Tracking good behaviour

What if you were to get three merit points for turning in a lost wallet, two demerit points for coming to school late? How about losing five demerit points for fighting? And at the end of each year, the number of points you accumulate determines the conduct grade in your report card.

It may seem like a thoroughly objective system, but at Peirce Secondary School, students don’t get any nasty surprises when they see their report cards. Way before the final report card is issued, students have ample chances to better their grade because they monitor their own progress throughout the year, using the school’s Character Development System (CDS).

Developed by Mr Yeo, the CDS is a formalised tool to help teachers and students monitor and record the latter’s development. “The CDS is an Excel-based programme that allows the pupil management committee to enter records of good deeds and offences, and earn the students merit and demerit points respectively,” explains Mr Yeo. “It provides a hassle-free tracking system to identify the areas of concern in the school and review our targets.”

The programme’s objectives:
• consistently assess and review targets for the school’s character development programmes;
• enable students to set targets and monitor their own progress in character development; and
• collate data for the writing of comments in holistic report cards.

“The CDS motivates our students through the use of extrinsic motivation,” Mr Yeo adds. “We believe this will in turn allow students to experience the joy of doing good and internalise the virtues that led to their action.”

The CDS provides students with a “leading indicator which they can use to monitor their own growth,” says Mr Yeo. In the past, “the conduct grade is always a lagging indicator, in the sense that by the time the grade is awarded, the term/semester is already over.” Now, students can do something as the year progresses to better their grade.

And that’s exactly what they’re doing. More students are getting “Excellent” for performing good deeds at school, thus snaring a grade that was previously the preserve of school prefects and school CCA representatives!

Through drama, Peirce Secondary students learn about life as well as the English language.

Dramatic discoveries

While there’s now less discipline-related drama in school, there’s certainly no lack of it in English lessons, thanks to Mr Yeo’s other initiative. In his role as the Head of English and Literature, he has integrated drama into the school’s English curriculum, making the stage a common key to unlock English language skills, life skills, self discovery, empathy and arts appreciation.

Mr Yeo believes that through drama, students can understand life and themselves better, and look at things from alternate points of view. “We want to develop our students’ understanding of self so that they can appreciate the role they can play in society,” he says, adding that the interdisciplinary nature of drama projects also equips students with necessary life skills. “Drama can help instil discipline in students and encourage an appreciation of the fine arts.”

Drama is also an exceptional tool for “engaged learning through the simulation of authentic scenarios,” adds Mr Yeo. For example, the depiction of tension in relationships allows students to reflect on its causes and effects. “This improves their social awareness and develops empathy,” elaborates Mr Yeo.

Drama has been such a hit at Peirce Secondary School that it’s been introduced as a subject in the lower secondary curriculum since 2006, and will be offered as an ‘O’ level subject from 2008. Just like the CDS, it’s become another feature of life that makes more independent learners out of Peirce Secondary students.