Come and see us at The Education Show next week!

Vivo Rewards will be at The Education Show in Birmingham next week at stand J53. Come and see us between 15^th and 17^th March at Birmingham NEC and claim your FREE sample reward. We also have special Education Show deals and promotions for both Vivo Miles, our secondary product, and for our primary school reward system, Vivo Stars. We look forward to seeing you there!

There are now more exciting ways to motivate children with VivoStars primary school rewards system! We have just launched NEW products, including treasure chests, certificates and stickers.

Treasure Chest (£250)

• 1,000 items for students to pick from as they level-up
• 20 fun and exciting product lines for both girls and boys
• Suitable for all ages from KS1 to KS2
• Refillable when stocks run low
• Treasure Chest containing 1000 items - £250 (+£10 P&P)

Certificates (from £50)

• Recognises student progress and achievement
• 5 different certificates - one for each level
• Bright and fun for all ages
• 500 for £50 (+£7.50 P&P)
• 1000 for £95 (+£10 P&P)

Stickers (£25)

• Huge variety of designs
• An assortment of different praises
• Colourful and exciting to engage all students 
• 1800 stickers for £25 (+£5 P&P)

To order or for more information please phone 0203 117 0611 or email support@vivostars.com

Don't let struggling students lag behind!

A recent article in the BBC highlights the lack of academic promise for those pupils who enter secondary school “behind”. Official data shows that only 1 in 15 children who struggle academically on arrival at secondary school will gain 5 or more GCSE’s grades. That’s a staggeringly low 6.5% and a worrying national statistic. It’s a school’s priority to make sure that all students are motivated so that they have the opportunity to perform.

It’s findings like this which encourages us at Vivo to make sure that schools have the tools to motivate each and every child to learn and achieve. When we asked our schools what Vivo rewards system has helped them to improve, over 94% said student motivation and over 96% stated academic performance. Most importantly, addressing 'Every Child Matters’ was claimed by over 92% of schools, highlighting that every child is catered for and encouraged to perform to the best of their abilities. This feedback is promising for Vivo and emphasises our efforts to combat those learning disparities that are established from the outset.

For more information on how Vivo can help struggling students at your school visit our website at www.vivomiles.com.

Vivo helping academic performance

Last month the BBC revealed a list of the 200 state secondary schools in England with the lowest attainment at GCSE and other Key Stage 4 qualifications. Here at Vivo we think we can help! Vivo Miles rewards system strives to be the best motivational tool to encourage student learning and performance. With the latest technologies and reward prizes, over 96% of schools using the system state that it has helped them to improve academic performance.

Here is what some of our schools have to say:

“Since implementing Vivo, academic grades have significantly improved as well as student motivation. No other tool is half as effective.”
Assistant Head, Magna Carta School

“In classes, Vivo has had a massive effect on learning; it’s increased interest and it certainly motivates students to perform to their very best.”
Teacher, The Duston School.

For more information check out our website at www.vivomiles.com.

VivoStars Primary Rewards System

Don’t miss out on our primary school rewards system, VivoStars. Based on Avatar (virtual character) creation and development, teachers reward the students with electronic ‘Vivo’ points that they use to unlock items for their personal online characters. It’s a fun and engaging system that has already had great feedback from Primary Schools for improving behaviour, attendance and student performance. Also, it’s very easy to use! Go to www.vivostars.com for more information, or why not check out our case study video showing VivoStars in action.

Vivo User Group Sessions

We are now hosting VIVO USER GROUP SESSIONS across the country over February and March.

These events will give you the opportunity to share ideas and tips with other Vivo schools in your area. It will be a great way to exchange and learn best methods of use in order to optimise Vivo at your school.

If you would like to attend one of the events please email clementina.elphinstone@vivomiles.com with your name and school.

We hope to see you there!

NEW Vivo User Group Forum

The NEW Vivo User Group Forum for staff is now live! Visit the forum to share ideas and tips with other schools to make sure your school is getting the most out of Vivo. Topics include ‘Budget Tips’, ‘Innovative Use’ as well as ‘Keeping Vivo High Profile’. We will also be uploading frequent Vivo Forum Tips with our ideas and tips on how to optimise Vivo.  Register now!

Vivo Launches in Australia

We are delighted to introduce our first school in Australia to the online rewards system, emphasising our position as an international rewards solution.  Launching on the 6^th February, Toowoomba State High School in Queensland will become a beacon school in Australia welcoming other schools to see the system in operation. The online rewards system will help to drive school improvement and attainment by encouraging and rewarding positive student behaviour, both inside and outside the classroom.

We have no doubt that it will be a great success and we look forward to welcoming more schools from Australia to Vivo!

