Can someone explain "golden time" to me?

[AvocadoAndFitch]

PFB is starting school in september. We keep on being told about "golden time" on a friday and haven't a fecking clue what they are on about.

The also do the "peg up" and in all the welcome pack its saying we should encourage DD to "keep her peg up" and ask every night if her peg is still up. Is this linked?

I'm guessing peg up is good and peg down is for bad behavior or is it linked to how well they do in the school work? is there only up or down or is there any in between notches we should know about? once its down can it go back up?

I'm also guessing Golden time is linked i.e. peg down no extra play or something? what happens if the loose their golden time? Do they have school work instead? But surely school work shouldn't be a negative thing.

I've probably got it completely wrong :( .

My DC school don't do golden time after yr2 not sure what they do instead though as DS is in yr2 ATM.

DeWe that is my point entirely. I don't want the kids in my class to behave because I reward them. I want them to behave because they choose to.

Over the years I have been appalled at done of the comments made by kids re positive behaviour management. One class, who behaved very well for me, were dreadful with the PE teacher. I spoke to them and their response was 'X doesn't give us pebbles so why should we behave?' (FYI the pebbles were collected and the winning group 'earned' a prize at the end of the week). I took pebbles away from another class and a child asked me 'why should I behave now?'.

I want the children to feel they have a stake in their own behaviour choice. They feel better in themselves when making the right choice. It flags up underlying issues when children can't choose their good behaviour without reward.

I've got 2 boys this year not coping with the lack of positive behaviour management strategies. Instead of bribing them I have worked with them and their parents to keep them motivated through relationship building. It's their learning, their life - they have to take ownership.

As for the children with ASN who get 'rewarded' with stickers, etc. - the children need to understand it the teacher's job to meet the needs of all children. 'Needing' reward is not to be seen as a good thing but a strategy to help those who have ASN cope in the school environment.

As I say I teach upper primary - 10/11 year olds. It is working for the vast majority in my class. Indeed, they are really responding to being treated like they have choices that make a real difference in their lives - both in and out of school.

ex TA of small Primary sch here:

We had Golden Time, and different activities went on in different classrooms and children could CHOOSE which activity they wanted. All the Year groups mingled, so older children could help/look after younger ones. The exact activities were changed from week to week, but broadly under the following topics:

sports or energetic play was in the hall; arts, crafts etc in one room; construction (Lego, magnetic stuff, gear wheels etc) in another room; reading and writing in another. And the computer suite was used, under adult supervision.

I believe the mixing of age groups was a valuable experience for many children, and LEARNING was taking place in most activities, even if there was no formal teaching.

I really don't see any problem with giving 5-7 year olds a choosing time to play with the toys, draw, paint, dress up, etc for half an hour on a Friday afternoon. We could call it 'child-initiated play' instead of Golden Time.

In my school, none of our KS1 children miss it - their sanction for an offence is missing the next KS1 play time, and parents are told.

if i ran a primary school it would be golden time 80% of the time

Socially inept DD1 never had anyone to play with in Golden Time (she got pissed of enough with breaks and lunch). Often ended up sharpening pencils, not much of a reward

Right, but child initiated play is just the new early years stuff and has been the tool of choice for yonks, particularly for infants. So if the entire darned thing is child initiated, golden time is a meaningless concept. Completely and utterly. And is a con based on compliance.

And I have to say, flexy, that giving kids who can't behave in a structured environment a punishment of missing free time at playtime, is one of the most frequent and utterly bollocks ideas ever come up with by education professionals. The kid is having trouble concentrating on his task, so we will remove his running about and burning off steam time, and make him stay in and get more agitated. It's a nightmare for any little kid, particularly those with issues concerning hyperactivity, inattention, and social difficulties, and one of the most counterproductive ideas used in schools. And teachers wonder why little johnny still can't concentrate!

Keeping kids in at playtime is one of the most despaired of concepts on the sn board. You would be far better off giving more playtime for children that struggle with focus.

Not sure about peg up or peg down but my dd has golden time, where they do an activity of the class's choice. If they misbehave during the week they lose minutes f their golden time.

That's funny I thought golden time was just something invented by my DSs' school! They love it as they get to choose what they want to do on a Friday afternoon, play, draw, read, whatever. My DS1's teacher told me that he once chose to do 'more maths problems' but that's just him!

madwoman they don't stay in - they go outside. It's only 15 minutes - they have 1 and a quarter hours for lunch and 15 minutes in the afternoon as well. It's an immediate punishment for a serious misdemeanour - not just chatting to your neighbour (we have a code system to rank offences). Probably have about 6 children a term missing one 20 minute play. However, it also counts against them enjoying the activities in GT plus, so that's a carrot to dangle, and also parents are informed.

