Carrot Rewards Case Studies
We can tell you what an impact Carrot rewards has been having on pupils engagement and motivation but we know it sounds better coming from our customers. We have four case studies for you to digest, please select them from the links below.Background
North Leamington School is an 11-18 mixed comprehensive in Warwickshire. It had been looking for an effective rewards scheme for many years that would really engage the pupils, but had struggled to find something that was effective and kept pupils interested.
School Stickers appealed to the school as 'www.MyStickers.co.uk' gives students the ability to take control by logging their own rewards, and the 'buddies' or avatar characters really engage the pupils. Teachers can also tailor the rewards for their subject or area of responsibility, and through 'www.CarrotRewards.co.uk' they can run competitions unique to their needs, using the results already entered in 'www.MyStickers.co.uk' by the pupils.
The Headteacher, Mr David Hazeldine, had been working on a rewards scheme idea that he wanted to call PRIDE (personal recognition individual development) to fit with the schools reward aims. The School Stickers programme fitted perfectly as it can a tailored to fit with any school's individual requirements.
Launch
It was recognised that for the scheme to work, the school had to get the pupils really excited about it. Led by Mr Seb Apostol, Schools Safety & Police Liaison Officer, who initially suggested the scheme, the teachers set about building momentum and hype for the launch.
The first stage involved the school creating tailored posters using the School Stickers avatars that started appearing around the school stating that 'Pride is coming' and the launch date. Pupils started asking what it meant and the teachers were deliberately vague. This started a range of rumours which helped build the hype.
In the second launch stage School Stickers created a life size cut out of one of the buddies and sent him on a train to Leamington. The school filmed him arriving at Leamington Station and his trip to the school. The film was then emailed to pupils and shown in Assembly much to everyone's amusement. The school then ran competitions hiding the giant buddy around the school and offering prizes to the students that spotted him first.
In the final launch stage some carefully selected pupils were told about the rewards scheme launch to start the rumours and more posters were created stating 'Get PRIDE in 3 easy steps '
Step 1 - work hard and get a merit
Step 2 - log in and enter your code
Step 3 - enjoy the reward and repeat step 1
The posters were emailed to pupils and bluetoothed to their handsets and Facebook pages.
Implementation
Setting up the programme and getting started was a simple process for North Leamington School. It was done quickly and easily as the team at School Stickers did all the hard work, setting up the all pupil accounts on 'www.MyStickers.co.uk', providing teacher access to 'www.CarrotRewards.co.uk' and helping to set up the schools first competitions and its online shop, as it does with all its schools.
To make sure that all pupils understood how to use the online system, the school ensured that all IT classes in the launch week focused on them registering on the system and understanding how to log their rewards and claim prizes. It meant that there is no confusion. Incredibly there has not been a single day since launch (even during the school holidays) when a pupils has not visited 'www.MyStickers.co.uk'.
Each subject and college was given the opportunity to design their own rewards, which really helped to engage all the teachers and there are clear guidelines on how and when rewards should be given to ensure it fits with the overall PRIDE message. There is even a special Headteacher's reward.
The school only has a limited budget so it has had to be very creative with their prizes. Popular prizes include offering tickets for dinner queue jumping and by approaching local businesses it has managed to secure free cinema and go karting tickets, and sweets and milkshakes from the local sweetshop. Pupils can even win Police Helmets to become part of 'Seb's Army', which has been incredibly popular.
The school has also been able to use the scheme to improve other important areas such as attendance. Every day between 8 and 8.30am a pupil in the school is randomly selected to receive a reward. The reward is randomly texted to them, adding to the excitement of the programme.
To help the programme to be embraced by the whole school, throughout a pupil's career, the teachers created a 'Got to get them all' board, where all the rewards are shown on a giant poster filling a whole notice board. Pupils are often to be seen checking their rewards to see which ones are missing.
Success
Mr Seb Apostol, Schools Safety & Police Liaison Officer said 'The kids have gone wild for the reward. Even those that were previously uninterested in any other rewards we have tried have gone mad for it. Pupils have even been talking about it outside of school, so much so, that we have had calls from other schools wanting to know what we are doing and how they can do it too.'
The school has been delighted and surprised to see that engagement has been good across the whole school and the number of Year 11's participating is actually growing. The next plan is to roll it out to the sixth formers, with prizes including free driving lessons.
