"I saw this and thought of you...."

When I was 13 my form tutor, and teaching idol, Ms. Watson gave me a newspaper article about my favourite author Terry Pratchett. Weeks earlier she had seen me reading his book furtively under a classroom table and spoken to me about my love of his works. The article was ripped from the Sunday Times Magazine. She handed it to me and said: "I saw this at the weekend and thought you might like to read it." I was a good kid so teachers often said nice things or picked me for trips, but I remember being genuinely touched by the idea that a teacher thought about me outside of school. That article is still in my copy of Pratchett's 'Hogfather'.

I told this story to a colleague who said she often did the same thing. When she gave the item to the student she would say: "I saw this and thought of you." It was then down to the student to respond. Sometimes they dismiss the item, othertimes they beam and place it somewhere carefully. In all cases I do believe it makes the student feel more valued and more liked as long as it is given from a genuine belief that it is something they are interested in.

Praise in public, Reprimand in Private

When I was younger my mother would force me to sit with her while she ate her dinner. She worked late so my tea was eaten hours earlier. Nevertheless, each evening she would drag me downstairs to talk about our day as she ate. She worked (and still works) as a secretary so her stories were filled with office politics and managers pulling rank on the admin staff. Regardless of what had happened that day she would, however, maintain a simple principle: "Praise in public, reprimand in private."

As a teacher these words echo in my ear each day. In 3 years of teaching I have only raised my voice or told a child off in front of others a handful of times. I always make the effort to take the child aside and speak to them privately. Even when I've had children screaming, swearing and throwing things I try to remain calm and only speak to them about their behaviour once in private.

On Thursday last week I forget my rule and sniped, uneccesarily, at a student. She was asking for help on a subject I had explained, in some detail, two days earlier but she had lost the notes. Tired and exasperated I sniped at her. She actually took it well and sat down again, cheeks enflamed but still calm. I felt dreadful. Keeping 'face' is so important to students and what had I taught this young person? That questions may lead to embarrassment? Although I did not agree with her irresponsibility with the notes, being mean was not going to lead to a change in her behaviour. More likely she was going to decide that I was unreasonable and give up on her work.

At the end of the lesson I held her back and apologised for my behaviour. Calmer now I could explain why I became exasperated and gave her some strategies for getting answers to questions which didn't involve haranguing me yet again. We both left happy.

Today's tip? "Praise in public, reprimand in private". If you can. Trust me, sometimes it's hard.

Take 2 minutes to say "thank you" to a parent

After reading Miss Cal.Q.L8s post about home school visits, I began thinking about conversations I've had with parents. Parent's evenings are my favourite part of the year. Even though they take hours I come away energised and enthused. I can only hope that students go away feeling the same.

However, my new school doesn't have parent's evening -- in fact, we have very limited communication with parents. Given that I teach mostly sixth-formers aged 16-19 I can see why it is less relevant, but I do feel we're missing out.

I therefore try, each week, to ring at least one student's parents to give some positive news on their progress. Each term I also photocopy the work of the best student and send it in a package to their parents with a personal letter explaining what I thought was so impressive.

All of this is welcomed, but nothing has been commented on more than the fact I say "thank you" to parents. I thank them for sending their children to us, for being a guiding influence and for caring about their children so much. Doing so makes our job so much easier. Often parents react by saying: "Oh no, I didn't do anything..." or "Well, that's what parents are for". Sometimes they even act confused. But 9/10 times I can hear the pride in their voice or I see their shoulders raise a few inches - just the same way that students do when complimenting their work. Thing is, we all need to be told that our efforts in life are being noticed. Simply because we hit adulthood it doesn't mean we stop needing positive feedback.

So...my simple tip would be thank parents as often as you have an excuse. It may brighten everyone's day!

Website of the Week: Award Maker

I like to give out certificates and prizes all year round, but the end of the year is a particularly good time for celebrating achievement. MyAwardMaker has hundreds of fun templates for recognising the time and effort put in by our students. They also have a great 'tips' section encouraging teachers to step away from rewarding 'intelligence' and instead creating goals related to other skills, such as leadership or positive attitudes.

All awards are free, easily customisable and downloadable.

Rewards for secondary students: Everyone loves a trophy

Secondary school and sixth form students are difficult to reward because everything that teachers think is a 'cool' gift is seen as unsufferably nuff. [Note to teachers: Don't use the word 'naff' around students it, too, is uncool].

Tesco have started a line in cheap trophies and medals that are helping get around this conundrum. In the 'party favours' section I picked up 4 trophies (like the one pictured) and 5 medals. Each pack was £1. Although they are made of plastic students audibly "ooooh-ed" when I pulled them from my bag and were enthused more than I have seen this year. When the prize stakes were upped to "a packet of hula-hoops and a trophy" their work-rate tripled!

Any other good ideas for 'grown-up' rewards for students? Please let me know at dailyteachingtips@gmail.com

Rewards for secondary students and sixth-form: Bring on the pin badges!

Lots of companies make good reward pin badges for students; some are advertised on the sponsored links to the left. But, though good for KS3, they are too baby-ish for older students, especially sixth-formers. They can also be expensive, sometimes costing 50p+ per badge.

To find something more thrifty and mature I scoured ebay to find 'job lots' of badges. With my rewards budget fixed at £10, I found many ex-collectors offer deals on variety bags full of random badges. For example, the lot displayed to the right is of 50+ badges and is currently selling for £3.50. That's 7p a badge - almost as cheap as stickers!

At the beginning of this year I bought three lots for less than £10 and kept the badges in one of the boxes sent to me. When students deserve a reward they 'lucky dip' into the bag. Sometime the badge is brilliant; sometimes it's rubbish. Yet they appreciate the randomness and the individual nature of the prize.

Altneratively, if you like to give rewards regularly, keep with stickers but customise them with more grown-up phrasing. I have used http://www.thestickerfactory.co.uk/ every year I've been teaching. You can save your customised phrasings for future orders and their multi-image, multi-captioned stickers mean you can get LOTS of different phrases at a reasonable price.