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Q: How does Golden Time work?

Q:  My junior school has experienced many of the problems noted above and we have invested a lot of time and energy into developing our playground areas. We have timetabled zoned areas for football, basketball and hockey and a wide variety of playground games:hoops, skipping ropes, giant Connect4 etc. However, there are still a small group of children who persist in spoiling others games and picking on individuals.

We have a very comprehensive behaviour policy with many rewards. We try to maintain a positive ethos and with this in mind we have decided to introduce Golden Time.  This has traditionally been associated with Infant School so I would be interested to know how effective it is with Juniors. The idea is that all children would have an entitlement to Golden Time at the beginning of the week and would sign up for a variety of activities for a 15 minute session on a Friday afternoon. Time would be removed by the teacher for failure to adhere to the school rules or the privilege would be removed altogether for bullying or other anti-social behaviour. Has anyone used this system effectively? Can you suggest how it might be monitored? The activities would have to be attractive enough so that the children would not want to miss it - any proven and practical ideas?

For this to work effectively I feel that it needs to be part of our Behaviour Policy but we would have to trial it first. A moral discussion has arisen in staff discussions: if a child were to break a school rule on Monday and his/her Golden Time was removed would they have the facility for earning back that time by Friday. If it were a serious offence such as bullying I would certainly say no. I would appreciate comments and thoughts on any of the above

Jenny: I am really glad you decided to introduce Golden Time.  I developed this model in mid to late 80's; so have researched into it widely. Thousands of schools use it and I hope that a few of them are reading this now. I monitor its development but in many cases, like any other system, it becomes diluted or misinterpreted. A good description of it is in Quality Circle Time (Mosley J. LDA 1996 pg 44 - 50). Also in Turn Your School Round (Mosley, J. LDA 1993 pg 32-36). Both these books show how to use the signing up chart, the earning back contract and the monitoring chart.

. Firstly, it has to be harnessed to the concept of Golden Rules. The class must be told that it is precisely because the children are keeping to the Golden Rules that the school is celebrating their behaviour during Golden Time.  Many classes have no idea that the run down time on a Friday afternoon where the teacher sits in the corner marking and they play with games that have bits missing - that this is supposed to be Golden Time (a bit rusty if you ask me !!!)

It needs to be seen as a community celebration. Not only do many schools invest money into this slot by letting the children research and buy exciting games etc, but the main point that makes it golden is that two classes need to do circle time at the same time. One of the options is that at least 6 children can choose to visit another class to teach children new games, and 6 children from that same class swap over to go to their class. For the system to be golden new people have to be in the class at Golden Time if possible as it makes it incredibly powerful. Most schools run Golden Time for half an hour and invite parents in, some schools invite older people, some invite Sixth formers. In an ideal world Golden Time is about the community celebrating academic and social success.

Rather than insist a whole school adopts this policy I encourage a school to get two teachers to trial it first for half a term and agree to report back their findings at a staff meeting. If these two look younger and calmer we must all do it !!

On a practical note, a pupil can lose time for breaking a golden rule (the moral values) or a class routine. In many schools the midday supervisors use this system as well. Only if a child loses the whole 30 minutes do they have a 5 minute chat time with the teacher who offers them the chance to win some of it back. If they lose it all they become committed to the path of addiction to failure. They need to enjoy at least 10 - 15 minutes of it in order to mind losing it. In some schools some pupils have opted for a football club at Golden Time but you will see in the good schools a table outside with a sandtimer in the middle which a few pupils have to watch before they can return to the football. It is very powerful. If a child engages in a physical attack or a serious verbal attack, having passed the yellow card warning stage, they lose 10 minutes Golden Time instead of the usual 5 as this is seen to be visually fair by other children. However any serious incident like this is the only time that a child is reported to the head where it is written up in the incident books, read back to the child and signed by all parties concerned. The implication is that parents will be involved at some stage. However my son, hated having a particulars written incident held over him for years (it was in a secondary school and it was handed on from year head to year head) and I learnt the wisdom of recommending to schools that at the end of a term they must rip up the book in assembly to symbolise the starting of a clean slate. I cannot do justice to the potential power of Golden Time in one answer. It is such an important integral part of a behaviour policy that I am currently writing a whole book on it alone to help schools make sure that it stays powerful. One of 'our' schools for the third year running has won 'the most improved school in the country award'. They publically attributed a large measure of their success both to circle time and to Golden Time I do hope this answer helps you to get going with conviction. The problem is that it is very hard work initially to get it right. You need to pilot it and teachers need to realise that you won't realise the benefits of all your efforts till later on. Please don't forget the whole point of this system is to celebrate 'the middle plodders' in each class. If you keep the weekly chart (shown in the above books and in the 'Photocopiable book' Mosley, J Positive Press pg 3), you will know all the pupils who have not lost any Golden Time. Once a term you send the certificate (LDA catalogue) back to each of their parents or carers to congratulate them on their wonderful behaviour. This is the most important part of the model; children who keep to the golden rules calmly and quietly should be celebrated. In this model they are. Forgive me for such a long answer but the problem for me is that many people pick up some of my ideas and don't fully know the whole context. I have tried to give as much as I can in a short time (truly, for me this is a disciplined answer !!!) So good luck, it will help you a lot, please write in anybody who is using it in its proper form.

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