Sermon Standings
About
During my first two services with the Choristers, I noticed that their behavior during the sermon was problematic. The sermon is the longest single part of the service, and the kids are expected to sit still and pay attention for an average of ten minutes straight. This was simply not being accomplished, so I came up with a solution to improve their behavior: Sermon Standings. To spark their interest, I made the first two Sundays of Sermon Standings directly competitive: each person was assigned a rank 1-12 (where 12 is the number of choristers present) based on their behavior during the sermon. This improved behavior rapidly, so by the third Sunday I removed the competitive aspect and instead assigned numbers to each Chorister based on their behavior. I still do this every Sunday, and it seems to be working.
Cumulative Standings, 2005
19 Alena 19 Gillian 19 Gordon 19 Heidi 18 Alison 18 Elisabeth 16 Will 11 Ian 11 Katie 11 Megan 11 Palmer 7 Emily 0 Maddy
Last updated Sunday, January 30, 2005.
A week-by-week breakdown of the Sermon Standings is available as a .pdf file.