 Celebrating Student Progress

Throughout our first three-year partnership as an Apple Distinguished School (2019-2022), we wanted to evaluate and reflect how we celebrate success. Providing children with incentives, acknowledgement and reward for their progress is important. It recognises the determination and resilience they have shown to pursue their academic studies with rigour and tenacity.

With this in mind, we digitised our Value Certificates and used Facebook to enhance the visibility of our weekly Stars of the Week. Each of our five Value Certificates (Joy, Teamwork, Resilience, Lifelong Learning and Adventure) are customisable by the Key Stage Leader and feature unique animations and celebratory music. For example, one iteration of the ‘Resilience’ certificate features fireworks whilst playing ‘I’m Still Standing’ by Elton John. Each certificate can be shared with the children’s grown up when they go home and saved for posterity on Schoolwork. Not only does this incentivise children to collect all the values, it also continues the ongoing openness and dialogue that we seek to foster with parents, carers, peers and siblings.

Another area of focus has been the annual school reports which are shared with parents each year. Throughout the last three years, we have sought to completely re-invent the traditional report format to ensure it reflects all the domains in which a child can be successful. Through our reflective conversations with teachers, parents and children, we have created many iterations and sought regular feedback. The school report we use today is the culmination of many iterations, some of which you can see below. Using a suite of Apple apps such as Pages, Keynote, Photos, Voice Memos, Memoji’s and Clips, we now have a report which reflects the progress of the whole child and brings their journey to life.