Sheikha Hessa Girls School Bahrain
Sheikha Hessa Girls School Bahrain
Shaikha Hessa Girls School was established in 2001 as the first private all girls’ school in Bahrain. We started using Carrot Rewards in October 2013 as a way to automate our house points system and motivate and reward our girls. I had used rewards system at my previous school, and I wanted to introduce something similar, but more advanced.
Carrot Rewards is really easy to use, and allows me to have all the data about individual pupils, classes and subjects immediately available. I tend to make announcements at weekly assemblies on how each house is performing, and it is very useful to have this data available in real time whenever I need it. This is especially helpful as previously it involved visiting each individual class to find out how pupils and houses were performing, and then collating the data myself.
It is also very difficult for pupils to cheat the system. With other school reward systems, pupils can find ways to add points to their tally, but this is not possible with Carrot, as all the rewards have their own individual code. If there is any unusual activity it is very easy to see on the Carrot management tool.
Each teacher has discretion over what they give out rewards for, but it must not only be for academic achievement. We believe that if this happens, then only the brightest and more talented will be rewarded, and all others will lose interest. By rewarding all pupils for improvements in behaviour, work, etc, there is always a chance for a reward. e.g If a pupil normally struggles to dress smartly, but really makes an effort in this area, we will reward them.
All teachers are given new stickers every 2-3 weeks, and they aim to give out 2-4 stickers in every lesson. We don’t give out too many or they lose their value. Every week I announce in assembly how many point each house has, and at the end of the year we give a prize to the individual in each house that has received the most points, as well as a cup for the House that wins.
The younger students love logging their own rewards, but some of older students become less engaged, and sometimes asked younger students in their house to log them for them. Another great thing about Carrot is that it is easy to see when things like this are happening. The launch of the new Carrot Rewards system sounds like it may be able to address this for us, as the teachers give out rewards to older pupils online during the class, effectively immediately logging them in real time.
The impact has been clear with the majority of students, and especially with those that are most active and struggle to stay still and pay attention for the whole of the class. It is great to see them sitting still, and waiting quietly at the end of the class to see who will be rewarded.
Lamis Elsaqqa Shaikha Hessa Girls School
