Jennifer Verett is the Reading Language Arts Department Head at Terra Vista Middle School, and recently she and several other TVMS teachers got an idea to start something new that would help motivate students to mirror positive behaviors.
“This would never have come together without a lot of help and support from the whole seventh grade team, our dynamite librarian Anna Long and aide Danielle Zerrata, friends in other grades, and of course, our extraordinary administration who let us run with this crazy idea,” Verett said. “It was the brainchild of Melissa Bankemper to have a reward system that would be fun and motivate our kids to start doing the right thing in class and the halls.”
Verett said not only did they sort students into “Hogwarts Houses,” but the group of teachers wanted to come up with ways to track points and make it engaging for students.
“I reached out to the fabulous Laurie Bruns (Frenship ISD Instructional Technology Coordinator), who helped me develop a system in Schoology to display live points that all teachers could access and edit,” Verett said. “Reading Language Arts then introduced the novel Harry Potter and began reading it. I then built our Schoology page and started creating decorations with help from everyone.”
Verett said that after sorting the kids into their houses, they had them create banners to help decorate the hallways.
“On a Friday, we sorted them into houses and had them create banners,” Verett said. “Then on Saturday, a group of us came up and decorated the halls for eight hours to surprise them.”
When students arrived at school the next week, the halls were decked out in all things Harry Potter! Verett said that the initiative has already made a difference.
“So far, they have loved the competitions between houses and are currently working on the first house cup competition, which will end in two weeks with a Harry Potter party for the winning house,” Verett said. “From there, house cups parties will be every three weeks. The first one of the six weeks will be a small party at the end of the day with an activity for the house with the most points. At the end of the six weeks, every house that has reached a certain number of points will do a community service project for the school and then have a fun activity like playing ‘quidditch.’”
Verett said that even though they just got the initiative started, she is hopeful that her students will continue to take pride in their behavior.
“We have seen a considerable upswing in school spirit, pride in behavior, and positive influences on other students who are not making the best choices,” Verett said. “The students are so excited to come to school, and they have taken pride in being the first group to do it here at Terra Vista.”
Verett explained that things like this are what promote positivity in students and that it is an amazing thing to see.
“This was an added layer to help promote positive behavior, teamwork across the grade, and school pride,” Verett said. “So often in Middle school we forget to add the fun in. We hope this will be just another way to support behavior that the students have bought into it.”