Class Charts: yay or nay?

[Frustratedcamel]

I’ve recently posted regarding my dd and her difficulties at school, I had some really helpful replies. Since I posted, I’ve been speaking with the school, CYPS and other parents / friends about it and something came to light which I hadn’t realised. This is just where I am genuinely interested in finding out what peoples opinions are on something used in some academies called class charts.

The charts are a way of keeping in touch with parents in real time about your child’s behaviour in school, so you are notified if they have a detention etc.
The children get P points if they do something positive and C points if they do something negative.

What I hadn’t realised, was that these points are displayed in the classroom for all of the children to see, which is great for positive behaviour, but not so great for the children with a lot of “red” C points, I imagine they might feel quite ashamed and demoralised by their failings being plastered on a board for all to see!

Any experience of these? Teachers who use them? I’m genuinely interested in opinions.

TIA

Our school uses class dojo to record negative and positive results. I hide the screen when updating it so the children can't see each other's scores and explain that they don't need to try and be better than anyone else- just for them to always try and be the best version of themselves.

A lot of my colleagues will let the children add on their own dojo points or will have the screen open on the interactive whiteboard which I don't agree with as they can then ser the points for each child. It just makes certain children feel shit about themselves.

I think the communication with parents is great.

I think the handling of sharing the other kids positive and negative scores is appalling.
Whilst I'm sure many of the kids have a grasp of who gets lots of positives and who is always receiving negatives there is no need to share the tally.

I think having it on display shouldn't be the case. I'm certain children already know who the naughty kids are. This should be done privately.

We use class charts. At no point should the whole class see the points system. (This is secondary and I would think they should be even less likely to see the points at Prinary.

however maybe if some kids are ashamed of their records they should start behaving.

Yes I remember even as a child myself over 30 years ago, they didn’t have ‘negative’ but they had a reward chart displayed for ‘extra good behaviour’. So, those with confidence to go above and be for example in front of a classroom demonstrating beautiful work would have many rewards. However, children like myself who was rather shy and didn’t push myself would have next to none as I was lost in the crowd. I can still remember the taunts to this day when getting into an argument of being pointed out by a peer that they were better than me because they had more rewards.

Awful practice and unsure in what circumstances teachers still think this is ok and not messing with a child’s mind.

Thanks for all of your comments, much appreciated.
@Smileyaxolotl1 Unfortunately, I think it’s contributing to the problem to be honest. I only wish it was as straightforward as starting to behave!

We use Class Charts and it has lots of amazing functions. We also record R (reward) and C (consequences) points.
However, these are only ever visible to the individual student, their parents and the teacher.
This is an issue with how the school is choosing to use Class Charts, not CC itself.

Yes same here. It’s excellent how it’s used with us. Our secondary school uses it to send out and collect most homework, displays timetables, and “behaviour” and “achievement” points (bad and good) and what they were for. But you can only see your own / your own child’s data. It’s not for showing to the whole class.

You can display the seating plan, without displaying points. I think it is a pretty powerful tool when used correctly. It allows teachers to easily reward those students who are always quietly getting on with work. It allows tutors (parents & students) to see how pupils have got on each day so students who need it can have lots of little conversations about behaviour instead of waiting until things blow up. As a teacher you can see if a student has had a difficult day coming into your lesson, so you are able to better support them.

Secondary, academy which uses class charts. Behaviour points are not available for anyone else to see apart from teachers, child and parents. The only problem I've had (and this is outing if anyone knows me irl). DC is 'bribed' with money if they gain points as they were coasting in a couple if subjects so used money as a focus and it's worked and tips up pocket money. BUT the policy suddenly changed this week and DC ended up with 16 behaviour points of which 12 were for 'punctuality' (basically turning up on time) . DC got an extra point for getting 10 punctuality points in a row... The three/four per week that were being achieved (for good stuff such as independent study, or contributing in class) wasn't breaking the bank at £2/each. But 16!

I would be horrified if the behaviour awards were displayed for all to see.

Sims will show a graph of a whole tutor group's average points which can be displayed on the board for the whole class to see.

Two children might have 100 achievement points each, and one might have accrued 75 behaviour points, for example, which you can hide from view, but an overall score of 25 against something like 95 still makes it clear who is doing more right. In secondary this tends to encourage behaviour which picks up positive points.

Not sure why but this brings back memories of me in school. (Back in the Stone Age) if you were acting up or doing something wrong the teacher didn’t say a word, just wrote your name on the chalkboard. That was your warning. Subsequent misbehavior earned you a check mark. Each ✔️ carried consequences, I don’t remember what they were but I’m sure it involved physical work of some kind… scrubbing something, organizing something, losing out on something.

honestly as a kid it was quite effective and a good system. We knew when we were being naughty and not following the rules. It wasn’t a secret who was acting up. You knew where you stood at any given time so you could never complain that you didn’t have any warning. It even worked for the quiet kids that never got in trouble, they got to do all the fun things and never had scrub the under side of a desk or dust a shelf at recess time. The teachers had a lot of flexibility so if it transpired that they were having a lot of names on the board they would come up with a reward for the ones who hadn’t gotten in trouble. It would make you think twice about which group you wanted to be in, that’s for sure.

Sorry bit of a departure on your question, but it does sort of relate.

Clearly this was in the younger grades ^