker award that earns prizes for pupils who make great oral contributions to our lessons and a pupil of the week for written work, they get a special certificate. I also phone parents if kids have way exceeded by expectations and I hace congratulations slips that I send to form tutors so the child knows their success is being recognised and celebrated across the board.

Sometimes I just say to the child well done you are fantastic and that works!

We also have prize giving evenings, we use our website to celebrate success as well as concerts, shows throughout the year.

2c)our children respond well to our rewards, beyond year 7 they are not interested in merits. Raffles, postcards home and certificates are the favourites but nothing replaces you telling a child how fantastic they are.

3a) We don't really have incentive schmemes for badly behaved students or under achieving but we do reward when kids hit their targets as this allows everyone of whatever abilty to achieve and be rewarded. We reward good behaviur in the sense that if your behaviour is awful you will be excluded from special activities, trips and things like the prom.

I personally do not reward behaviour that is the expected but if a usual terror behaves well in my lesson I will say well done and if they are on report I will saythey ahve behaved well. If kids are behvaing well they should be hitting their tagets and thererfore will be rewarded for that.

3b) THey are percived as fair as far as I know, sometimes kids moan that individual teachers don;t use the policies we have fairly or even at all but thatis the fault of the teacher not the system.

[twinsetandpearls]

it amuses me how much older kids like babyish prizes I had some bracelets that said my teacher thinks I am a superstar and my gcse set were putty in my hands for them!

[twinsetandpearls]

we getround the cost thing in our department by hvaing raffle tickets, so there is one prize at the end of half term but the more raffle tickets you win the more likely you are to be drawn.

[Blandmum]

99p for 8 'gold' medals at Asdas.

Unreal how well they went down!

Mate of mine does 'superstar of the Lesson'

I do star charts with difficult classes. They can get up to 4 stars per lesson (only one star led to mini riots when they lost it! ) each star was a ticket in a lucky dip at the end of half term. Prizes witht rubbers and stuff like that. Went down well with all but one class who seriosly expected prizes like Ipods !

[twinsetandpearls]

I do a great guru of the lesson if we are having a discussion,if they say something amazing I play a fanfare noise from my whiteboard and we stop, one of my classes all gets up and bows to the guru we take his/her picture and put it on the wall with what they said and they get a certificate. I did ask the head for a joke if they could wear special robes for they day and he thought I was serious which I took as a compliment! I might buy those medals though!

[twinsetandpearls]

roisin I think that in my classes it is cool to be clever but it has taken lots of hardwork and imagination and a touch of bribery to get us there and it does not happen across school.

[Milliways]

1a)Does your children's school do this at all? Yes
1b) Do they do it well? Very
1c) How could they do better? ??

2a) What praise/reward schemes do they have? Letters home (by Royal Mail NOT pupil post). Merits (for lower years), entries in H/W diaries, Certificates at Year End.
2b) How do they celebrate achievement? Prizegiving & letters home
2c) Do your children like them/respond to them? Likes letters as can be proud without embarrasement.Like the Gift Vouchers & chocs given out witrh Certs @ Prizegiving.

3a) Does your school have incentive schemes for under-achieving students or poorly-behaved students? Letters home for Improvements. Best Improved awards etc
3b) Are these perceived as being 'fair'? They don't get the Gift Vouchers & Chocs etc that come with "Subject Prize" & "Form Prize".

[roisin]

Thanks all.
I think our school has a long way to go on this. We seem to have a philosophy that the bright/well-behaved/hard-working children don't want or need rewarding.

[idlemum]

Roisin - nothing has moved on since I was at school in the '70's.There was never recognition of the academic and well-behaved kids - only those who were good at sport. It is encouraging from some of the posts that attempts are being made to change this but there is a long way to go and the attitude needs to change right back at primary level. Our primary gives out a 'star pupil' badge every week in each class. My dd is bright and well behaved but has received the badge only twice in nearly 3 years of school whereas the struggling kids and the troublemakers are seen with it quite regularly.It also seems to be rewarded disproportionately often to the boys which is odd as there are more girls than boys in the class.And guess what - the dd gets demotivated and doubts her ability as she never gets acknowledged.