The Midas Touch

How do you manage those on the ‘naughty’ list once the privilege of Golden Time has been revoked, asks Paul Dix...

Chelsea loves Golden Time. She looks forward to it every week and enjoys the variety of activities. Matthew might like it, but he will never know. Every Friday he sits and watches the other children enjoying themselves – nobody expects anything else. Like every child, Matthew starts the week with 15 minutes of Golden Time, but by Monday break time it has disappeared in a flurry of disruption, public warnings, names and ticks on the board.

As Matthew proudly sets a new personal best for quickly destroying his own Golden Time, he revels in the fame and celebrity of his poor behaviour; there is a perverse sense of pride in being the the first to lose it. He realises that he is subverting the system, that he has instantaneously removed any leverage you thought you had. Matthew is as proud of his ‘reward’ as Chelsea is of hers.

You begin to think the system you have inherited is only working for the children whose default behaviour is ‘lovely’. It seems that the school has accepted the use of this technique almost without question. On Friday afternoons, those who struggle to stay within the rules are given the ritualised humiliation of watching others enjoying themselves. Children are divided between the ‘well behaved’ and the ‘naughty’, expectations are set and labels begin to etch themselves into the minds of children and adults. You watch Matthew’s mild disappointment at not being involved and then see his corrupted pride at being placed in the cordoned-off area for the ‘ungolden’ children.

In this system it’s clear Matthew’s behaviour will not change, but it appears to work for other children. How do you balance his needs with the others? How do you adjust your approach without throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

How do you respond?

A
Vanquish Golden Time for good
Get rid of Golden Time, it is taking up valuable space on the curriculum.

B
Upgrade the system to Google Time
Give the children self-directed time for individual projects that are not linked into the behaviour plan.

C
Tip the scales in Matthew’s favour
Fix the system to let Matthew have at least a taste of Golden goodness

A
Gold Turkey
Some colleagues are not at all happy at the suggestion of removing GT. They are quite fond of ritual humiliation. Without it, they claim, the children will soon be running rampant around the school: ties around head, powder paint in one hand, a smaller child in the other.

The children are seemingly unmoved by its removal, but they are less impressed with the idea of 15 minutes of extra “WORK!” at the end of Friday. They want to know why they have to do more “WORK!”, what will replace Golden Time as a reward, oh, and they were kinda hoping that it could be extra playtime / snack time / time for chillin’, cuz. You placate them with a promise to ‘speak to the teachers’ about putting on some activities. That, after all, is not a bad idea.

Not long afterwards, you are cornered by a mob of colleagues (burning torches in hand) who have been told by the children that they will now be running Advanced Ballroom / Taylor Swift Sing-along Club / Stunt Scooter classes on Fridays instead. As you try to explain the misunderstanding, you realise it might not be a good moment to ask them about organising more realistic activities.

Talking behaviour
• If you had 15 minutes every week to devote to something that is not on the curriculum, what would your priority be?
• Do you need to replace GT with another reward system or can the school run perfectly well without it?
• What will you say to parents when they ask why their child isn’t golden anymore?

B
Good as gold
When Google gave its employees self-directed time it found that it led to fantastic innovations and boosted creativity in the workforce. However, replacing GT with self-directed learning time strikes some colleagues as more than a little strange. In their minds the phrase ‘self-directed learning time’ simply means ‘messing about’ and you have some work to do to convince them otherwise.

You make sure you set things up properly. Giving the children the opportunity to be self-directed will need quite lot of adult preparation. Starting with a pilot in Year 4, you meet with the teachers to run them through the plan. You ask them to step back and let the children lead the projects. You make sure you have enough access to the internet / library / large bits of paper. Each child has a proposal form, some loose parameters: nothing unsafe / illegal / immoral and you can choose to work alone or in groups. You set aside some time later in the week for them to complete their forms, but instead they start coming in on Monday morning. The children have clearly launched themselves into the project with gusto. There are fantastic plans to investigate the elasticity of school trousers, excavate the playground for treasure, and make you sit through perform Frozen: The Musical. You may have initiated something wild and wonderful. And it feels rather good.

Talking behaviour
• What more adult intervention might be needed along the way?
• How would you help children whose self-direction is in need of a compass?
• Does self-directed time have to have an end product?

C
Golden retriever
In a desperate bid to allow Matthew to experience the awe and wonder of Golden Time you consciously decide not to take any of his time away. This proves extremely difficult as he is particularly ‘lively’ this week. It’s not even lunchtime and there are protests from the other children. They want to know why Matthew isn’t getting the same consequences, why he’s disturbing everyone, and why you aren’t doing anything about it. By Wednesday you have had to post your support assistant permanently with Matthew and in a last-ditch attempt to protect his Golden Time he spends Thursday and Friday out of lessons. It is a huge effort from everyone. You try to enthuse Matthew with the thought of Golden Time but he is ready to go home. He doesn’t like being out of class and has rumbled you. Irritated that he has spent two days in segregation for 15 minutes of fun he sits through GT with a face like thunder, refusing to engage, refusing even to speak.

Talking behaviour
• Can GT be made to work for children like Matthew ?
• What are the problems with rewards that involve taking things away from children?
• Does fairness in sanctions mean that everyone has to be treated equally?

Your style

A
Golden balls
Changing policy on the hoof rarely results in good decisions. Slow down. Take the time to plan the transition, get everyone on board and explain to the children why you are making the change.

B
Gold miner
You can see that there is potential in self-directed learning and using GT allows you to pilot an idea before spreading the practice cross school. There is a rich seam to be mined if you dig carefully.

C
Fool’s gold
Matthew needs consistency and certainly. He doesn’t need sudden unexplained changes or rewards where they are not deserved. Don’t change the game, change the strategy.

About the Author

Paul Dix is lead trainer at Pivotal Education. Hear his podcasts at pivotalpodcast.com. The Pivotal Curriculum is a licensed trainer scheme that allows every school to deliver Pivotal behaviour and safeguarding training. See more at pivotalcurriculum.com.