Being Creative with Positive Behaviour

I want to share some great ideas from around the school for Positive Behaviour Charts. Although the charts are all different, the common factor that they have is that the children were all very involved in their construction and the rules that go with them. Some children need more help with motivation and keeping on the straight and narrow than others but all children love to get positive feedback for doing well in class.

I love this chart. The teacher designed it for her class of 7-9 year olds. I think its simplicity really appeals to me. The idea is so easy; each child has a clothes peg with their name written on it. Each morning the pegs are clipped onto the 'Start' section of the chart. As the day progresses their peg can move up...or down. This is so easy for the teacher to do, after all, who has time in a busy class to fiddle around with a complicated system!

The class made up their own vision statement at the beginning of term.

They children also made up their own classroom rules.

To help the children understand these rules, their teacher made a display of photographs showing them what good practice looks like and what wrong practice would look like. This helps children who need visual explanations.

These pictures show what a group should look like when they are ready to listen to the teacher.

She also made a display to help the children understand the various noise levels asked for in class at different times and for different activities.

These photos show the children how they are supposed to line up to leave class.

The two different stages within the class also collect class points and keep track of them in their sweetie jars. This gives a little competition and provides some peer pressure.

In the older class, the children designed and made their own class points chart. The chart shows a journey around our local area.

A highland cow has to progress around the chart. The children gain class points for working on tasks, being polite and remembering to bring in their homework on specific days. Of course they can also lose points and it is very important that the teacher does take points off, no matter how bad he/she feels, otherwise the children won't value the chart at all and it therefore becomes redundant in class.

The children in the older class also made up their own class rules.
They also have a chart for individual behaviour / effort. 

If an individual child reaches the gold level by a Friday afternoon they receive a reward that has been previously decided by the class. This could be a certificate, a sticker, a note home, a small item from the prize bag or 10 minutes of golden time.

So that's some of the positive reinforcement that goes on around school. There are some other great ideas. In one class children can choose a token from a special box. The teacher has prepared these tokens with a wide range of small rewards offered. This allows the child to choose the reward that suits them.


Another class uses raffle tickets to reward good behaviour. These are given out during the week and posted into the raffle box. The more tickets you earn, the greater your chance of winning at the end of the week.

Another idea that works very well with younger children is 'Marbles in a Jar'. The children love to hear the clink of the marble on the glass. After a given time, the group with the most marbles in their jar get the reward that they decided on earlier.

Some rewards that the children have thought up are:


1. Being allowed to read a story to the children in nursery
2. Having a 'no uniform' day
3. Having a film on the ISB at lunchtime
4. Having a baking activity in class
5. Having 10 mins extra playtime
6. Making kites
7. Bringing a toy to school
8. Wearing your slippers to school


We encourage the children to be creative with their ideas. Creativity = fun!!


Hope I've inspired you!