Give a Little Praise

In schools, we have a tendency sometimes to treat members of staff (colleagues) like the children. In the past I've received stickers, House Points, certificates and so on...

When a colleague is helpful, I often say to them, "Oh, give yourself 20 House Points". It's a bit of a joke and a bit light hearted; they have no where to record the house points, but it acknowledges my gratitude. 

In the past, Year Three children received marbles as a reward. When I wanted to thank a Year Three teacher, I sent a Year Three pupil to say thank you, with a marble for them - the pupils thought this was great!  

Now those certificates... I received my certificate of NQT induction in a whole school assembly, I've received attendance certificates at the same time as the children and other colleagues, and more recently I received (in a staff meeting) acknowledgement of my passing NPQSL. 

We often give each other stickers as a thank you or well done too. Many a time I've been in a shop or petrol station still wearing a 'Head Teacher's Award' or 'Brilliant' sticker. 

At times I've found this a little odd, but reflecting on it and now looking on it from a leadership perspective, we're not patronising each other, treating each other like children or 'being a bit silly', we're thanking and working with members of our team. It's important. We know how much the children value these things and use them to support and thank each other too.

Recently, I saw this Tweet:

@ICTEvangelist @ASTsupportAAli @87History @Abdulchohan @AllanaG13 @vicgoddard @LeadingLearner True. I sent some to say thanks to colleagues😃

— B Yusuf (@rondelle10_b) 21 March 2017

So, the next day, I grabbed a handful of praise post cards and set off to find a child from each class. I asked the child to, 'Write something they wanted to thank their teacher for'. The comments were lovely. We sent them all out on a Thursday and they landed on most door mats on a Saturday morning. A nice surprise just over half way through the year. There was some mystery around how it happened for a little while and many teachers told me how much it meant.