Thread:
The Punishment of Rewards.
As many of you know, Barrowford Primary School is reward and sanction free.
There are many and varied reasons for this.

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There is usually a lot of interest in the sanction (punishment) free element of our practice and the reward free seems just to be an afterthought! Actually, I think the reward-free nature of our practice has as much, if not more, impact as the sanction-free.

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It is now the element that I feel most strongly about. To clarify, reward-free does not mean unvalued and unrecognised; actually, it means the opposite. It means that we value an achievement for the effort it has taken at that stage in the process.

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It is personal recognition on a very individual level.

Amidst the myriad of reasons for not extrinsically rewarding, the one that is keeping me awake right now is about equity.

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There are so many posts where schools have taken their Celebration Assemblies online and are identifying Stars of the Week. Schools putting children’s work in Halls of Fame. Schools who are critiquing the quality of home learning with red, yellow and green stamps.

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I completely understand wanting to praise and encourage children who are doing brilliant learning and are engaging with different activities, that doesn’t have less impact if you do it privately and specifically. I understand the value of sharing it with others too.

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We all love a bit of positive feedback.

We all know that there is huge variation for how much capacity families have for home learning – on all sorts of levels. All families are grappling with this at the moment, whoever they are and whatever their context.

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The children in our classes have never been more diverse. There are almost 400 different stories in our school alone, replicate that across the country, we can’t begin to visualise all the different situations and experiences. I think it is worth highlighting some though.

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Imagine you arrived in the country and started school two weeks before schools closed. You don’t speak English. Your parents don’t either. They can’t help you access online so although you are really good at maths, you can’t log on to the system to complete any tasks.

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Imagine that your mum and dad are both key workers and you are going to school every day. You can’t concentrate on learning because you are worried about them getting ill – you’ve heard such a lot on the tv.

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But you don’t want them to be worried about you so you don’t tell anyone and just try and smile and look ok. They get a bit cross when your teacher feeds back that you aren’t demonstrating what you are capable of.

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Imagine that you are a young carer for your mum and, now that school is shut, you’re looking after your two younger siblings too. You don’t have time to sit and do your own learning because you are trying so hard to make sure everyone else is ok.

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Imagine the only device in the house is your dad’s mobile phone. There are 4 children and it is really hard to get any time on it to access any home learning. Your dad also needs it for his work. You wish you could get on and do some learning but it is almost impossible.
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Imagine your mum is really strict about getting home learning done even though you feel really sad about missing your friends. She isn’t interested in that though, she doesn’t want your teacher to think she’s not doing a good enough job.

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You get virtual Star of the Week Awards a lot but you’d rather just have cosy afternoons watching films snuggled with your mum or go for a walk.

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Imagine that your world has been turned upside down because you love school! Normally, you love learning and are enthusiastic about it but at the moment you don’t have any energy to do any because you are missing your routine, your teacher and your friends so much.

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You feel even worse because your teacher keeps sending emails to your parents saying you haven’t accessed the learning and they are getting cross at you.

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Imagine you have really engaged in learning this week and have written the best story you have ever produced. But someone else has got Star of the Week.

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Imagine your aunt died last week and your dad can’t stop crying and getting angry because he couldn’t go to see her in the hospital before she died. You’re not allowed to go to her funeral. You miss her a lot and your cousins keep calling you because they are sad and scared.

Imagine you have done all the home learning as you always do and you get Star of the Week. You wish you hadn’t though because now all your friends are calling you names on the PS4.

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Imagine that your mum cries every day because she has so much of her own stuff to do as well as looking after the children that she feels inadequate because you need her help to get into the Hall of Fame and she can’t give it.

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Imagine that you have your own room and a variety of devices that you can choose to complete your learning on. Your parents have loads of time and energy to support you.

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When you have finished, it is great because you chat to your friends on whatever social media platform you chose. Life is ok – it’s a bit different from normal and sometimes you are a bit worried but usually you are good.

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You got Star of the Week that first week so you know you probably won’t get it again but that is alright, you will still get everything done.

When we made the decision about 10 years ago as a school not to ‘reward’, we asked the children about it.

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When we asked them what they felt about our Star of the Week Awards, they replied, ‘We know you like them!’, ‘We just know it is our turn!’, ‘We know it isn’t our turn!’. When we asked what they needed when they had done something they were proud of, they told us...

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...they just needed someone whose opinion they valued to know about it and share that brilliant feeling in the moment. So that’s what we do. All day, every day. Online and offline. It’s personal.

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Every single member of our school community is navigating their very own personal boat in this very unusual and seemingly endless storm at the moment. Surely they all deserve celebrating and individual achievements – whatever they might be – noticing.

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Life isn’t a pinterest board – it is far more gritty and complex and colourful and unpredictable and exciting than that!

We need to unite and not divide our communities right now. And, actually, always.

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I know it's long - if you stuck it through to the end: thank you!

#LearnToLoveLoveToLearn

End

@MikeArmiger @beyondbehaviour @_LisaCherry @elly_chapple @JulesDaulby @AlisonKriel I'd be interested in your thoughts... xxx

@richardgerver what do you think?