During lockdown, motivation was a hot topic. Many of us were subject to its ebb and flow: feverishly busy one day and drifting in a sea of apathy the next.
But if our levels of productivity fluctuated, then how did primary school pupils fare, bereft of the usual social interactions and without the comforting routine of the school day?
How do you boost pupil motivation?
We can’t quantify the impact of the last six months but, as the long autumn term stretches ahead, how can we re-motivate our key stage two pupils and sustain their drive?
1. Empower all pupils with a feeling of success
Research suggests that proficiency fuels long-term motivation: a useful summary by Carl Hendrick states that “Motivation doesn’t always lead to achievement, but achievement often leads to motivation”.
Facilitating success seems more important than ever this term. Here’s how to do it.
- When introducing new concepts, take the time to highlight links with previous years’ content.
- Model the initial approach carefully and “think aloud” while demonstrating how to negotiate the first step - providing a secure starting point may boost confidence and motivation.
- Similarly, when anticipating struggle, acknowledge the task’s difficulty and then verbalise the implicit thought processes required to find solutions - whether that is referring to a previous piece of work, a vocabulary bank, a worked example or an exemplar text.
- Retrieval exercises can expose a dearth of knowledge and be catalysts for demotivation: support recall this term by including keywords, examples and completion questions.
- Pair a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like) analysis with a task in which each pupil, individually or collaboratively, produces a well-crafted sentence annotated with their own positive comments. A heading such as ‘My WAGOLL’ will highlight personal achievement.
- Be aware of visible disincentives. Consider not displaying individual point or sticker tallies - the natural instinct is to compare and such publicity can be demoralising. Celebrate whole class totals to avoid exposing children who struggle to earn extrinsic rewards.
- ‘Personal Bests’ are not just for sporting achievement: when reviewing work, pupils can compare an aspect of their current piece with previous performance, the focus being on self-competition rather than comparison with others. A section added to the success criteria will enable the pupil to acknowledge and record their personal best.
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2. Engender a sense of belonging
Being part of a whole is also a powerful facilitator for motivation, according to Caroline Spalding and Peps Mccrea, especially when a community is working towards a common goal. Here are some ways to achieve this.
- Foster a team ethos in subject areas and create domain-specific identity. For our new Year 3s, who might have come from different infant schools, this is particularly important.
- In a maths lesson, show a group’s times table data - programmes such as Times Tables Rockstars come into their own here! Celebrate progress as a whole and agree upon a speed or accuracy target.
- Display a subject-specific class project. A reading celebration could take the form of a silhouetted tree with images of books the class has read as leaves; the accumulation over the year will provide a name-free visual representation of collective success.
- Alongside an individual task, consider setting a group adaptation in which everyone’s offering is necessary and valued. When writing poetry, invite the pupils to select their own examples of powerful imagery, then mould their contributions into a celebratory class version. To conclude a science unit, ask each pupil to write a key fact or draw a labelled diagram and use this information to build the class’s own textbook page.
3. Offer an element of choice
Whilst the teacher - the expert - is best placed to govern a novice’s learning, situations in which pupils exercise some control can boost motivation. When offering opportunities for choice, be strategic; enriching a pupil’s self-perception of autonomy should not compromise learning outcomes. Here are some tips on how to do this well.
- Give options but keep them simple: two or three images as a writing stimulus, rather than one, or a choice of three exit questions at the end of a maths lesson.
- Model how to navigate choices and think aloud to demonstrate the reasoning behind a considered decision.
- Finally, a combination of Ashley Boothe’s and Ceridwen Eccles’s reading ideas can ramp up the excitement of choosing a new class novel, as well as instilling a sense of ownership: once the teacher has read the first chapter of three different unseen books, pupils can cast their vote.
Diane Hall is a junior school teacher in the south east of England.
