Carrot Rewards - integrated rewards scheme for schools with a difference

Carrot Rewards makes rewarding and motivating students easier for teachers and more engaging for pupils.

Carrot Rewards can be used across the school so it can help teachers to easily keep track of work related learning taking place across subjects and activities by running competitions that are unique to rewards given for this area of learning. School wide reward systems can also give pupils their first experience of the world of work, where appraisals, reviews and bonus culture are common place.

Gone are the days where a teacher has to create a complicated Excel spreadsheet to record their pupils’ rewards and to run competitions. Carrot Rewards is a free online resource from School Stickers that enables teachers to customise their own reward schemes, allowing them to design competitions, from class league-tables to complex multilayered competitions, and to access up to the minute leader boards to track precisely how their pupils are doing.

School rewards are nothing new, whether it’s through the awarding of gold stars, merits, or a prize-giving day at the end of term, teachers have always sought to reward their pupils for good standards of work and behaviour. However school rewards have now gone online.

Carrot Rewards is completely free and whilst designed to be used with School Stickers, can be customised to use with any rewards scheme. Over 200 schools are now piloting the system.

David Pittam, a teacher at Oldbury College of Sport says “The Carrot Rewards system enables us to monitor the rewards given across the school and run competitions across subjects and years.  I would definitely recommend it to other schools.”

Simon O’Connor, Assistant Headteacher at Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School says, “Our old merit system wasn’t working efficiently. As it was paper based, there was a considerable amount of administration which discouraged the issuing of rewards. With www.carrotrewards.co.uk teachers can get a real-time picture of exactly how students are doing, which years are performing well, and what subjects are getting the best results.”

Sharon Hutchinson, of King Edward VII School in Sheffield said, “Carrot Rewards has transformed our rewards programme. It is easy to run competitions and I would recommend it to other teachers looking for a way to bring their rewards scheme online.”

The evidence suggests that modern reward schemes like this are becoming more important than ever to teachers. In December 2009, School Stickers asked the opinions of more than 800 teachers (68% of whom were Head or Deputy Head Teachers). The study found that the vast majority of UK schools (81%) now use a co-ordinated, formal rewards strategy to motivate pupils and an overwhelming 92% of teachers felt that using a rewards scheme helped improve the standard of work for some or all of their students.

According to research by Ofsted in 2008, “Rewards, such as opportunities to go on trips or to gain awards, were a powerful incentive for students who struggled with school. Rewards motivated the students to apply themselves more and to achieve better grades at GCSE level.”

Lori Nathanson PhD, educational researcher from Yale University, who specialises in the impact of social and emotional interventions on students, commented, “Students, just like adults, need to be motivated to work hard and push themselves. Unmotivated workers are unlikely to put effort into their jobs producing low quality work. This situation is paralleled in schools. Using rewards like bonuses and promotions in the workplace to increase motivation is the same as using stickers, grades, or ipods in schools. The underlying principle is that increasing motivation, both extrinsic and intrinsic, improves performance.”

For more information email neil@schoolstickers.co.uk or call 0800 073 0433.