Golden time, punishment/reward - do all schools do it?

[donttrythisathome]

I have a two year old so haven't experienced the joy of schools yet.

Am looking to move areas so I have been looking into schools. I am appalled that all the ones I've looked at use stickers for reward, "golden time" even for 4 year olds, public charts labelling kids as good/bad (well sunny/cloudy, happy/sad etc).

I don't want to get into a debate on the merits of this. I just want to know whether there are also a lot of state schools which don't use this method. Or is it pervasive?

Thanks for your help really. I did sound ungracious. It's just that I did say right at the start I didn't want to be drawn into a debate on the merits right now. Not saying I wouldn't at some later date.

It's interesting to hear there are schools that don't use it thanks.

DS1's school does use golden time but I have not heard anything about behaviour charts. They use old fashioned house points. I have never heard of anyone being marked out as behaving badly/red/whatever. I am hoping I am not just negligent/ignorant!

actually, i will also say that DS1's last school were quite good with how they used it too

they didn't have golden time or anything like that, it was "just" sticker charts, which were kept in their drawers.
DS1 really didn't respond well to someone else deciding when he had done something to deserve a sticker though, and we talked it through with the teacher and came to the decision that she could say "DS1 I think this is lovely and deserves a sticker" but that he would get to choose whether he got one or not.
he was also given a traffic light thing so he could rate his own work, which he liked.

Thanks. So even if it is almost everywhere there is some give and take. It is something.

Each class has their 'rules' which the children help compile at the beginning of the year.

The first port of call is speaking to the child about their behaviour, then the 'thinking chair' where they sit for a bit to think about their behaviour.

Good behaviour is also praised verbally and I think they use 'golden' time higher up the school.

I think schools which use charts on the wall with suns/clouds etc should use similar in the staff room and see how that goes down.

yeah, I think it's one of those things that really depends on individual teachers/schools

I had no qualms over asking about it before we even applied for schools for DS1.

"I think schools which use charts on the wall with suns/clouds etc should use similar in the staff room and see how that goes down."

haha yes! and maybe the children should be in control of where their teacher gets put

What are the sun/cloud charts all about? I have never seen them.

For a while I went to a catholic school where if you were naughty they said you were evil, threatened to hit you and made you say prayers, so I am quite relaxed about stickers etc!

pullapew I think if you have "behaved" your name/photo will be placed in a sun on the chart, if you have not, you will be placed in a cloud! The chart of on the wall. This at least is what I read about, I haven't seen it as I don't have any experience of schools or even pre-schools yet.

I went to a Catholic school too, but the "bata" (translation "stick") was banned when I was 6. Luckily I was spared.

Would love to see the chart in the staff room!

I was never hit, just threatened. They only hit boys. Even at a young age I couldn't work out if I was annoyed they differentiated on gender lines or relieved to escape the punishment!

Donttrythisathome -

I really think you should talk to the HTs of the schools to understand their approach to behaviour. It isn't just about what visual aids they use but what their attitudes and policies are.

IME many use a set - grey cloud for individual behaviour, golden time, some kind of marble jar/pasta jar for whole class reward. I've seen some with a noise meter.

The point about the grey cloud thing is that it is a 5 point scale, so you can go from blue to grey, which is like a warning and then to storm cloud which is where you lose golden time. But you can also move back to blue at any time. I don't think it is as punitive as old school systems.

Most schools are quite responsive e.g. At one point my DS was losing golden time every week. The system wasn't working for him, because the feedback was to long. They set up a system for him where he rated each session with his teacher with happy/sad faces on a separate matrix, and at the end if the day if he'd got 3 out of 4 happy he got a house point, I think these systems can be applied flexibly and responsively.

I just asked DS1 and they have a golden time chart where if the teacher things you've misbehaved it gets marked down that some golden time gets taken away. He said he'd never lost any golden time except where a whole class punishment was applied - he clearly really hates this as feels its very unfair, which it is. I feel grumpy now, I'd never really thought seriously about this aspect of school!

To those who don't get the problem with rewards and punishments you need to read Alfie Kohn. Punished by rewards or his book on schools.

OP - it's very widespread, although not all schools do it. Which isn't much help to you if all the schools local to you do.

