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40 Hour Workweek

Uncategorized   |   Sep 20, 2014

A bright idea for building school morale through compliments

By Angela Watson

Founder and Writer

A bright idea for building school morale through compliments

By Angela Watson

Most teachers don’t get nearly enough recognition and appreciation–so why not celebrate each other?

Start by selecting the fastest and easiest method that faculty currently use to communicate with each other. If all staff members are required to access and use a social media account or learning management system(LMS), utilize that! Otherwise, a simple email system will work just fine.

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Set up a special email address for compliments (such as appreciation@yourschool.org). Whenever a staff member notices a kind gesture or accomplishment among colleagues, she or he should send a one-sentence message to the compliment email and acknowledge or thank that person.

A different staff member can be in charge of viewing the compliment email account each month and copy/pasting the compliments into a larger email which is then sent to all faculty members. If you want to get fancy, use a pretty font and border and display the compliments in the teachers’ lounge.

At faculty meetings, you could even hold a drawing with all the names that were in that month’s email! The winner can choose from a short list of rewards: a gift certificate donated by the PTA, a one-time pass to leave school right at dismissal, a designated parking space, etc.

Has your school ever tried a variation on this? Please share your ideas for building morale and celebrating your colleagues!

april-bright-ideas-blog-hopFor more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic that interests you. What makes this link-up unique is that none of these posts have products or printables of any kind, just practical classroom solutions. The grade levels for each are listed in the post titles. Enjoy!

This InLinkz account has expired. You can still view the linkup here

Angela Watson

Founder and Writer

Angela created the first version of this site in 2003, when she was a classroom teacher herself. With 11 years of teaching experience and more than a decade of experience as an instructional coach, Angela oversees and contributes regularly to...
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Discussion


  1. Hi Angela,
    You’re a mind reader! My new principal is doing just what you suggest! He puts out several calls during the week for teachers to email him “celebrations”. He then compiles these into a word document and sends it out Friday afternoon. It is so encouraging and uplifting to read everyone’s celebrations. Some are about kids, others about specific colleagues, and still others are general comments about a particular department or team in our school. I’m enjoying these immensely and the positive nature of them has started to impact the culture of our school.

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