Golden Pass Reward Commendation Fun Activity Engagement Treat Special Random Name Chooser

I've used random name choosers (RNC) for some time. SMART Notebook has a good one (It's a random word generator - you just put in the names of the students in the class). I came up with this idea after a student said "Can I pass the question?" and I replied "Not unless you have a pass card!" He then drew a pass card on his whiteboard and tried to pass it again!

What we have are a variety of pass cards produced. The rules were written down for me to make sure I stuck to them and for consistency. Basically students can earn pass cards which then excuse them from answering questions when the random name chooser selects them. There is probably no educational value in doing this - it's just fun and it's very engaging for them. It's also quite funny when the class all pass all their questions to the class clown to answer (watch out for bullying though!)

Students can earn pass cards for anything which you want to reward. The other way of doing this came from an INSET session where the facilitator asked us all to look under our seats for a prize. 200 teachers all looked under the seats. We all laughed (Not) as he said there was nothing to find there but he proved the point about the engagement of coming in to the lesson and seeing if you had a pass card! Hence the wallet size pass cards are simply blu tacked to the underside of a seat. You can choose (at random) whose seat to stick it under or you could just put it under someone you want to get involved more (as they will become the class center of attraction when they are picked by the RNC). I had students coming in asap during break to see if they had a pass card under the seat!

I'd like to use it again however the head in my current school says that the school reward systems are to be used and these cards add an additional layer to the systems. I think that they can supplement the school systems and you can tailor them so that they fit within the school systems.