Catch them out [being good]

Key Points

This strategy is to support you to give the toolkit student more positive feedback. It requires you to think positively about changes that you can make too!

Plan

Watch the video on the importance of positive feedback
Ask a colleague (a teaching assistant or another adult) to watch you teach for a few minutes or a lesson, and note down each time you say something positive to any student, when you say something neutral, and when you say something negative. Look at the numbers they come up with, were you surprised? Why?
Consider your own moods and feelings using the ups and downs template to help you see when you find it hardest to be positive with your students
Positive feedback works best when it is specific and labelled, look at the ‘flip it’ sheet to give you some examples and ideas

Introduce a new idea with your students: pick up the positives. Follow the ideas for games in the game overview to start off thinking in positive ways, there are accompanying notes for teachers
Whenever a student or staff in the class picks up on a positive and communicates this to another person, both people can be rewarded (one for doing something positive and one for noticing it). Customise the game class rules to formalise this
Rewards should be immediately reinforcing to the toolkit child; something they enjoy doing or having. However as a class you could also build up to larger rewards over long timeframes

For example, every positive picked out could equate to 15 seconds of watching a video at the end of the week

It’s important that you play this game too, working hard to catch your students out doing good things

Assess

As you and your students get used to this new way of working, it should become easier
Use the reflection template to think through what might be getting in the way of you doing this more
After filling this in, look at the problem solving template to see if there are any ideas there you can use to get over these hurdles

Review

Over time, this strategy should improve relationships between you and the student, and the student and their classmates
How will you remember to keep using this strategy? Make notes in your calendar or lesson planner as to when you might need to remind your students about the game or refresh the reward options for those who are doing it well

Resources

Editable PDFs