Weekly Teaching and Learning Email:Using ClassDojo During Tutor Time (Inspired by Miss Faye and 10B)

Dear Colleagues,

I hope everyone is well, it is hard to believe it is almost the end of May. This week the focus is once again on ClassDojo (sorry), and providing some practical tips on how you can reward positive behaviours with your tutor groups and get the day off to a good start.

The latest trend threatening uniform standards

Practical Suggestions

Uniform Checks – On a Monday you can award a point to each student with correct uniform. Miss Faye has done this to great effect and 10B have consistently had excellent standards of uniform. This is particularly useful for challenging the recent trend of black shoes with white soles.

Being On Time – Select a random day each week and award students for being in tutor time before 7:30am. This can help to reduce lates, but there will always be “traffic”!

Award a performance point – If you have tutor activities like a quiz or morning puzzle award a point to the student or students who solve the puzzle. Thunks (A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light) are a great way to start a day and get students brains working. http://www.thunks.co.uk/

Speaking English – Great suggestion from Sarah Bond, if she spots an ESL student speaking English with a fellow student she will reward them with a Dojo point.

Student of the Week – By clicking on your tutor group you can quickly review the scores of your tutees. You can then print off the monster of the student who has performed the best and display this on your tutor notice board.

Listening to instructions – If you have a specific routine that requires students to bring additional equipment e.g. silent reading on a particular day, you can reward students who bring reading books with a Dojo point.

Set a target behaviour for the week – For example, select teamwork as the target, then use the “View Report” function in ClassDojo to check which of your tutees achieved the most teamwork points. This can allow a very singular focus on a behaviour that you may feel is lacking for your tutees.

These are just some ideas to help you think about and further develop your own ‘in-house’ reward system. If you have any other strategies that you have tried and tested please comment on the blog post or reply to this email and I will update the post to include your suggestions.

Have a great weekend.

Regards,
Neil