Rewarding student achievement is one of the most important things an educator can do.

As humans we are often so focused on eliminating the negatives, that we forget to recognise and celebrate progress, no matter how small it might be.

I know this because I am often guilty of it myself, for example, with No Nonsense, I initially set myself crazy goals that were actually unhealthy because they were unachievable.

There are other areas of my life where I have to reign in the goals, just because I know that I will always aim too high!

I guess you could say that there is no such thing as aiming too high, however, it is important to also apply a touch of realism when goal-setting, making sure that goals are both ambitious, yet achievable!

In the same manner, it allows oneself to celebrate even the small successes.

This applies in exactly the same with both classroom teaching, but more importantly to us, one-to-one tutoring.

It is so important to recognise those small pieces of success, that might just only accrue week-by-week, but build into something much more tangible and result in great achievements.

With smaller, bite-sized targets, it is much easier to achieve the larger goal further down the line so to speak.

This is because our brains store information that allow us to do well at something once we have initially succeeded in the first place.

If we achieve this once, it means that the consequential building blocks towards the end goal are easier to achieve because we are inspired to ‘re-experience’ the activity that caused the chemical release initially.

This is because our brains store the information that permitted us to do well in the first place for longer periods of time the more times we succeed at something!

With each success, our brains release dopamine and this flows into the brain’s reward pathway.

This makes us want to ‘re-experience’ this activity and drives the foundations for future success.

Further Reading: What is the impact of praise and recognition on children? (epraise)