The hard work of pupils at Castle Rushen High School can earn them phone top-up vouchers, cinema tickets, lunch vouchers, and cereal bars as part of a new merit awards scheme. The CRHS Rewards Scheme aims to reward success to promote the development of students and is being supported by Manx Telecom, Shoprite and Mann Vend who are all donating prizes.

Merits are gained for a variety of reasons ranging from work in the classroom, sporting achievements, voluntary and charity work, or any activity which staff feel deserves to be acknowledged. An online system allows students to set up accounts and each time they earn a merit they are given a login code which allows them to add points to their account. Each code is linked to the subject for which the merit was awarded and it is the student’s responsibility to log and track their points. When the students have collected enough merits they can exchange them for prizes. Manx Telecom are providing sunglasses, ?5, ?10, and ?20 top-up vouchers, cinema tickets and ?10 and ?20 gift vouchers to use at the company’s Strand Street store. There are also ?20 Surfer vouchers which give unlimited data for 31 days. Shoprite are providing vouchers for their Subway sandwich outlets, and MannVend are supplying breakfast cereal bars. There are also prize draws that are carried out each term. For the students to be eligible to enter the prize draw they need to have a certain merit points total.

David Mitchell, Leader of Design and Technology at the school, thanked Manx Telecom, Shoprite and MannVend for their support and commented:

“As the students progress to different years at the school the items available become more appealing to that age range. Generally, by the time students were in year 9 they lost interest in the old Rewards Scheme, but with the new scheme offering better prizes the majority of students in years 9, 10 and 11 are actively trying to get merits in order to exchange them for prizes. In particular, the prizes that Manx Telecom has kindly donated provides the school with a wider opportunity to reward students. We are able to have a wider variety of prizes in the prize draws and higher value items which the students can save up merit points in order to ‘buy’. This encourages students throughout the school to try and gain more merits so they can take advantage of all the aspects the reward system has to offer. The effect of the students trying to gain more merits is that they are more enthusiastic and engaged with the aspects of school life they contribute to.”

Voirrey Barron, Marketing Communications Manager at Manx Telecom, said:

“We’re delighted to support the Rewards Scheme by providing prizes. It’s a great idea and is clearly benefiting the students by rewarding their hard work in all aspects of school life. We congratulate the first recipients who have received their well-earned rewards and hope that this inspires other students to continue to earn and log their merit points.”