Recognition & Rewards

At Trinity Academy Leeds we recognise the incredible achievements of our students in and outside the classroom. We value hard work and celebrate students within our academy that embody our core values. Students are rewarded for their hard work, their diligence and positive attitude towards school in a variety of ways.

Our rewards system is an integral part in supporting students form exceptional learning habits and demonstrate sustained positive behaviour. It is research led and has been carefully designed to focus on intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation. At Trinity Academy Leeds, we understand that there are many benefits associated with intrinsic motivation, including increased creativity, improved performance and a greater sense of satisfaction and fulfilment.

When people are intrinsically motivated, they are more likely to take on challenges and pursue their goals with enthusiasm and persistence. This can lead to a sense of mastery and accomplishment, boosting confidence and self-esteem. Intrinsic motivation comes from within and we want students to learn to be resilient to setbacks, allowing them to bounce back from difficulty more easily.

When recognising and rewarding students, our staff team focus on three key features to maximise impact.

1. Specificity – We foster excellent habits by rewarding specific behaviour and not general achievement. Rewards which are ‘too broad to promote specific habits’ are less successful in habit formation (Wood and Neal 2016)
2. Predictability – Staff do not give out blanket achievement points in lessons. To support students form excellent learning habits, we recognise that habits form best when rewards are powerful enough to motivate behaviour but are uncertain in the sense that they do not always occur. We do not want students to simply expect achievement points, instead we want them to focus on what they hope will happen if they are demonstrating excellence.
3. Gesture – The gesture students receive must match the signal staff wish to send by offering the reward. Staff carefully consider giving out rewards for the behaviours they want to see and reinforce.

When students from Year 6 join Trinity Academy Leeds, they take part in TAL Camp, where they are taught about our four core values of Honesty, Empathy, Respect and Responsibility. Students are taught the importance of working hard, doing the right thing when no one is watching and finding their passion.

Students are introduced to our rewards system at TAL Camp. Students are aware that they can pick up Achievement Points for demonstrating our core values, producing beautiful work, being punctual and achieving excellence. During TAL Camp and through our conduct curriculum, students are taught how to avoid picking up Behaviour Points if they do not meet our expectations.

At Trinity Academy Leeds, we have a variety of ways in which students can pick up Achievement Points.  Weekly Achievement points are gained by producing beautiful work, demonstrating excellent behaviour and attitude towards their learning, 100% attendance that week, receiving a subject award or the Principal’s award to name but a few!  Termly Achievement points are won through subject awards, empower purple star award, Masters of Recall top scorer and being an ‘Always Student’.

Students accumulate achievement points over the course of the academic year. At the end of each term, we have a celebration assembly with each year group. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the beautiful work that students have produced and also recognise students that have won subject awards. In the celebration assembly, the Head of Year announces which students have hit each trigger point to claim a certificate and pin badge for the number of achievement points they have in the year.

• 250 – Bronze Award
• 400 – Silver Award
• 600 – Gold Award
• 1000+ Platinum Award

Students leave the gates at the end of each term with badges emblazoned on their blazers and a gift to thank them for their hard work for the term.