Clip Chart: International

A teacher-buddy of mine in Taiwan has taken my Clip Chart fervor to his school. They are using a modified version of the Clip Chart, and it's adorable:

Taiwanese Clip Chart

Click here to go to Miscreant's blog to read all about their Clip Chart and how it works. Here's an excerpt:

"All students have their names written on pegs and placed on "Ready to Learn". When they are being good, paying attention and supporting their fellow students we move their pegs up. When they are being disruptive and uncooperative, we move their pegs down. Often I will call up a student and make her/him move her/his own peg down. This reinforces the idea that s/he's done something wrong and (as I teach second language students) it gives me a moment alone with the student to ask her/him if s/he knows why s/he's in trouble - sometimes there are communication problems, rather than students being deliberately naughty."

I love seeing how each teacher uses a Clip Chart, we really are a creative bunch. I love the variety of colours that were used in this one. The blue Uh-Oh is particularly cute. For the Think About It, they have a rule in place that if the student is still on that colour by the end of the lesson, they do not get to go out to break but instead have to stay inside, thinking about what they have done. It's great that those teachers are able to enforce their rules, many South African teachers are not allowed to do things like keep a student in for break-time.

Clip Chart 2.0

Today, I've come to show off my newest clip chart. It withstood 5 weeks of use at Queenspark School, my host school, without even a scratch on it, and it'll be coming along to my first teaching post (where-ever that ends up being!). As before, the design comes from New Management's ebook, get it here. I decided to mix the colours up a little bit, putting red at the bottom. I find that having a glittery, special colour at the top makes it something to aim for. I also changed some of the wording, "Good Day" became "Showing Pride", "Great Job" became "Excellent Effort", "Think About It" became "Make Better Choices". I'm still not completely happy with the wording on the bottom two, but they work as intended- first, the teacher gets to choose what happens to the misbehaving student, then the parents are contacted.  The chart is made out of coloured card, that has the labels glued on and then each piece covered with plastic contact. Holes were punched in each rectangle and then they were tied together with twine, with the knots hidden neatly at the back.

This clip chart couldn't have come into being without my dear friend, the Femme DM, who helped design and build it. Here is one of my Outstanding students, standing next to the clip chart. He was the first one to reach Outstanding and everyone was very pleased for him, including his fellow classmates.

The Clip Chart went down well in the classroom, the students responded positively to it and my host teacher said that it made a real difference with them. I have been keeping a daily behaviour chart to monitor their behaviour.

• The chart is just a simple spreadsheet, but feel free to grab it here: Click to download Clip Chart Daily Behaviour Record (Hosted on Google Drive) 

• If you'd like my labels, they are here (.pdf): Click to download Clip Chart Labels (Hosted on Google Drive)

I'll be turning my report of the effectiveness of the Clip Chart system into my research project for my PGCE. Hopefully my peers and evaluators will also see that the Clip Chart is a amazing classroom management resource.

End Times

So, aside from some marking (creative writing and numeracy), my teaching is finishing for the year.

Mostly, I'm really sad about that. I've had an amazing time at Queenspark, I've learned so much and hopefully have grown as a teacher. I'm going to be writing up some of the things I've been up to during the last month.

Tomorrow is the Junior Sports' Day, which I'll be helping out at and my students will be partipating in. I'm bringing each of them a lollipop, as well as a certficate of some way they have achieved while I was there- that idea was from my host teacher. As a side note, this site is amazing for creating kid-friendly certificates, it was no trouble at all to whip up one for each student. I'll also be bringing her a little gift to say thanks, there is no way I can possibly say how grateful I am but at least it'll be something.

From Monday I'll be back at university, frantically completing assignments and portfolios and research projects. To be honest, I'd rather stay at Queenspark and continue with what I've been doing there- I was honoured to be part of such an amazing team of teachers and staff, if only for such a short while.