For young children, anticipating the celebrations for milestones like birthdays or holidays, builds so much excitement they can barely contain their glee. But celebrations like that only come around once a year, and at Catalyst Academy, we have built a culture of frequent celebration so our scholars can feel the excitement of their growth and achievements on a regular basis.
Belong. Grow. Achieve.
Our core values of Belong. Grow. Achieve. are rewarded and celebrated every week. Our scholars receive the Dreamweaver Award when they demonstrate the value of belonging; for instance, a student who goes out of their way to welcome and befriend a new student in the class. When students grow in their academic skills, such as learning to blend sounds while learning to read, they could receive the Flourish Award. And a scholar who struggled to count by 5s but practiced until they mastered it, could find themselves receiving the Summit Master Award for their achievement.
These awards not only acknowledge the different kinds of work our scholars are doing in the classroom every day, but they also signal to the students that their teachers really know them and see what they are attempting and achieving. We are celebrating the whole child! And presenting these awards every Monday gets our week started with celebration, inspiration, and encouragement for our scholars to keep working to Belong. Grow. Achieve all week long.
Getting on the Green Team
At Catalyst Academy, we focus on building a community that creates and celebrates lifelong learners. The seeds of being a lifelong learner are planted and nourished by learning how to create the best environment of learning for yourself. For young scholars, this means understanding what classroom expectations and community norms are, and learning how to operate within them. To facilitate this, we focus our scholars on trying to get on the Green Team each week. Making it onto the Green Team, and receiving a certificate for it, means that scholars are exhibiting good scholar habits and meeting classroom and community norms all week.
Every day, students take home a report that indicates how they are tracking to make the Green Team. Seeing a circle around a green day produces excitement and pride in our scholars and lets them know they are on track! It is a simple and effective way to support our scholars to keep practicing the behaviors that will help them be successful in the classroom, and wherever they find themselves learning in the future.
Reading Racetrack
Reading is fundamental to learning and growing, and we want our scholars to see and celebrate their progress in a tangible way. Every Catalyst scholar has a car on our Reading Racetrack, which is a hallway banner that students walk by multiple times a day. On this racetrack, students move their cars when they achieve a new reading milestone, showing both themselves and the whole school community how they are making progress. Movement around the track can be fast and furious or slow and steady, but either way, we all cheer that the cars are moving!
The Catalyst community is proud of our scholars and all they are accomplishing, and celebrating together is the best part of our week.
About Catalyst
Catalyst Academy Charter School’s mission is to prepare all students for college, career, and life. Catalyst Academy Charter School’s core values of Belong. Grow. Achieve. reflect the school’s deep commitment to cultivating an inclusive supportive school community where everyone – children and adults – is focused on learning every day, in order for all students to define and achieve their dreams. Catalyst Academy Charter School’s education model is designed to close both the achievement and opportunity gap. The approach couples rigorous core academics with a broad offering in the arts and sciences. Students will experience STEM learning daily and arts programming four days per week. Enroll your Kinder, First, or Second grader today!