Because the programme is all online, teachers can get up to the minute updates at any time and create ad hoc prizes and competitions as required.
David Hazeldine, Headteacher of North Leamington School said, 'I have been looking for a suitable rewards scheme for a long time but the School Stickers online programme is even better than I could have imagined. Because it is so vibrant, the kids understand it and are engaged. Our need for prizes has encouraged local business and companies to get involved, and because the different subject departments and colleges have been able to customise their own reward, it has really engaged them in the process. It is a fantastic way of rewarding pupils with simple praise, but in a modern way. Seb's enthusiasm is contagious and with his backing this programme was always going to be a great success. Everyday I get stopped in the dinner queue to be asked how pupils can be awarded a headteachers sticker!'
Gladesmore Community School has logged its 50,000th sticker.
My name is Michael Lowe, and I am the Business Manager at Gladesmore Community School, Tottenham, London. I first heard about MyStickers.co.uk and the management tool Carrot Rewards at a Capital Conference in November 2010. Harefield Academy in Uxbridge was raving about it, and how it integrated with SIMS, so I decided to find out more. The deputy head and I went to visit them to see MyStickers in actions, and I was an immediate convert.
The pupils buy into it because it is fun, engaging and exciting and they embrace technology, and I launched it amongst much Razzmatazz at a school assembly to really get them excited. Pupils can earn points towards prizes such as Cineworld tickets, Love to shop and JD Sport vouchers along with a big prize three times a year, most recently an iPad mini. Prize are also given out for whole tutor groups to encourage them to work together. The teachers have bought into it because all they have to do is give out stickers. They decide what they want to give the stickers out for, behaviour, work, reading etc, but the rest is up to the kids as they register their own rewards. Teachers can then use Carrot Rewards to check what rewards have been registered on MyStickers, and easily create reports which previously would have been done through complicated excel spreadsheets. Parents use it as they like to track the progress of their kids, and the statistics are available to them at any time. In fact it is these leader boards that the kids really love. They are determined to find ways to earn points to move them up.
MyStickers with Carrot Rewards was introduced to enable us to standardize rewards across the school. It has been a great success. Unlike other reward schemes we had tried, engagement really is across the whole school, with 1500 stickers are being logged every week. My Stickers has surpassed all our expectations
School Stickers delivers significant impact on teaching, learning and behaviour management for Saint Benedict Catholic High School with Carrot Rewards.
Background
Saint Benedict Catholic School and Performing Arts College is a Catholic secondary school in Derby. It has been using printed school rewards from www.schoolstickers.co.uk for several years with great results.
Each certificate, sticker and postcard has a unique code and value, and students log the rewards they are given online at www.mystickers.co.uk. Saint Benedict operates a quota system where teachers are given a set amount of subject specific stickers to be awarded for academic success, behaviour and effort in each lesson. Gold badges are awarded by support staff and silver badges are for cover teachers to reward good behaviour.
Vincent Round, Director of Learning for RE Saint Benedict said 'We even did some personalised stickers with a photo as a joke for the Head Teacher to give out at his discretion, but they were so popular, that we have ordered more. Pupils are always excited to receive a physical reward and enjoy being able to register their stickers and create their own online sticker album.'
As students register their own rewards, this saves teachers time, and teachers also love the variety of designs available, as well as the ability to completely customise stickers and postcards with their own text and imagery.
Challenge
Saint Benedict was looking for a sophisticated online system that would make it easy for teachers to manage their house points system and improve student participation and motivation across years 7-11. It had been using an Excel solution, but it was time intensive and cumbersome.
Vincent Round commented, 'We have been using the coded School Stickers for four years with great results, but managing and co-ordinating the competitions was complicated. To improve the motivation of our students we knew it was important to put a more structured reward scheme in place. We also knew we had to re-engage the teachers by providing them a simple, efficient scheme that gave them more time with their pupils than with an Excel spreadsheet.'
Solution
School Stickers' new online rewards programme, www.carrotrewards.co.uk , enables schools to manage their own rewards scheme online and run unique competitions across the whole school. Saint Benedict chose to pilot Carrot Rewards as it had been impressed by School Stickers and was confident that its online solution for teachers would fit well with what they were doing already.
