Dr Claire Winchester

All humans should be afforded all human rights. @[email protected]

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@PeterStefanovi2 @BiancaJagger I thought his name was Charles

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

So not only are the Tories delaying our opportunity to exercise our democratic rights, they are delaying a night of great telly too.

[Louisa Compton @louisa_compton]

BREAKING: Channel 4 becomes the first broadcaster to announce its plans for coverage of the General Election night with @krishgm @maitlis @campbellclaret @RoryStewartUK @RestIsPolitics @cathynewman @clarebalding ensuring C4 will be the home of the best analysis and coverage

[Trishna Bharadia BA(hons), MFPM(hon) @TrishnaBharadia]

Have you completed the @MSTrust Listening Project Survey yet? Travel & transport outside the home is one of the many ways my parents support me. It's important for the MS community to share their experiences of getting around with MS too. Click the link!

https://t.co/Y8DLpooRsL

[Daisy Cooper MP 🔶 @libdemdaisy]

Despite Conservative government cuts to local government and its disastrous mini-budget, @LibDems run councils continue to protect vital services against the odds and deliver real change for local people. 👇

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@MSTrustforHPs I loved this session. Looking forward to seeing more accessible gaming tech out there!

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@MSTrust Such a great session and lots to take away and think about too.

[anthony vickers @untypicalboro]

I don’t want tax cuts. I want the ambulance to arrive. I want good schools, public transport and town centres. I want investment in jobs, education and people. An extra tenner a week is no good to me when society is falling to bits.

[Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher]

Today I heard from a parent that their son was terribly upset when he got covid, because it would ruin his 100% attendance record. At the end of the year, those with 100% get book tokens & certificates in assembly. She mentioned it in passing, she obviously didn’t think it was a big deal. It was just how school worked, and last year her son had got the award.

Here’s why policies like that should stop.

What’s the problem, you might think, with rewarding those who turn up day after day? Surely it’s just a nice little treat to recognise their commitment? And book tokens! How worthy. What’s the problem with free books for kids who take school seriously enough to make it in every day?

As with all reward systems, however, we don’t think enough about those who don’t get the reward and the effect on them.

Who are these kids? Well, it’s the children with serious illness - the mum then went on to tell me that one girl in his class has leukaemia, for example. Or the disabled child. Or the child with overwhelming anxiety. Or the child who became homeless with their mum due to domestic violence and has to go to the shelter in the night, and then doesn’t make it to school the next day. Or even the child whose dad died and who had a day off to attend the funeral.

It’s the kids who find school most difficult and who have the most challenges who struggle to attend.

What happens to them when everyone else goes up to get their book tokens? They sit in assembly watching, and they are punished. They are punished because the absence of a reward acts as a punishment for them. It’s a public punishment too, everyone knows that they didn’t make the grade. No free books for them. Tough.

Whenever there are rewards, the flip side is punishment. When we reward one person, the others are punished by the absence. When we reward someone one year, and then not the next, that again the absence acts as a punishment. It makes them feel bad.

Of course, we know this. We know that children feel bad when they don’t get something and others do. This is in fact pretty well how rewards are meant to work. They are meant to motivate. The idea is that children will try harder to get the reward.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that 100% attendance isn’t about trying harder. It’s largely about luck, particularly at primary school. Luck not to get ill, luck to have a stable family, luck to be the kind of person who doesn’t find school overwhelmingly stressful. Luck to be the sort of person for whom life is a bit easier, in fact.

Rewards for 100% attendance reward the lucky, and by doing so punish the unlucky. The lucky feel good and the unlucky feel bad. And that has other consequences. Because making those who find school attendance hard feel bad is very unlikely to make them more able to attend. They are already struggling, and now they’re being punished for it.

It contributes to anxiety, because children are aware of the consequences of not getting 100%, and some of them will become really anxious about it. For others, it will contribute to their anger and their feelings that they aren’t valued as much as others.

So yes, the proud children up the front of assembly can’t see a problem, and their parents think it’s ‘just a nice gesture’, but it’s so easy to ignore the effect on the least advantaged. We celebrate the winners and the losers are invisible, shamed into silence. The winners assume that the losers deserved to lose - they say that they worked hard for their awards, and the losers couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed and so why should they get book tokens?

This happens again and again in our education system, and that’s why I keep on banging this drum. Every intervention should be evaluated for its impact on losers as well as winners. It’s not enough to pretend they could all be winners if they just tried hard enough.

Sometimes people tell me that the attendance awards helped them learn that everyone is good at different things, because whilst they didn’t get attendance awards, they did well at other things and got awards for music or creative writing. Which is nice for them, but again, let’s think about the losers. For it’s not true that in a school context everyone is good at something. It’s not true that everyone gets awards somewhere. Some children learn that they aren’t good at anything. Not even turning up.

These reward systems come up often when I talk to young people who are disillusioned and burnt out by school. The significance of book tokens goes beyond the money. That’s why it doesn’t work when parents say they’ll buy the book tokens instead, to try and lessen the pain of not getting the reward. Those book tokens, awarded in public in assembly, signify approval, status, validation - and to those who don’t get them, they signify the opposite

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

Just keeping my spot warm here, but I won’t be interacting again until there is a new Xecutive. You’ll find me in the string place.

[Humanists UK @Humanists_UK]

'Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.' - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights #HumanRightsDay

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

All I want for Christmas is world peace and a general election.

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@PatriciaMunn604 @BBCr4today Made me so cross to listen to!

[MSTrust @MSTrust]

Our Big Give Christmas Challenge is on and we need your help to unlock £11,000 in matched funding. Donate today and your Christmas gift to the #MS Trust will be doubled at no extra cost to yourself!

@AgneStraukiene

https://t.co/d5vPlF2e4o

#MultipleSclerosis #ChristmasChallenge

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@GalaxyKate Such an amazing place to work! Congratulations!

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@SoVeryBritish Sindy! Bloody autocorrect

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@SoVeryBritish Sunday

[Dr Claire Winchester @PootlePi]

@jpwarchaeology Would you consider Letchworth Settlement? They have an excellent schedule of high quality education and lectures and I think you would enjoy the quaker architectural heritage too.

[MSTrust @MSTrust]

💙 The Big Give is back for 2023 and for one week only, your donation could be doubled at no extra cost to yourself!

Make a difference for people with #MS by helping us to ensure that your health professionals receive the best education possible.

https://t.co/MNzi0zjem5

[MSTrust @MSTrust]

Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay

Research suggests at least half of people with #MS will experience #MentalHealth symptoms at some point.

Click the link below to explore practical steps you can take to positively impact your mental wellbeing.

https://t.co/jECvzqELjl

#MSTrust

[MSTrust @MSTrust]

New #MSTrust Ambassador: @hugorifkind

"I am a writer for #TheTimes and a frequent broadcaster on #Radio4 and #TimesRadio.

My mother, Edith, lived with primary progressive #MS.

So I couldn't be more delighted to help raise awareness in any way I can."

https://t.co/OMhomM2uIr