IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW OF A REWARD SYSTEM

IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW OF A REWARD

SYSTEM

Why have a Sports Crew and a reward system? 2nd entry to our Sports Crew project

In this blog you should find resources and helpful information, to help you think about your school or maybe your own child, how we might support them to build character, maybe improve physical attributes or become more included in social situations. Also included is the second entry to our progression with the Y6 Sports Crew at Frodsham CE Primary School and why we use a special reward system.

The aim of the Sports Crew is to help the School attain a higher number of physically and socially active children at lunchtime. The Sports Crew is given the responsibility to encourage children in their own Y6 class and other younger children in the school to get involved in play and activities. Unfortunately what happens on most occasions, is that their goals of getting children active isn't achieved because the leaders become frustrated, Can't manage the younger KS1 children to follow instructions and are without resources to achieve their goal. To ask a Y6 child to approach younger children and encourage those inactive children to get involved in their activities is asking too much and I'm sure you will agree, there are adults (including myself at times) who would struggle with that task, so why do we think 11 year old children can achieve this? The Sports Crew are often given this responsibility with an extra challenge of asking these inactive children to get involved in activities without a motivation to get involved, these children have avoided these activities in previous lunchtimes, what has changed now, why would they change and choose to get involved?

JCPE has given the Sports Crew resources and training to give more hope of this idea becoming a success but more importantly giving all children in KS2 a motivation to get involved! The idea is to reward children who (on a regular basis) attend these Sports Crew clubs at lunchtime. Having a reward is crucial to the plan succeeding. If you ask yourself the question, would you prefer to work for free or get paid? Your children are the same, most adults want money in return to completing work or tasks, so why can't we reward children with something they want? 

The children who regularly attend the Sports Crew lunchtime clubs are rewarded with stickers and we all know how much children love stickers! But the rewards don't stop there, participants will continue to collect stickers from the Sports Crew and at the end of each half term, the Sports Crew will allow children to redeem these stickers for toys (earning something which children actually want) but only if the participant has attended clubs on a regular basis and collected all the stickers necessary!

To give the Sports Crew an emphasis on getting a bigger number of children to attend their club regularly, an added reward system is offered to them, a special end of year prize. The more children the Sports Crew can get in their club at lunchtime, the more points the Sports Crew will earn. The more points the Sports Crew earn, the better their end of year prize will be! As much as this is a great opportunity for the younger children to be more active, it's a great opportunity for Y6 Sports Crew pupils to build character, develop their confidence and leadership skills, qualities which would really benefit them before they move on to high school.

Before the children started the club at lunchtime, we guided the children to think about what would be the best process to get KS2 children to attend their club. The children found, that maybe some advertising of the club and the rewards children could earn by attending the club could entice children to come along! Together we planned an assembly to showcase the rewards, we put up posters and handed out letters to inform people of the new Sports Crew lunchtime club. We found the enthusiasm of the Sports Crew children to be fantastic! their overall commitment and cognition of the project was unbelievable. The Y6 pupils certainly reacted positively to the new Sports Crew idea and there problem solving skills were apparent from the get go! I have been  overwhelmed by their ideas and maturity with such responsibility they have been given, both in the planning of the club and in practice at lunchtimes! In the last week they have grown from strength to strength, putting themselves and the club in a good position to improve as the year continues.

The Children have now completed advertising their club and launched the club at lunchtimes, as the Sports Crew are challenging themselves with the running and process of the club, they have recorded an unbelievable 85% participation from the whole of KS2. Our target at JCPE is to guide the children to problem solve, we want the children to feel that this is their project, this is their club, what this club achieves is what they as individuals have achieved and that this is something they should want to nurture because the club belongs to them! 

Thanks for reading, next week's blog entry will be a review of the Y6 Sports Crew's first prize 'Give-away' which is on 25th October 2019. Make sure you follow @JCPEprimary for live updates or wait for the next blog, which will be posted later that day! 

JC

RESOURCES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7E0mTJQ2KM (Scientific review of the brain and the reaction to a reward system)

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=132593247&site=ehost-live (Influence of a reward system in education)

https://education.gov.gy/web/index.php/parenting-tips/item/1785-the-effects-of-rewarding-positive-behavior-in-children (the effects of the reward system)