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From ‘Well done’ to ‘WHEEEEEEE…!’ Rewards systems should always be approached carefully, cautions Daniel Harvey – but there’s no denying the thrill of a theme park trip for doing well in class... F or the past few years, it’s beenmy privilege to be the senior leader with responsibility for student behaviour and attitudes and to lead the pastoral team. An important aspect of this work has involved overseeing the rewards budget – but something about the term ‘reward’ has never sat right withme. Should we, as teachers and leaders, really talk about ‘rewarding’ behaviour and reduce achievements to a transaction involving vouchers? Could a school instead focus on ‘recognition’, to allow for a more discerning, just-in- time process that lets students know their efforts are seen and valued? Rewards versus recognition A reward is something you’re given because you’ve done something good and/or worked hard. Recognition is public appreciation for an individual or group’s efforts or actions. My own approach has been to ensure student success is valued and appreciated in a timely manner, adds to student motivation and builds positive student attitudes to school. However, there are many students who demonstrate consistently great behaviour and attitudes to learning. What concerns me is that these students sometimes don’t receive enough recognition from staff to indicate that we see their efforts and success, and don’t take them for granted. I’d argue that special events – particularly trips – shouldn’t be the main means by which student achievements and successes are recognised. Rather, they should sit atop a firm foundation of frequent, more straightforward reward events. End-of-term ‘treat trips’ can sometimes take place too far out from when a student genuinely excelled. What we need are for all reward events to be both motivational and supportive of future behaviour. Mixing it up Building a varied and effective reward repertoire over the school year will allow for more consistent recognition to take place. I know some heads of year who organise regular pizza parties for select groups of students – often involving lots of pizza, music and games during lessons. A primary school where I’m vice-chair of governors runs an annual Christmas Movie cinema trip for all students, which definitely adds to the magic of the season. Prior agreements with the cinema regarding tickets, food and drink purchases and other issues help to ensure a smooth and enjoyable visit every time. Secondary schools could look at potentially turning their main theatre or hall into a temporary cinema and even order in treats at scale. In summer months, a visit from an ice cream van could provide a ‘short and sweet’ reward event, but this may be better suited to smaller schools, given the logistical issues involved with numbers, size of queues, temperatures and so forth. Big trips DraytonManor is a theme park local to my school – and as any educator in theWest Midlands will tell you, late July sees the park rammed with school students from around the region having a great time. Admittedly, the wait times for rides sometimes touch 90 minutes, the teacher-filled coffee shop queues are often long, and staff can expect to field requests to supervise students on StormForce 10 – a ride guaranteed to leave everyone a soaking mess. But in my experience, students do appreciate being chosen to go on such trips – especially if parents and carers know their selection was on the grounds of good behaviour and attitudes. I’ve previously used our reward budget to subsidise costs to parents, and with help from the school’s business manager, identified innovative ways of reducing the accompanying transport costs to and from school. Finally, pre-Covid, some of my colleagues came up with perhaps the best reward/recognition event of them all – our School Summer Festival. Chosen students from all years – again, based on buy-in to school values and expectations – were invited to an afternoon of music, magic, funfair activities and free ice cream. The event has proved to be a success both times it’s been run, and I look forward to its return in 2024. Daniel Harvey is a GCSE and A Level science teacher and lead on behaviour, pastoral and school culture at an inner city academy E X TRACURR I CUL AR 66 | www.teachwire.net/school-trips