Ofsted Outstanding

The Avonwood House System

Upon entering Key Stage 2, all children are assigned to one of the four houses (Amazon, Congo, Kinabalu or Tongass) and along with everyone else in their house, they get to compete against other pupils, from the opposing houses, for the House Cup. This house system clearly matches our behaviour and reward system where children move up and down the ‘Rainforest Layer and they receive an APE point if they go up to the ‘Emergent Layer’. 

APE points are also awarded to our children via the Avonwood house points system. Ape points are awarded for the following areas of excellence...

A – Attitude 

For this, children need to go above and beyond in their attitude to others. This could mean displaying a significant kind or gentle attitude to another pupil.  It could be in word or deed, for example praising the work of others or taking a new pupil under their wing.  
 
This could also relate to written work along with class discussions, where a child has appeared to do or give more to their work. They may write more or focus more for a sustained period of time. They may attempt to give more concentration or contributions to class discussions or try even harder to make the right choices.

P – Presentation 

The pupil has gone above and beyond their usual standard of presentation. For example, where writing maybe inconsistent in size, the pupil has worked hard to maintain a steady correctly sized legible and joined script. A further example might be around the use of tables or diagrams, where a pupil has made a concerted effort to produce a well presented, underlined and neatly shaded work. 

E – Effort or Earth Charter 

This is an opportunity to acknowledge when a child goes above and beyond with something in school that relates to our Earth Charter ethos. It is deliberately broad and designed for teachers to creatively look for opportunities to catch the children living up to our Earth Charter values. 

They add a small sticker in house colours to their class reward chart. 25 points = Bronze Award, 50 points = Silver Award and 75 points = Gold Award. Each award means a trip to our Headteacher Award Shop to choose a prize! An APE certificate for their achievement is also rewarded.

Every week, on Friday, the A.P.E (Attitude, Presentation and Effort) point monitors collect the A.P.E points won by the students that week in class, and they present the winning house at the assembly. The house in 1st place will receive twenty tokens in their tube, 2nd place house will be gifted fifteen  tokens, 3rd place house will get ten tokens and the last place house will receive five tokens. Along with this, the winning house is crowned the House Cup until the next week. You can see the picture of the display in its early days.  Adding on to the A.P.E points you can earn in class, there are many other opportunities in which you can gain major points for your house such as our inter-house competitions and challenges. So far, this has included a general knowledge quiz, running competition, Times Table Rockstar competitions and an ‘Avonwood’s Got Talent’ competition. There also many more opportunities planned throughout the year, such as sports day, world book day quizzes and much more!

Below, you will find a summary from our house captains in Year 6, who help organise events, organise the children and their houses and present in assemblies each week.

Poppy

Class: Olympus 

Role: House captain 

House: Tongass 

Why I like to be a house captain: 

I like to be a house captain because it feels like I get a lot of responsibility and people can count on me to set a good example to younger years of the school. 

What I do as a house captain: 

I get to sit at the front of the assembly hall and as they call out the winning house we step forward and pin our sign up on the display board. 

Eduardo

Class: Snowdon

Role: House captain

House: Amazon

Why I like to be a house captain:

I like to be a house captain because I am proud of being in my house and it is a pleasure to represent Amazon on countless occasions. Also, all the competitions that take place throughout the year are a joy to be a part of and I love all the competitive spirit that we feel throughout. It is brilliant to see all the respect all the students have for each other even if their house did not win.

What I do as a house captain:

As a house captain, I get the honour of acting on behalf of my house. Things I do include placing my house emblem on the house leaderboard, representing my house in all the inter-house competitions and much more. During the school week, all the house captains get to wear their own house badges to show what house they belong in.

Matthew

Role: House captain 

House: Kinabalu 

Why I like to be house captain:

I am Matthew Croton, and I am a House Captain at Avonwood Primary School. There are four houses all shared by a boy and a girl. I share Kinabalu, my house, with a girl called Zara. I can set a good role model for all the school, always trying my hardest in every subject as well as being a great sports person.   I love this new concept as it adds more friendship to the school bringing everybody closer if anybody were struggling with relationships, which is a rare thing to come across at Avonwood.

 This is an amazing way to spend my last year at primary school. 

What I do as a house captain 

At Avonwood there is a traditional star of the week every Friday where the winners in A.P.E points will be announced. This will be done by whatever place you come is the number of tokens you get as a house. These will be placed in jars and when those jars are filled with tokens, your whole house will be allowed to have a reward. Before assembly, we will hand out the chairs for the adults as well for ourselves then we will sit in house order facing the remaining children in our house.  

Jess

Class: Everest

Role: House captain for Congo

Why I like being house captain:

Max Teverson and I represent the house Congo (the red house) and we wear a red house captain badge to show it. When I wear my badge and represent my house at the front of assemblies, I feel proud and grateful to be in Congo; hopefully in the future, we will also help in inter-house competitions.

What I do as house captain:

All the house captains will help a lot at sports day and other inter house competitions by counting the points and helping with the activities. We are there to cheer our house on!  I think I fit this position well and wish being a house captain inspires others, like it inspired me, to be a responsible and supportive role model.

Maximillian

Class: Everest

Role: House captain for Congo

Why I like being house captain:

I am extremely fortunate for getting the opportunity to be a house captain and enjoy helping with the school to make it a better place.

What I do as house captain:

As a house captain, I help with inter-house competitions and represent Congo in assembles; I feel important and like I fit in this position well. 

Beatrice

Class: Olympus 

Role: House Captain 

House: Amazon 

Why I like being a house captain: I get to help and cheer my house in all our house events and finding out at the end of the week who has gathered the most A.P.E points. Putting the shields up on the wall to display what place we are in for the week is a very exciting job! 

What I do as house captain: Cheer for our houses in all the house events and support our house to be the best.

Dillon

Class: Olympus 

Role: House captain 

Why I like to be a House captain: 

I like to be a house captain because in assembly, I can see all the children's lovely faces smiling at me and I like the sportsmanship of the APE point competition. When we win, I have the honour of putting our shield in first place. 

What I do as House captain: 

I sit in front of the hall in assembly and hold a shield saying our house point names.  We help with organising everyone in the hall into houses ready for the reveal of the APE point winners.  I am looking forward to helping in more Inter-house competitions and leading Tongass to victory!  My favourite part of this responsibility is being a role model to the younger year groups. Go Tongass!

Zara

Class: Everest 

Role: House captain for Kinabalu

Why I like being house captain: 

Being house captain is a particularly significant role to me because I am able to help and support my house, Kinabalu. I am committed to being such a key role in Avonwood Primary School and want to help everyone in my house.

What I do as house captain:  

As a house captain, I must lead and support the children of my house in a variety of House Competitions. I must be a confident speaker and must be able to speak in front of big crowds. It is also a job to make sure that everyone in my house gets along to ensure that there is a friendly environment.

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