By Amelia Tan

BEATTY Secondary student Arya Ajay Ajaykumar used to be quiet and shy, but opportunities at leadership have made her an outgoing, confident 15-year-old.

The Secondary 4 student leads Beatty's Indian dance group and is a class monitor and mentor to her juniors. Impressed with the way she juggled her roles, her teachers nominated her for the Beattyian of the Term Award this year.

The honour, which comes with a small book voucher, is given each term to student who have demonstrated values such as confidence and compassion. Beatty Secondary is one of several schools which reward students for achievements beyond bagging sterling grades. Principals say these school awards and the new Edusave Character Award announced by the Education Ministry this week send the message to students that schools are serious about honouring them for good behaviour. And principals say such awards are working to make good behaviour a habit, as seen from the rise in the number of students getting god grades for conduct.

At Anglo-Chinese School (Junior), for example, the number of students with "very good" or "excellent" grades for conduct has grown 12 per cent in the last three years.

School leaders say they have to be creative in judging character and behaviour which, unlike academic subjects, are hard to quantify. Principals rely on teachers, non-teaching staff and students to be their "eyes and ears on the ground" and nominate deserving candidates for these awards.

School character awards given each month or each term celebrate simple but meaningful acts of good character, such as being caring towards an ill classmate. The top prize winner, picked at the end of the year from among those who had won the monthly or term prizes, is that one student who is a true role model.

Beatty Secondary, for example, gets each student to carry a "Good Behaviour Card", to which teaching and non-teaching staff affix stickers whenever instances of good behaviour are spotted.

Those with 15 stickers are nominated for the Beattyian of the Term (BOT) Award; BOT winners then get on a shortlist for the school's pinnacle character award - the Beatty Core Values Awards for graduating students. Beatty Secondary principal Shaw Swee Tat said: "The Core Values Award indicates that the student has displayed good behaviour throughout the four of five years in our school; the good behaviour was not a one-off instance."

Schools have become creative in the way they raise the profile of award winners, such as by presenting winners with collar pins, certificates or trophies. Kent Ridge Secondary School puts up posters of the awards winners, complete with testimonies from their school mates and teachers.

South View Primary and Anglo-Chinese School (junior) give character awards alongside those for good performance in academic and co-curricular activities at their annual prize-giving ceremonies.

Students said they welcomed the prospect of getting such awards. Beatty's Arya said: "I feel encouraged to have lived up to my teachers' expectations and work hard. I want to be a lawyer." But some students were sceptical - at least at first, including Ping Yi Secondary's Marcus Goh, 17. He said: "I wondered if some people will put on a show to make others believe they are of good character, but my teachers explained to us that they'll look out for consistently good behaviour by students throughout the year, so I think the award is quite meaningful."

Kent Ridge Secondary student Indah Syafiqa Irwandy, 14, who won the biannual Star Kent Ridgean Award through helping students who were struggling with their studies, said: "I want to do more of this and coach the Normal (Technical) stream students and encourage them not to give up."