Rewards
Pupils will earn tokens which will equate to funds to ‘spend’ on desired items. The main ways to earn tokens will be through time-band ticks and academic awards. The number of tokens they earn can then be increased/multiplied according to their status (i.e Lower, Intermediate, Higher).
Bonus tokens can also be earned for achieving awards and qualifications. The bonus awards for qualifications deliberately increase in value to reflect the difficulty and time required to complete each of them. The increased reward is to act as a motivator for the pupil to want to put in the extra time and effort to complete the next award.
Pupils are surveyed to determine what items they would like to earn/buy from the spending shop with their tokens. Items such as computer games, clothing, sports equipment, tickets to theme parks and high street shop vouchers are placed in the shop and saving would be encouraged to purchase such items. Items of food and drinks would also be in the shop to provide cheaper, achievable, regular rewards for those pupils that require a shorter interval reward.
Consequences
Failure to earn sufficient tokens through the week leads to a natural consequence of being on a lower status and as such access only lower level privileges.
Inappropriate behaviour may also mean withdrawal of end of day spending privileges. In more extreme cases the pupils could be suspended from the token economy and as such they will not be able to earn any tokens (behaviour data will continue to be recorded for behaviour analysis) for a determined period of time.
Not only does the token economy act as a motivation tool for the pupils but it allows the school to micro-analyse pupil behaviour. This can provide information that helps to identify; triggers, frequency of behaviours, improvements or deterioration in specific types of behaviour, tricky periods of the day and inform future target setting.