It uses Carrot Rewards to manage its House point system. Teachers no longer have to spend hours logging house points and totalling them for weekly assemblies, Carrot captures all this information and the latest house points can be easily shown in graphs whenever needed.
This has produced an additional benefit for the school in that pupils are so keen to see their house do well, they are encouraging each other to achieve more and ensure they are logging their rewards.
As well as House prizes, Saint Benedict runs two main competitions each term. A Top Performer, where the highest scoring pupil is rewarded, as well as a Prize Draw competition, where every sticker logged equates to an entry in the prize draw. This helps to ensure students of all abilities have the opportunity to participate.
To keep the reward scheme fresh for both pupils and teachers, at the start of the lesson the teacher explains to the pupils what they will have to do in that lesson to be rewarded. This transparency ensures less well behaved students are not rewarded just for achieving behaviour levels expected from other pupils. It also ensures it is not the same high achieving pupils rewarded each time, as the teachers can distribute the rewards for different activities in each lesson.
As MyStickers is an online application that can be accessed by pupils wherever they have a broadband connection (the privacy of their own home for example), even those pupils who would never want to be seen to engage with a reward scheme are logging their rewards.
Saint Benedict has found it to have a significant impact on teaching, learning and behaviour management for Years 7-11.Carrot Rewards continues to be a resounding success. Teacher and pupil feedback for both the stickers and online tools are very positive with over 90% of pupils having logged at least one reward online since it launched earlier this year.
With the launch of the Carrot Shop, where pupils can redeem their rewards for prizes including pens, pencils and pencil cases, with iPod vouchers available for special awards, Saint Benedict expect to see pupil engagement rise even further.
Benefits
Over 400,000 students have used the School Stickers system in over 3,500 schools. Neil Hodges, MD, School Stickers said, 'School Stickers has been trusted by thousands of schools to reward pupils for good behaviour and achievement ever since it was created by a teacher in 2000 and 2 million stickers have been registered on www.mystickers.co.uk since it launched in 2006. Teachers and pupils have been responding very well to the new online Carrot Rewards and we know that it will not only save teachers time, but will also help to motivate, and encourage better standards of behaviour and work in schools up and down the country.'
Background
St John Plessington is a Catholic College based in the Wirral, Merseyside. It was recently awarded TES Secondary School of the Year 2010. It has eight houses and house points are awarded for various reasons, including recognition of good effort within the classroom, homework, positive contributions, full attendance and acts of kindness. Points given are not just for the house, individual pupils also build up their own individual points, which cumulate in award presentations at the end of term and the school year.
The Challenge
In 2009 St John Plessington was looking for an easily managed rewards system that could deal with the points for its eight houses, as well as for individual pupils and separate competitions. It needed to be easy for the teacher to manage and use, exciting for the pupils, and very cost effective.
The Solution
St John Plessington chose to use School Stickers and its management system, Carrot Rewards, as it recognised that it offered the effective and efficient solution it was looking for. It has seen a significant increase in learning outcomes and pupil enthusiasm for rewards, and it is delighted with the results.
Pupils log their own rewards onto www.mystickers.co.uk. This gives them ownership of the scheme, but it also releases pressure on staff members who no longer have to spend hours logging and adding up house points.
Teachers manage the rewards and their own competitions through www.carrotrewards.co.uk. This simple interface captures all the data from MyStickers, and the latest house points, competition results and individual records can be checked in real time, and shown in graphs whenever needed. This ensures that all pupils are included as the data can be used to identify pupils who are meeting (or exceeding) targets and scoring high effort grades, but also those who are not engaged, so teachers can make informed decisions and take action to address this.
Teachers and pupils at St John Plessington have been very enthusiastic about the ability to easily personalise stickers and postcards. The teachers often tailor the postcards for specific events and don't tell the pupils that they are sending postcards home. This makes the rewards even more special. The online shop has also been a great success. The pupils were asked what prizes they would like and pupils can now redeem their rewards for prizes including stationary, vouchers and even pizza parties.
Colette Singleton, Assistant Head, St John Plessington Catholic College (TES Secondary School of the Year) said
'School Stickers has helped motivate students to do well in our school. The online shop and the personalised postcards are particularly popular. The School Stickers team are great. They provide fantastic support and the price is very competitive. Every time we have had a questions or idea on how the system could be improved, they have been very quick to sort it out. I would recommend School Stickers and Carrot Rewards to other schools.'