Key Points
This strategy can go along with Catch them out [being good]. It’s about understanding how things can be re-worded to support positive language, why this is important, and some practice for you to become a pro at flipping negatives into positives!
Plan
- Students with traits of hyperactivity, inattention or impulsivity often get a lot of negative feedback, from themselves and from others around them
- To improve their experience of school, it is really important to use as much positive language with them when you communicate
- This only works when you are specific about what you are praising- we call this specific labelled praise- be specific about what you say, be clear (label) the behaviour that you are talking about, and say something positive (praise) to your student about it
- We know that you might intend to do this all the time, but it gets challenging when you are managing lots of students all at once!
- So this ‘flip it’ activity is to give you some ideas of how you can turn potential negatives in to positives before you communicate with the student
Do
Assess
- After a day, a few days, and a week, use the reflection template to note some examples of things you have said, and how the student reacted
Review
- Talk to a colleague, your SENCo or head of year about your new praise comments and how they are impacting your students
Resources
Editable PDFs
