Cloud and sunshine charts

[LittleMissBrainy]

I hope this doesn't come across as goady but I am genuinely trying to understand as my child is due to start school on September.

At our local primary school, which has a great reputation, they have a system of a cloud and sunshine chart. So if a child doesn't behave, their name gets put on the cloud. Apparently they all have a fresh start every day and start off again on the sun. But, here is my dilemma.

Is it not a clear case of public shaming to have a child's name on the cloud so everyone can see it?
What about the children who are on the cloud everyday, how are they investigated? If they have been investigated and found to be suffering from trauma or something else, do they not get put on the cloud? And if so, what happens when their inevitable behaviour happens as surely the other children will notice they're not being put on there?

Finally, (and this may well come across as goady so apologies), how do you, as a teacher feel about taking a child's name from the sun to the cloud? I can't help but think it must feel a bit vindictive, especially if the child is upset?

You’re definitely over thinking this!!

There have to be some behaviour strategies and this is a gentle way of teaching children that wrong choices have consequences. I’m sure that, if a child has additional needs, then the school would work with the family to introduce additional support and strategies.

We had this when I taught Reception and it worked brilliantly, in fact some parents created their own ones for home. There need to be sanctions for deliberately hurting other children. The policy has now changed in line with the idea that having names put publicly on the cloud shames those children, but we have found that behaviour has really nosedive.

The system isn't too bad.

But it works better when it's sun, cloud, rainbow or something.

So child can move up as a reward or down for persistent behaviour despite warnings.

When my son was year R his system was sun, white, grey and black cloud and rainbow.

It was very skewed negatively. He also had an older teacher who was strict and in some ways unrealistic about 4yos!
My son went down to white cold one day. He was devastated. So he spent his wet play tidying up the bookshelves voluntarily. He wanted to move up to the sun again and ideally was aiming for the rainbow.

He showed her at end of play and she refused to move him. Why? Because he should have been coming to sit on carpet when he asked her to look and also she'd expect that sort of behaviour from a child - apparently you don't move up for expected levels. (Eg he should have been making amends).

He wS 4 years 5 weeks old and autistic.

I dont think schools are good with identifying behaviour causes. It is assumed naughty unless proven otherwise.
But i think

• most kids will be aware of who is being naughty even without a cloud. Dd2 (4.5yo) was telling me about a kid eating off the table
• kids who are repeatedly 'naughty' possibly wont care about being on a cloud or maybe on so frequently and from the start that they are used to it.
• resetting to sun is like it doesn't matter what you did -> but that's not true kids/teachers will remember and you can be excluded from invites etc.

The will be a lot of emphasis on behaviour improving. So even if a child has had poor behaviour all morning, the teacher will be looking for anything positive to praise them for and move them back to sun.

I think it’s one of those things that can work for the majority of children,(but then anything reasonable you do would work), but for the children who need extra help and support with behaviour a public display of whether they are good or bad can be detrimental to them.

There’s a chapter in Sally Donovan’s book No Matter What where she talks about her son who had severe trauma as a child, and as a result understandable behaviour issues, couldn’t cope with his frog never being in the pond with all the other frogs. Highlighting his bad behaviour publicly only made him feel worse shame and his behaviour deteriorated.
Teacher was insensitive to his needs and in the end they moved schools.

Forever we had the opposite experience which is why I believe the system only works if you also have a good and kind practitioner.
My ds did EVERYTHING to move up if he was moved down. Baring in mind he was moved down for being autistic and not understanding what was expected. When he'd managed to work it out and improve she refused to move him up because "he should be behaving that way anyway".

So no matter what he did he didn't seem to be able to make amends for mistakes. Easily managed to keep going down for not understanding though.

Personally as a parent I try not to overthink these systems but do think there is value in understanding how they work and what children need to do both negatively and positively to move.

Its gettingweird I would argue that the problem there was a crap teacher, not necessarily a crap system.

She was also shooting herself in the foot a bit, as a lot of children would think "if I'm stuck on cloud either way, I might as well do what I want".

If used well, this is an okay system. Apart from anything else, it allows the teacher to reward the children who quietly get on with whatever they are meant to be doing. A child who is on cloud / storm every day would usually have their teacher have a word with the parents.

One thing I really like about my son's teacher is that she notices when he is quietly behaving himself and rewards him (using her system) for things like lining up properly and not talking when everyone else is.

Whether putting a child on cloud is public shaming sort of depends on what they have been put on cloud for. Realistically, children will know if Adam has been talking while the teacher is / not paying attention / thumped another child - they don't need a behaviour chart to know that. However, getting Adam to move his name down sends him a message that those things aren't okay.

We have that system at DC's school. I felt as you did. I would say it's a completely pointless system long term. It does create a fair amount of anxiety for the kids who are almost never on it and some kids who struggle with behaviour are on it everyday so it becomes meaningless and actually a bit counter productive for them as they just conceive themselves (as do the other kids) as naughty since it's in black and white on the board.

That said our school is actually good in other ways at managing behaviour - the teachers now the kids well and support those who need extra help with concentration/being impulsive/other issues so it doesn't necessarily mean that this (fairly useless) system is the only behaviour management system they'll have.

My DS has SEN and it was also completely pointless for him. He spent all day trying to work out how many warnings he needed before he went on the cloud, and saw it like a sticker chart.
It's also very shaming for the well-behaved-but-anxious child as no child can be 100% all the time. Not to mention those who have been made to feel like a bad child e.g. by an abusive parent or relative (grandparent tells them how naughty they are all the time, child is not really badly behaved but being put on the cloud even once at school is devastating, upset child now starts behaving worse).

It depends how its used.

I have a similar chart in my classroom Generally I use it as a "well done x, you're working nicely, move your name up" by the time a couple of names have gone up the whole class is sat beautifully. I never move kids down for silly things like talking or fidgeting unless they have had a few warnings close together, it's mostly for being rude or nasty to other children.

Common in most primary schools in some format in YrR I'd say. Helps young DC understand expected behaviours. Teachers aren't stupid. They can adapt for different children. My DD often ended up on Red / bad weather or what ever for being naughty

Personally I don’t like them and agree with all the points you make, my school uses a similar system so I am impelled to use it to some extent, I tend to write names on the board instead if I have to as if someone comes in it could mean anything but reminds me and the child we need to have a word at break time.
I don’t like these type of behaviour charts but they are used in the vast majority of schools.

I’m not fond of these type of charts but our school uses a similar system which works very well for my SEN child.
He understands and responds to being moved up and down. His teacher is relentlessly positive, so he is moved up a lot and then inevitably moved back down when he does something stupid. He very rarely reaches the top, but he understands why, so that’s ok.

I was worried about the ‘public shaming’ element but the kids all know who is well behaved or otherwise. The fact it’s written on the wall adds nothing extra other than allowing the teacher to keep track.

When I started teaching (secondary) I used a form of this - writing a list of kids who had done really well that lesson or misbehaved/been late etc.

It was a disaster. Kids would be disappointed they hadn't been put on the 'positive list' and ask why and for some, seeing their name on the other list meant they gave up. For the whole lesson you can see your name up there.