How Rewards Can Help Keep Attention around Christmas

Every teacher and teaching assistant will know that once December hits and the Christmas play scripts have been handed out, it’ll be a bit more of a battle getting your class to concentrate every day. Christmas is an exciting time, but when you need them to quieten down and listen it’s helpful to have a plan of action to help encourage attention.

School Stickers stickers, certificates and stamps can be a great help through this period, and a great addition to the rewards system you have in your school. Here’s how.

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What are you doing for National Storytelling Week?

We have found a wonderful activity that can help you promote storytelling in your school:

This activity is called ‘A picture is worth a thousand words,’ and here is how it works:
A class selects a painting or picture. Looking at the painting for inspiration, the class constructs the first few sentences of a tale through group discussion and suggestion. The paragraph is then sent on to another class which reads the first paragraph and adds on another. The process is repeated including as many classes as possible until the tale seems finished. All the classes then gather to hear the result of their group effort read out loud and to see the painting, that inspired the story.
We hope you have fun trying out this activity and would love to hear the story that you came up with – and the picture that inspired it!

Santa’s Naughty and Nice List

The School Stickers naughty and nice list has become an annual tradition and this year’s results are here! Using data from mystickers.co.uk, we have recorded the girls and boys who have collected the most and least stickers this year – suggesting who has been the best and worst behaved.

This year the little angels in class are most likely to be called Chloe or Jack, while the little devils are most likely to be named  Jess or Chris.  “In 2010, neither Chloe or Jack were in the top ten best in the class list, so this suggests they’ve worked extra hard this year.” Neil Hodges, Managing Director.

You might be also interest to know that 62% of all stickers collected were by girls.

Here are the full results:

TOP 10 Best Behaved Girls

1.            Chloe

2.            Emily

3.            Megan

4.            Jessica

5.            Hannah

6.            Charlotte

7.            Lauren

8.            Rebecca

9.            Sophie

10.          Katie

TOP 10 Best Behaved Boys

1.            Jack

2.            James

3.            Daniel

4.            Thomas

5.            Matthew

6.            Ryan

7.            Joshua

8.            Jordan

9.            Luke

10.          Callum

TOP 10 Worst Behaved Girls

1.            Jess

2.            Hayley

3.            Becky

4.            Rosie

5.            Kayleigh

6.            Gemma

7.            Stephanie

8.            Kirsty

9.            Ashley

10.          Beth

TOP 10 Worst Behaved Boys

1.            Chris

2.            Scott

3.            Sean

4.            John

5.            Josh

6.            Jonathan

7.            Robert

8.            Christopher

9.            Andrew

10.          Bradley

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Rewards

We often come across the debate of Extrinsic versus Intrinsic rewards. An Intrinsic Reward is the feeling inside of pleasure for a job well done. An Extrinsic Reward is external – a pat on the back, being told well done, a grade or a physical prize. As an adult Extrinsic Rewards include a salary, a house, a job title and a career.

The aim of every school is to get pupils to an Intrinsic Reward place – ideally for all subjects and topics but realistically for a limited number of topics and subjects. Did you love every subject at school? No. But it did matter that you fell in love with one or more subjects that then formed the basis of your education? Yes.

To move students from uninterested to interested to intrinsically motivated you need a tool – and there is only one tool available. External Rewards. From a congratulatory word, to a sticker to show off, a praise postcard to show parents, a certificate to frame or even a physical prize. What rewards are best is a matter for much debate – the fact that rewards are important is not.

Without External rewards what are you going to do with those not intrinsically motivated? Just ignore them until they see they light? It it impossible for a school to have an Intrinsic only system without leaving the majority behind.

A well thought through reward system that effectively motivates children and drives them to value education is incredibly important.

The Times – Cornell Research backs School Prizes.

This Times Article reports on a Cornell University study on prize based rewards. To quote the article:

“Jackson found that pupils who benefited from the Texas high school programme not only went to college in greater numbers, but also continued to improve their grades and remained in college longer.

His 46-page report finds “no evidence of worse outcomes” and concludes “that incentive programmes may have lasting positive effects even after rewards are no longer provided. Providing monetary incentives to both students and teachers … can lead to meaningfully improved student outcomes”.”

The article also pulls information about the debate on prizes where some consider if defacto bribery leading to a dependence on rewards and others consider it a stepping stone to an intrinsic and long term love of learning. We all know that every school, every pupil is different. This research, and this article, provide some more colour in the motivation debate.

Overview of our reward products

Our reward products are split into three broad categories.

1. Classic Rewards. You can see all our stickers, praise postcards, and certificates on SchoolStickers.co.uk. These are fantastic high quality rewards, customised with the school name for no extra charge, that recognize and celebrate your pupils’ achievements.

2. MyStickers.co.uk enabled rewards. We can add AT NO EXTRA CHARGE a unique 6 digit code to almost all of our classic rewards. Your pupils redeem their code on MyStickers and are entered in to win a prize. It is a simple way for you to add a little extra pizzaz, and engagement levels, to your rewards.

3. CarrotRewards.co.uk is the sophisticated multi-functional teacher layer to MyStickers. In it you can see what your pupils have logged by individual, by form, by subject, by house or by year. All at the click of the button. It is an easy to run reward system – because your pupils have done the work for you! CarrotRewards is FREE and can be run for FREE. You don’t even have to buy our stickers – free virtual rewards can be added online.

If you are interested in any of our reward products please just give us a call on 0800 073 0434.