‘Star of the week’ and Award systems

We are here to challenge your thinking, not here for you to agree or disagree but to open up a perspective for you to reflect on and decide how you want to lead powerfully in your school.

What would happen if you ditched the traditional 'star of the week', 'student of the day' and celebration assemblies to build intrinsically motivated and confident pupils?

Controversial? Yes. Important topic to consider? VERY.

What if the Teacher Awards in schools were not the teachers choices but instead the ‘pupil pride awards’, where children select their own achievement/ win to celebrate and share.

Why?

In life if you wait for external praise, this can be the course of major rejection, insecurity and unhappiness. A sense of failure is felt. Even when there may have been great accomplishments on the journey, a pupil can soon be forgotten if 1 child wins and the rest don’t.

90% of our happiness is reliant on our own thought patterns and responses to day to day activities, conversations and events. So, why are we educating and raising our children that their brilliance is defined by external praise, awards and charts?

Intrinsic celebration is the most powerful tool that we can create in our schools. Even if no one see you, celebrates you, but you know yourself you have done well, you will have happiness.

If a child on the toughest of days identifies at the end of it, that they got through the tricky bits and are still standing, they that made a massive accomplishment by accepting help. They own themselves and their greatness. They own themselves and their emotional responses. They are the key to their own wellbeing. We should be raising them to see their wins, not raising them to think in life that they are happy and rely on external validation as their main source of success, whether it is from a teacher or boss telling them when they are achieving.

Every pupils deserves to have a moment of pride at the end of a day, week or school year.

Everyone should be celebrated and have the chance to stand in front of their peers, family and friends and say I am proud today, celebrate with me.

“I am proud of me because I did this………”

“I am a sportsperson of the year because this year I did……….”

“I am proud because I couldn’t use capital letters and I do now”

“I am proud because I used to be scared of coming to school and now I don’t”

Pupil pride awards would mean that every pupil is seen for who they want to be.

Every pupil is proud.

Every pupil has used their voice.

Every pupil is building their own internal positive mindset.

Every pupil receives gracefully an external clap.

Every pupil feels acceptance and acknowledgment.

Every pupil is born deserving of this moment, regardless of their gender, social or ecomoical background or behaviour.

Every pupil is themselves and worthy.

We all are born with potential and we have to teach our children to own that.

With the current system the danger is that for every euphoric pupil who wins there are 29 that don’t. How is that really managed? Is that losing mindset addressed in a school?

“Don’t be a bad loser” is not teaching pupils how to be resilient, the words alone say that you are not only a “loser” but a “bad loser!”.

When a pupil feels sadness that they didn’t win it is because they do not believe that they are worthy and they were looking for someone to believe in them. To top their happiness up.

They feel unseen, they feel that the day, the week or year has ended with disappointment. It may feel like it has been a waste of time; once insecurity is triggered they believe that the teachers decision to not pick them means that they are not worthy or good enough.

We know we have winners in life, we go for a job and 1 person gets it. We have race and 1 person wins. The point being is that it is questionable that at the ages where our personality, mindset is establishing for life, whether it is this the time to sew the seed of not being good enough into their mindset.

Children are surrounded by:

· weekly spelling test results

· ‘Top maths table”

· Reading level

· The fastest runner

So when it comes to the end of the day, end of the week, the end of the year should they be put in a pecking order again?

Absolutely not. This is the point where we as teachers have the chance to inspire every pupil to go forward into their evening, into tomorrow feeling stronger and more powerful than they were yesterday. That is what we are doing to children in our schools, we are unintentionally, lowering their self belief.

Just think for a moment if you were in their shoes... If your Head teacher put you on a pecking order from the second you walked in by a traffic light system or an award chart in the office for all parents to see. How would you feel?

How about that quiet observer that is always able to get their head down, quietly picks up something when it is dropped, holds a child’s hand in the playground because they are sad without telling a soul?

or

How about the child that has academically achieved high standards from the start and has always stayed at that achievement, therefore not made game changing changes?

And how do those children REALLY feel?

We know because we have been asking them at school awards for the last few years:

Pupil's voice:

“I wouldn’t get an award because I am average and in the middle of the class for everything”

“I have been the person to play in every team, represent the school from reception, tidy up after every club, win player of the tournament. I wasn’t sports award winner because I was away on sports day so I couldn’t win the sprint. That is who wins sportsman of the year”

“I don’t get awards as no one in family does”

“I should misbehave for a year and then improve because that is how you get an award”

If you have read to the end of this article, then please share with us your thoughts and reflections. We appreciate this is no small topic but for those schools who have begun shifting their approach and managing pupil pride awards in a healthy and intentional way, they have seen epic shifts in the self esteem and motivation within their pupils.

Its a bold move. Is it one you will be bringing into your school?

Megs and Bry x