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Classroom Reward systems - tried and tested

Classroom reward systems - tried and tested


What is a reward system?


A reward system is used to give praise to someone or something, if we're counting animals for doing something positive, performing well, completing a task and more. It's a way of showing them that they're doing well


Who can use a reward system?

Lots of people can, it's not just restricted to the classroom


What should a reward system be?


It should have a goal or an end result and should also be achievable. It should also be age and gender appropriate (I'll get to that later)


Here are some tried and tested reward systems, aimed at ESL students, although they can be adapted to be used in many other cases.


1) A simple high 5 - A high 5 is a great way to show your student and other students that they're doing well. With younger children it's always funny to make it look like the high 5 hurts you, for some reason the children always want to get one after that.


2Stickers - Take some stickers into the classroom, invest a little money into buying stickers that the children are interested in, as I’m writing this now in September 2017, the kids love ultra man and Else from frozen stickers




Need something a little more than high 5s and stickers ? 


Below, I will outline to you 2 tried and tested methods that work very well, especially with the younger kids


1) Caterpillar


- Teacher is to draw the head of a caterpillar on the whiteboard/chalkboard to that the students can see it (pictured below)


- It's best to break the students down into teams and give a caterpillar head to each team, try and create some healthy competition


- Each time a student answers a question or does something worthy of a reward, give their caterpillar one body part. The team or student that has the longest caterpillar at the end of class is the winner and should win some kind of prize



2) House 


- This can be done in teams or to an individual and it doesn't necessarily have to be a house, it could be an animal or anything 


- The idea is that each time a student says something correct or worthy of praise, the teacher then starts drawing something on the board, in this example it's a house.

Each time someone needs rewarding you're to draw a simple step of the drawing (pictured below 


-The end result is that the students will try to perform well in order to see the finished drawing 


-Best not to give away what you're drawing too soon, it's best to keep them guessing as to what you're going to draw 



Points to remember when using a reward system


1) What is the end result and is it engaging 


2) Always make an example of good behavior or students performing well, this then sets the standard for other students to see 


3) Be consistent 


4)  Age and gender appropriate, take a look at your students. Are they 20 years old? then they're probably not going to be interested in Barbie stickers like wise a boy is most likely not going to be interested in a princess sticker 


5)Make it fun! 


Need some more game ideas for the classroom, why not check out our games group on the groups section of the site 








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