Case studies

A League of Their Own

Stepney Primary School is a small inner city school in Hull. Many of our pupils arrive at school lacking self-confidence and with chequered school careers behind them. They often feel they are useless at school lessons and consequently have grown reluctant to try anything new because, in their eyes, they have never been any good at anything and so won’t be now. Our children are the sort that people look at and say, “Well, they do well to even get here each day.” However, our motto is A small school with great expectations and so we say, “They’ve done well to get here, now let’s make it worth their while!”

One particularly challenging group was a Year 6 class that I taught. They not only lacked self-confidence, but had already given up on themselves and were ill equipped to deal with the challenges that would face them in May. Behaviour and attitudes were poor. In addition, the majority of the class would not even put pen to paper for fear of getting something wrong. I decided I needed to be as positive as possible and try to develop a climate where it was okay to get things wrong. I used partner talk to give pupils the confidence to answer questions in class and they were thanked for providing possible answers even if these turned out to be wrong. One phrase was repeated over and over again: “Remember, it’s not wrong to be wrong – only wrong not to find out why you’re wrong.” Children were encouraged to offer explanations and to correct themselves and also to correct others in a positive way.

Central to turning the class around was the creation of their own positive attitude. We developed a Premier League of Attitude, which began with pupils identifying what they considered a good attitude to be. They were encouraged to be specific and focus on one aspect that they would try to do. For this, we used a big piece of paper in the middle of the circle during circle time. Each child wrote their idea on a post-it and placed it on the paper.

“A good attitude is...

having a go even when I find something difficult.”

using the names of people on my table.”

making eye contact with the person I am speaking to.”

Everyone starts from the same place in the Premier League each Monday. As with all leagues, they can be promoted or relegated, though there is room for more than one person at the top, so potentially every child could head the league. We look at it twice a day, at the end of the morning and at the end of the afternoon, to see who is up or down. Children can slip into the relegation zone for bad attitudes and be relegated from there. If a child is relegated they don’t get a Friday prize, which is awarded to everyone in the Premier League on the last day. They can, however, still earn other class rewards, such as miniature heroes. Promotion back into the league is also a possibility as soon as their attitude improves. I have found this works well with competitive boys in particular.

Each day pupils who have displayed a positive attitude in their behaviour or work are rewarded with a miniature hero certificate to take home to share the good news with parents and a chance to enter the end of half term raffle. The idea of miniature heroes occurred after one CSA brought in a big tin of Miniature Heroes chocolates for the class at Christmas. We were left with a lovely big tin and decided that we wanted to extend the certificate scheme that we had been using. So I made a template (a little like a ginger bread boy shape) from which the miniature heroes are made. When the children earn their certificate for premier attitudes they put their name on one of these cut out figures and place it in the tin. At the end of every half term we have a draw for four names, who carry off a fairly substantial prize (at Easter it was an Easter egg). Obviously, the more miniature heroes you earn the better the chance you have of being drawn out and so far it has worked like that! Constant review of what is meant by a premier attitude is needed, with individual pupils providing the role models and being praised specifically for this. I would add, though, that it is important to tailor rewards to your class: different classes have different needs and different motivations. I might not use some of this with my next class or I might adapt it.

This is just one – but one very successful – method I have used to create a purposeful learning environment in my classroom. Music, Brain Breaks and motivational sayings uttered by the children’s role models are some of the other methods I have used. However, one final – and surprising – benefit of using these strategies was seen during our annual residential visit. Using guided visualisation techniques and pole bridging forty-eight pupils managed to pack and clear their rooms leaving only one flannel behind! If you’ve ever been away with children then you will appreciate the significance of this feat!

Helen Thomson is Deputy Headteacher of Stepney Primary, Hull. Together with the Headteacher, Amraz Ali, she will be presenting more details at Alite 2003 about how the school creates the right climate for learning. For more information visit www.alite.co.uk.