School Rewards

The reward system focuses on students, often overlooked in other educational settings, who consistently behave and work well. This is designed to make their position an enviable one to other students. Hence, the rewards must be significant, relevant, visible and desirable.

The reward system is underpinned by the belief that continual praise and rewarding of each student’s own personal best behaviour is fundamental to establishing and reinforcing appropriate behaviour and work patterns.

This is particularly important in a secondary school where students are exposed to a variety of influences and, common to the age group, the tendency to admire anti-social, violent, uncooperative behaviour is endemic.

At the start of every lesson, students are expected to follow the five classroom rules. They are:

• Be on time to your lesson.
• Look like a learner (this means always dress in correct uniform, worn smartly).
• Take turns to speak and listen.
• Be polite when speaking to others.
• Respect the personal space of others.

If a student follows these rules, they will start every lesson with five stars (see information about BaRT below). The teacher is then able to use his/her discretion to award a further five stars for students who make every effort to aspire, thrive and achieve in the lesson.

Lesson by Lesson Rewards

• Verbal praise and written praise cards
• Stars
• Selly Oak Stickers to go in Communication books
• Positive Praise calls home, from teachers, YBELS or Heads of Key Stage.

Weekly Rewards

Celebration of achievements in assembly lead by Head of Key Stage. Heads of Key Stage celebrate the achievement of their year bands by sharing the success of the students who have earned the most stars that week. They also take great pride in awarding certificates to students who have been personally nominated by their subject teachers.

Termly Rewards

At the end of every term, all students wil attend a Key Stage Awards Assembly. This is to celebrate student’s success across the faculties, for both academic and social reasons. Each certificate comes with a gift voucher to further celebrate and reward students for their hard work and attitude to their learning.

The awards include:

• Highest star earners in each faculty.
• Head of Key Stage awards
• Mentor awards
• Head Teacher Award

Yearly Rewards

At the end of each year, the whole school comes together (often accompanied by proud parents and carers) to celebrate student’s achievements through an awards assembly or evening, in which prizes and certificates are awarded for achievements such as ‘Most Stars Earned’, ‘Most Improved’ (known as the Phoenix Award) and ‘Best in Faculty’. These occasions are highly anticipated in school and are a real highlight on the yearly school calendar.