As you may have heard, Middle School has begun a new Positive Reinforcement program this year. The objective of this program is to encourage positive behavior through incentives and teamwork. This program will emphasize Shalom, Kavod, and Achriyut.
Students enjoying a game of soccer on their hard earned Field Day.
The population of the Middle School has been divided into four teams. The teams are Jerusalem, Tsfat, Chevron, and Tiveria. When a student commits a positive action, they are awarded a colorful ticket. These actions can include a positive demonstration of shalom, kavod, and achriyut, helping out a fellow student (in class or outside of it), helping a teacher, or a display of growth mindset. For a negative action, the student is given a yellow ticket (aka Yellow Card). Each Positive color ticket (our current color is green) results in 5 points for your team, while each Yellow Ticket deducts 5 points from your team. In addition to behaviour, students can earn points through Spirit Activities. Coming up this week, Rosh Chodesh and Sports Spirit Day are both opportunities to earn points for a student’s team.
At the end of each week, a student from the winning team will have a chance to win prizes. At lunch on Fridays, we hold raffles from the tickets of the points earned that week. The ticket chosen that is held by a student from the winning team will win a choice of prizes. Teams work their way towards quarterly prizes. Each team must hit a certain benchmark by a certain date.
This past quarter, teams needed to reach 1,000 points by October 23rd. All four teams hit the mark and voted on what they wanted their reward to be. They chose a ½ day Field Day, which we celebrated this past Friday. Students really enjoyed themselves, and it was such an amazing thing for them to see the benefits that positive behaviour can reap.
Our next points benchmark is December 11th! All four teams need to reach 500 points by then. Stay tuned for updates on how your favorite team is doing!