However, it's much worse than this. I don't use rewards / punishments / bribery at home, and I don't think school doing it has affected them.

But what has damaged them is the over use of praise. Every single thing they do is praised. All their work is marked 'Well done. Good use of xyz. Next time to make it better do zyx'

My kids believe everything they do is wonderful - because they are always told it is. Even my DD who is bottom of the class doesn't believe there's any problem or she needs to try harder.

The other problem is they don't believe that working harder makes you better - because they're told everything they do is wonderful.

The school system is really shit.

I am a bit that as a parent you think you can just 'get on the board of Governors and get it changed'.

Part of me hopes you achieve this and then your DC ends up in a class full of children with poor impulse control who have not yet developed the executive skills to learn independently and see how you feel about the result.

The very first professional standard for teachers is to maintain a safe environment. A teacher with no system in place to control behaviour cannot do this. Teachers, whether you like it or not, have to be able to control children while they LEARN to control themselves.

Maybe you will send your DC to school in full control of himself and intrinsically motivated to learn. Many are not.

Rather than looking for a state school with the intention of making them do it your way I think you should be looking for an alternative setting, like a Steiner or something.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was an absolutely ideal way to support learning and behaviour of 30 individual children used to different home environments and with very differing needs and wants.

I am going to correct my post slightly. All children are intrisically motivated to learn. They are not all motivated to conform to the pro-social give and take of group learning (or even capable of it without very specific teaching and direction and development- which takes time).

I just want to know what you are looking for instead- fwiw I am a supply teacher, the cloud system is not ubiquitous, but stickers are v common, house/ table points are v v widespread, marble in jar thing quite popular. Like ebdteacher said, some kind of behaviour system is necessary to create a safe environment for all children.

I agree with Himalaya - it's more when and how these systems are used.

When I dd started reception, I was horrified to hear from other parents whose children had just started in other schools that they had been 'put on a rain cloud' and made to miss break in their first couple of weeks!

Once kids have settled in and once the teachers have a handle on their needs is the time, I think.

Talking - you are looking for a school which encourages kids to behave because it's the right thing to do - rather than because they get a reward for behaving.

Rewarding kids for behaving sets up a terrible negative cycle which makes a sticker the goal rather than learning being the goal.

the other issue is that teachers use it a lot to attempt to improve the behaviour of the most badly behaved childrne.

so, maybe little Mary always messes around during carpet time, shouting out and annoying people.
One day she doesn't do this and she gets put on the Sunshine for being goodl

Meanwhile, James and Caroline who always sit nicely at carpet time get nowhere. They've sat nicely every day, but they aren't on the sunshine

Can you see how unfair that must seem to those children who are generally well-behaved, but don't do anything out of the ordinary to deserve being put on the sunshine?
all they see is that the worst children are getting praised for doing things that they do all the time, because they should.

so not only does it teach Mary that she should only do as she is told if she gets a reward for it, it totally demotivates James and Caroline

whole brain teaching has some interesting ideas about classroom management.

i also don't recall having all this in the 80's when I was at school, but maybe that was just our school?

there were no sticker charts, no rewards, no punishments per se (seeing the head for a good telling off if you'd done something terrible)

Thing is, don't, all schools will have some kinds of behaviour management systems, to ensure a safe and accessible learning environment for all the children. In your OP, you've lumped together stickers, golden time, and the fact some behaviour charts are visible to all. 3 very different things. If you can't share with us what is so "appalling" about each of these three different systems, we are going to struggle to tell you of alternatives, as it may well be, in your mind, that the alternatives are just as bad.
I see the arguments about charts recording behaviour being available for all to see.
I see that where 'golden Time is a whole class thing it can have it's disadvantages,
but stickers ??? Really ? To be 'appalled' at a school offering stickers ?

I predict you are going to have a torrid few years ahead of you if you can be 'appalled' by stickers, when it's as far removed as two + years away.

Good posts by EBDTeacher.

Oh, I know about the drawbacks to the various systems- I'm just trying to clarify exactly what the op wants. Encouraging good behaviour for its own sake is what I try to do at home, but I haven't worked in a school that didn't have any kind of reward or forfeit built in, even if it was just down to each class teacher, state or private. Maybe something like Steiner would work for the op? Though I wouldn't touch personally.