Promoting Positive Behaviour - School Merit System - S1-S3
The Merit System has been designed to encourage, reward and promote exemplary work and good behaviour. It has also been designed to give recognition to pupils who make a positive contribution to the school that may otherwise go unnoticed. It provides a whole-school approach to celebrating success and motivating pupils to achieve their best. Promoting positive behaviour will allow our young people and our staff to work within an ethos of mutual respect.
The Merit System encourages positive behaviour by recognising good behaviour and good work which in turn will help to create an environment at Hyndland where pupils are motivated to learn, achieve and improve. Poor behaviour will be recorded through demerits and monitored closely by Pastoral Care and the Senior Leadership Team with subsequent action taken as required. This will help to ensure that any students who are not meeting expectations are provided with adequate support to improve.
When merits are given however it is imperative that this is not the first warning a learner is given and also that the learner is made aware at that time that a demerit is being issued.
Departments can play a significant role in the promotion of the school merit system by devising subject based criteria which can be displayed within the classrooms used by the department/faculty. This will in turn help to encourage students to work towards achieving a merit and also to ensure a consistent approach of use across each department.
Merits and demerits can be awarded for the following categories:
Merits
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Achieving
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Learners have shown work that exceeds the class teacher’s expectations in relation to the pupil’s ability.
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Active
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Learners have shown excellent endeavour and contribution to whole school ethos and activities out-with the classroom.
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Effort
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Learners have shown effort that exceeds the class teacher’s expectation in relation to the pupil’s ability.
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Responsible
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Learners have shown that behaviour that exceeds expectation through following Our Vision, Our Values and Our School, showing initiative and/or helping others.
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Demerits
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Behaviour
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Learners have shown that behaviour has fallen short of expectations and has not improved after 2 warnings.
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Homework
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Learners have shown that their homework is not acceptable or homework has not been handed in after 2 warnings.
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Effort
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Learners have shown lack of effort that concerns the class teacher despite 2 warnings.
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Referral
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Pupil should be issued with a demerit if a discipline referral is made to either PT / FH Curriculum or to House DHT.
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Celebrating Success
When pupils are awarded a merit they should be told directly by the member of staff allowing immediate praise to take place as part of the process. Some departments may wish to award a small merit sticker as additional recognition or make use of praise postcards which can be found in the Pastoral Care Base. The allocation of merits will be monitored by PT/FHs of Curricular Departments as well as the Pastoral Care Team and SLT. This information will be shared with parents/guardians via letters once per term. Pupil success will also be celebrated through PSE, weekly merit updates in the Newsflash which is presented during PST, and House and Year Group assemblies.
Provided that pupils are on track, they will be able to fully participate in a reward event which will take place at the end of each term i.e. before the October break, before the Christmas break, before the Spring break and again in June before the summer break. These reward activities will be a mixture of both in-house and visits outside of school and will provide a formal opportunity for those students who are on track to be formally recognised and rewarded for their efforts. The students will be given information in advance about the reward activity / trip planned for the term to provide an incentive to work harder and ensure best behaviour.