By now, you've read all about us and we've told you how great we are, but don't just take our word for it!
Background
Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith London is one of the oldest and most respected girls’ schools in Britain. It is part of a network of 140 Sacred Heart Catholic girls’ schools worldwide, and one of the best performing schools in a 200-year old global alliance that focuses on academic excellence and the personal and spiritual development of young women from 11-18 years’ old.
Challenge
Until the end of 2017 teachers at Sacred Heart were logging rewards directly into SIMS, but it was taking a long time for these to load, and teachers wanted something that was easier to use.
Julian Davies, Director of Lower School, Sacred Heart High School said “Logging rewards had become tiresome, as they took a long time to upload. I started to look around for something that would make logging rewards easy for teachers. It needed to be something that I could tailor for our school, which pupils and parents would be able to see, and which staff would buy into. I’d used School Stickers’ MyStickers system before, so was confident that it’s Carrot Rewards system would be a great choice.”
Success
The teachers at Sacred Heart High School logged over 13,800 rewards in the first three months of using Carrot Rewards, compared with only 10,900 in the whole of 2017. Rewards are still fully integrated with SIMS, but now the reward data goes into Carrot Rewards, and this then is automatically uploaded to SIMS, making the process much simpler for teachers.
The school is delighted that not only are more rewards being given out, but that pupils are enthusiastic about receiving them. One of the reasons for this success is that when launching Carrot Rewards the teachers designed a new range of virtual rewards around the school values to be used in school competitions. These are tiered 1 to 3 depending on how great the achievement and which members of staff are giving out the rewards.
Once pupils have achieved five points they qualify to be entered into the whole school, weekly house, and best form competitions, which are run through the Carrot Rewards system. These use straplines such as “Who fancies free lunch”, “Who fancies a Starbucks” to engage pupils, and the winners are selected each week using the ‘Carrot Random Button’.
Julian Davies said “Being able to tailor Carrot Rewards for our school has been crucial to its success. I also like that pupils, teachers and parents are able to easily keep track of rewards and prizes given and leave messages of support. I would definitely recommend to other schools.”
He continues, “Teachers are giving out lots of rewards, which shows it is easy to use. Pupils are keen to take part, and I believe that it will become an integrated part of school life, especially as the younger pupils move up through the school. We have a very active parent base and I’ve been really pleased to see many parents logging in and leaving comments on their child’s rewards. Launching any new system takes time to get buy-in from teachers, pupils and parents, but we have made a really good start.”
