Whānau Pride - A Student Motivator

Throughout the year I have been sending home 2 Miss D is proud certificates per week, as previously blogged about here. To check in how they've gone so far, I decided to ask 8 students the below key questions about the certificates, to use their feedback to reflect;

- How did you feel when you received the certificate?

- How did your caregivers respond?

- Have you had any positive things sent home like this before?

- Do you think receiving the certificate affected how you were in Health/PE afterward?

- Would you suggest I continue to send these? Why/Why not?

Although I have 5 major classes, I have only sent one certificate to one Year 13 so far, so decided to focus on my Years 9-12 for feedback. Alongside are some of the key comments the students made, which left me thinking further (and feeling warm fuzzies!).

When I went through the students' responses to the above questions, the common words which appeared were good (8/8), proud (5/8), happy (4) and recognised (4). The overall consensus was that students felt good or happy they had been recognised for working hard in Health and/or PE, and their caregivers were proud of them. This is great news, because this was the intent of the certificates - to increase positive messages and connections with whānau and to spend some of my time acknowledging the incredible things the kids are doing (as opposed to the time needed to spend chasing up students who have been off-task or not self managed for example). Many of the students also spoke about how the certificate started positive conversations with their caregivers about their school successes!

Between this feedback and my own observations, I have noticed how I have begun to look forward to Friday morning when I sent home the certificates. Although some times I struggle to narrow them down to only 2, and other times struggle to think of 2 people who have gone above and beyond, it is a great feeling spreading positivity home to the students and their whānau, making me more excited and passionate about my teaching in hope to send more home!

Another interesting statistic and observation, was the difference in student responses within my class, after the students had received the certificate. 4/8 students explained  that receiving a certificate did positively affect how they were in my class after, 3 Juniors and 1 Senior. Some commented it motivated them to continue to succeed, and others said it made them feel special I had recognised them, so they wanted to give their best to continue to be recognised. The 4/8 students who said the certificate did not affect how they were in my class afterward were interestingly all high academic students, who already want to be successful and I don't think the certificates made a direct difference to their engagement or work ethic for example (as identified by the other 4). Though, the certificates possibly strengthened my relationships with these students. In conjunction with these stats, I have observed the students who are in Years 9&10 are generally more positively receptive to the idea than the Years 11&12. Possibly the Seniors feel the certificate is childish, so I may need to reconsider what to do next year for my Seniors. But I will definitely be keeping the certificates going - particularly as my Year 11s have now started calling it a club that only some people are part of!

A couple of further comments/suggestions from the students I will consider further;

- Tell my classes at the beginning of the year, so the students know they may receive one if they go above and beyond. (This year I've kept it on the complete down-low, and sent the certificates directly home, without discussing them or who received them with my classes). BUT students may feel disheartened if they know about it, but don't receive one.

- Have a board of all of the 'members' and/or the 'ex-members' of the 'club', so we could strive to get onto the board.