I also hate little children being kept in at playtimes, and agree that it's counterproductive.

If we have any reoffenders are targeted for extra OT sessions before school and other behavioural management strategies. (We have a member of staff who is employed to deal with behaviour and family support.) We also do Forest School, which gets them outdoors for long periods of time.

You make me sound like a dragon! I'm not, I assure you! And we have thought about things carefully.

Yeah - they have child-initiated play at the end of a Friday afternoon for half an hour. Free choice. And they love it. Especially the sand pit and the dressing up.

Yy, it's when it's a routine punishment for a child with undx or dx sn that it gets my goat. In some schools it's v common for the same child to miss playtime v frequently, which is worse than useless. A child in that position who is having trouble staying on task is going to have even more trouble staying on task if he's kept in the classroom staring at the same piece of work.

madwomanintheattic - you summarise absolutely why for large parts of dd's school career I've been tearing my hair out. Why the teacher thinks that keeping her in playtime after playtime after playtime will result in her doing more work . . .

Even worse, the threat of 'everyone has to do X no. of sentences, if not then you have to stay in at playtime' - I did ask 'but surely you give different targets to different children, and dd can't be the only child in the class who isn't going to manage X no. of sentences' (ingenuous since I know at least 1 other - a friend's dc - who won't) and got the answer "Oh no, Mr X doesn't really mean it, most of the children don't take it as literally as dd"

OK, so he doesn't (a) allow for the fact that some children are very, very literal and (b) doesn't point out to dd that she doesn't really have to stay in? Or does he really mean it, but not enforce it?

(Thank the lord the lovely, lovely Ed Psych who dd was eventually referred to seems to have got some messages through and all is going better for her now :) And strangely enough, her work has massively improved . . . funny, that.)

I like golden time. It gives me a chance to bond with my class in a different way. I've managed to teach them quite a few crafts, investigation skills (I have a science table full of interesting random crap items) and have some fun conversations.

I don't think it's more valuable than teaching time, but then tbh by 2:30 on Friday afternoon, who is at their best for teaching or learning?

I jazz my golden time up a bit by giving my class a target each Monday. It's normally PSHE based (something like 'treat others how you would like to be treated') and then I ask them how many minutes they think they deserve each day. I think it promotes PSHE as well as self-reflection. We have a running total, and low and behold it always ends up being about 30 minutes. They haven't clocked on yet, and we're 33 weeks into the year!

MrZ - who spends 3 hours on golden time? Even if you devoted the whole of Friday afternoon to it, it would be only 2 hours surely ie after lunch (1pm) to 3 at latest to give time for tidy up and dismissal and that would be less break time.

I don't get why people don't like golden time. I think that it is good that children whio are ALWAYS good get rewarded EVERY week.Their good behaviour is often eclipsed by the habitually naughty children who decide to have a good day.

apparently some of the schools where the children of posters on this thread attend if you read it ariadne1.

Children are only in school for a few hours they come to be taught
I expect my pupils to behave because that is the right thing to do not because they expect to be rewarded for doing so.

I think mrz is talking about the 30min x 36 weeks teaching time, which makes the equivalent of a week's teaching time.
Lordy, lordy. By 2:45 on a friday afternoon we've all had enough of learning stuff.
Dressing up, painting, sand pits and tea parties are so much more fun.

(And those who want to learn more can choose to watch curriculum-related dvds......)

I sometimes think we forget that all of these children have only been alive for less than 95 months! Give them a break.

LemarchandsBox Sat 09-Jun-12 18:50:20

Golden Time is all afternoon on a Friday for DS.

AvocadoAndFitch Sat 09-Jun-12 19:25:42
This school also does "golden time" all afternoon,

not 30 mins ...all afternoon and I know lots of schools who devote a whole afternoon

All afternoon might be a bit OTT... every week.....
That's quite a large percentage of the week.
(Might be something to do with PPA in some schools?)

I think it probably is linked to PPA in some schools

I hate golden time! As a yr6 teacher, you can imagine what a "sanction" taking 5 mins away from 10/11yr olds who are fighting/swearing/massively disrespectful etc. They don't give an effing shit to quote some charming pupils I have had. When I taught yr1 it worked quite well, the children enjoyed it (30 mins only btw!) and were mortified to miss it. Year 6 need something else but I don't know what. It's all very well saying they should want to behave well and be respectful, but in reality they don't want to! Especially difficult for eg supply teachers too, they won't have the same chance to build relationships.

Mrz is correct. It is timetabled in for the whole afternoon. Which will be hell for DD2.

I should add, despite hating it personally, the kids love it. Which irritates me further as they've already been conditioned to see schoolwork as 'bad' and free play as 'good'. They of course are oblivious to this, and golden time is the dog's bollocks.