Form class positive ideas

[LoonyToonie]

I'm a form tutor for a rowdy Year 8 class. They're a mixed bunch - mostly lovely but noisy pupils with one or two pupils who've moved schools for poor behaviour/exclusions etc.

We get on well but because of recent poor class behaviour (complaints from tutors, class detentions etc) my registration time in the mornings have turned into ritual bollockings and lectures on consequences and behaviour.

I want to do things differently but have fallen into such a negative rut with them. We have silent reading one morning, numeracy another and an assembly once a week.

I'd like some ideas on what to do with them the other 2 days - ideally something positive and inspiring.

If something 'historic' happens in the news, I tend to discuss that (Nelson Mandella's passing was a fantastic chance to pay tribute and teach pupils about humility and humanity) but these don't happen every day.

Can someone inspire me please!

I do a literacy morning once a week... Only I never call it that ;) we have a running team competition and a four weekly activity. So, pub quiz style one week (five rounds with five questions, spelling, punctuation and pimp my sentence - I give them a letter and they make the most original sentence they can using a verb, adjective, adverb, noun and conjunction which start with those letters), quick on the draw another week with a topical news article (tomorrow's will be Zain leaving 1D), some sort of online grammar game (just google it) and a countdown/hangman week. Then I give prizes every half term. Works well with my largish vertical form :)

Three rounds, not five. Good grief, I'm not a glutton for punishment!

When I'm teaching equality and diversity I always ask "What day is it today?" - there is always something and I have a prize for at least the one who knows, sometimes the whole class eg for Chinese New Year they got red envelopes with coins in.

I teach 16+ so not sure how suitable it would be for younger students but I have put some Trevor Noah and Tim Minchin on - and yes it is educational because we were looking at equality and diversity, Noah's act when he is talking about the use of the word 'coloured' for instance and Tim Minchin's 'predjudice'.

If they are getting bollocked could you have some sort of opposite? List the positive things that have happened, I'd do it as whole class not individuals but maybe a good old fashioned star chart for things like having correct uniform/equipment that most if not all can start the day with, so 1 star (or marble, sticker etc) available per student per correct uniform and another per correct kit (additional for PE / cooking / other activity) so if you have 20 in the class there are 40 stars available every day with a reward when they hit 100 which means they could do that in 2 weeks together.

I have yr 11 and seem to fill my time with chat about all sorts of stuff but I've changed in the last 18 months. Before that I had yr 8 and we did similar literacy/numeracy/assembly stuff. I often used www.formtimeideas.com - stick it up on the board, kids take turns to be in charge. They loved it.

Years ago I did this thing where I gave each student a class list and asked them to write down something nice about each person in the class. I then collated them and later on gave each student his or her own list of what other people in the class thought about them.

It was lovely.

I present mine with a question from 'the little book of thunks' when we have 10 minutes. Had some fab discussions and thoughtful debate.