WEALD CPS

PRAISE and POSITIVE FEEDBACK POLICY

At Weald CPS, we value the positive effect that praise and positive reinforcement can have on all members of our community: adult and child learners alike. We are pleased to hear comments from parents with regard to our effectiveness, and are keen to hear of initiatives that have gone well.

Teachers can appear to be much more accustomed to noticing and reacting to bad behaviour than to acknowledging good behaviour. Research on teachers' classroom talk has shown that teachers use praise very infrequently. Most of their talk concerns giving instructions, explaining something or organising work.

Current educational thinking suggests that whilst praise is a most effective tool in the teacher’s armoury, it should be used with care. That is not to say that praise in itself is a negative concept – quite the reverse as all teachers will know. The caution is relevant because of the effect that praise, without ways to improve, can have on learners. High achieving children are particularly vulnerable to:

  • Selecting tasks which they are sure they can do well
  • Believing that their abilities are to blame for their poor performance

Carol Dweck: Self Theories suggests that praise without intellectual challenge actually encourages a fixed mindset. Learners with fixed mindsets believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: they achieve the easy with low effort and avoid the more challenging for fear of failing and thus appearing to be less smart. Learners who have developed a growth mindset are those who enjoy a challenge because it leads to learning and are those who reflect on the strategies they have employed in order to advance their learning.

Dweck concludes that:

  • Learners with high ability are not necessarily more likely to love learning
  • Success in school does not necessarily make children love learning
  • Praise, especially intelligence-praise, does not necessarily lead to a love of learning
  • Confidence in one’s intelligence is not necessarily the key to a love of learning

With Dweck’s theory in mind, it is appropriate then to begin to alter the kind of praise which we give our children in the hope that their mindset may become more growth rather than fixed. Teachers should therefore:

  • Be candid to childrenabout their current skills
  • Help them identify the skills needed to pursue their goals
  • Help them identify what they need to build/improve/acquirethose skills
  • Help equip them with the attitudes, work habits and learning strategies they need in order to develop a growth mindset, which is open to failure/disappointment and thus to learning from mistakes
  • Help them to persist in the face of obstacles

GUIDANCE FOR STAFF

Praise the process, not the product:

  • I really like what you have done
  • The effort you have put in is really amazing
  • How you have portrayed the life of a Tudor child is really fantastic
  • That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.
  • That picture has so many different colours. Tell me about them

Praise the behaviour, not the child:

  • I love the way you have really put your mind to this piece of work
  • You should be commended on your commitment to this project
  • The way you have actively sought out the challenges in this homework is brilliant
  • I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies until you finally got it

Praise the effort, not the performance:

  • The energy and effort you have put into rising to this challenge is remarkable
  • Your questions have been quite searching and a real challenge to us all
  • The way you have kept at this problem is great. Well done for sticking with it like that!
  • Everyone works in a different way. Let’s try and find the way that really works for you.

No praise is preferable to fixed mindset praise.Constructive, honest appraisal of work is usually fine, as it relates to the standard of the pupil's work, not to any supposed links to her "ability" or "intelligence".

Staff should be guarded in their praise or positive reinforcement and try to stick to the main principles of

  • PROCESS
  • BEHAVIOUR
  • EFFORT.

Thus, it is possible toevaluate almost any form of reinforcement in growth mindset terms, thereby giving our children the opportunity to develop their love of learning and to acquire the skills they need to learn.

GROWING THEIR MINDSETS

  1. Select methods and strategies which send messages of…

You are a developing person and I am interested in your development

rather than messages of…

You have permanent traits and I am judging them

  1. Praising intelligence or talent sends a fixed-mindset message – praising the processes, strategies, effort or choices promotes a growth mindset
  2. Constructive criticism is feedback that helps the child fix something