Incident Reports -- AKA Dealing with Tattling

Recess and lunch can sometimes be a time of strife for me.  I have had classes before where every.single.time I came back from the short break to a swarm of children just waiting to tell me every little thing that happened on the yard.  Seriously, that gets very old, very fast.

So one day, while browsing the web, I stumbled upon something that I thought was genius...and I adapted it to work for me.  It is the "Incident Report Form".  It came from Whole Brain Teaching (which, at the time I found it was called Power Teaching and had a much less daunting website...possibly because PT was in it's infancy and just growing at the time.)  This was a simple little form the students fill out when they come off the yard and have something they want to tell me.  Here is the form that I put out for my students.

 



I made mine on Vista Print, but here is one for you to print out and use (I did use a paper one before I discovered the wonderful crack website known as VP)






It is uber-simple.  It asks the students to tell me when the incident happened, who was involved (using the language of "bullying" we learned in our bullying unit), what exactly happened, and MOST IMPORTANTLY what the reporter would like me to do about it.

When a student has something to tattle tell me about from the yard, instead of running up to me, they grab a form (which I have located right next to the door), take it back to their seat and fill it out.  The student then places it in the Receiving Box (located right next to the forms) and that is that.  I look at it within 24 hours and deal with it accordingly.

I have to say, since doing this a few years ago, tattling has all but stopped in my room.  The students either decide that writing it out is worth it, or the incident wasn't all that important.  Now, if someone is bleeding or hurt, they know to tell me immediately, but otherwise, these forms have been a blessing. 

What do you do to combat tattling in your class?