Vivo Rewards at The BETT Show last week

Thank you to everyone who came to our stand at BETT last week – we had a very successful and exciting 4 days. The Vivo Rewards stand was bigger and better than before with 5ft Vivo helium balloons as well as Vivo floor stickers and a 5m hanging rail banner. We had numerous visitors covering every corner of the world from Australia to Estonia and Iceland to India. We hope to see you all again next year!

The BETT Show in 8 days!

The countdown begins until The BETT Show 2012 – 8 days to go! We have all sorts of exciting tricks up our sleeve for our stand this year so make sure you come and visit Vivo Rewards at stand R56. With great feedback from numerous schools you would be mad to miss out on the award-winning online rewards system!

Vivo Shortlisted for BETT 2012 Award

Following on from our recent win at the EducationInvestor Awards, we’ve just heard that we’ve been shortlisted for the BETT 2012 award for best ICT Company in Education. We’re thrilled to be nominated, complimenting the BETT award we won in 2010 for Best Leadership and Management solution.

2011 has been a fantastic year for Vivo where we have seen double the number of schools adopt our solution. There are now about 400,000 students across the UK using Vivo to track and enjoy the success of their hard work, and about 50,000 teachers using the platform and smartphone apps as everyday “tools-of-their trade”.

2012 promises even further excitement for us. We are planning our first school opening in Australia in January and several new product launches throughout the year.

At the BETT show we will be releasing a new reporting suite and exciting digital content, such as games and music, into our online rewards shop. The reports provide school leaders with even more ammunition to improve OFSTED ratings concerning fairness and transparency and the addition of affordable digital products will make “Vivos” even more aspirational to students.

Come and see us at the BETT show, between 11^th and 14^th January 2012, on Stand R56.

Grasshead Competition WINNER

Thank you to everyone who took part in the grasshead competition over the last 7 weeks. It was great seeing all the wacky and original hairstyles that people came up with. After much deliberation within the Vivo offices we decided the winner goes to Bluebell Tuesday Paul for her innovative ‘floppy’ crop! She wins a prize of her choice worth up to 300 Vivos from the Vivo Shop. Great work Bluebell!

Here is a sneaky peek at the winning hairdo:

Vivo Rewards at BETT - Stand R56

All this month we have been planning our stand (R56) for The BETT Show and excitement is rapidly mounting as more ideas and designs are being thrown around.  We are hoping it will be our most impressive stand yet, so be sure to come and see us between the 11^th and 14^th January. As an added incentive, and since we are all about rewarding, we are giving a FREE reward to anyone who collects a Vivo token from around the exhibition and brings it to us at stand R56!  

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Vivo Insight Sessions were a great success!

Thank you everyone who took part in the Vivo Insight Sessions over the last 6 weeks. We have had some really successful events with many ideas shared.  The host schools were all very welcoming and provided many innovative methods to maximise the impact of Vivo. From Shropshire to Hull and many schools in-between, it was great to see so many attendees! We hope to organise at least 3 events every month from now on so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming dates on our events page.

Vivo Rewards at SSAT National Conference 2011

Thank you to everyone who came to see us at the SSAT National Conference last week. It was great to see so many of you at the Vivo Rewards stand from across the country and covering all phases of education.

The theme of this year's conference was ‘Every Child Has Talent’ which is in keeping with Vivo's emphasis on recognising achievements of each and every student. It was an opportunity for school leaders to learn of new innovations to better every pupil's performance and achievement.  We hope that everyone enjoyed it as much as we did!

Vivo partners with The Transformation Trust

We are very excited to be partnering up with children’s charity The Transformation Trust to work with schools in areas of high deprivation across the country, helping to enable and increase social mobility.

The Transformation Trust provides extra-curricular activities for children from deprived and challenged communities helping them to develop life skills.

It will be great to work jointly together to help improve student motivation as well as raise attendance and results, and therefore benefit life chances in the future!

Grasshead Competition

Here at Vivo we love rewarding people for creativity and originality! So we have started a competition over November for the wackiest and most creative grass head hairstyle. The students can purchase a grass head from the Vivo Shop and grow its ‘hair’. Having created a weird and wonderful hairdo they can upload photos of their grass heads onto the VivoMiles Facebook page where they will be judged by the Vivo Team at the end of the month.  

We didn’t want to miss out on the fun so we grew our own grass head which we named Gavin! For a week we gave Gavin a daily haircut and uploaded a picture of each style onto the VivoMiles Facebook page. Here are a few of Gavin’s best looks:

Vivo Miles wins EducationInvestor 2011 award

Great news for Vivo Miles as we won the EducationInvestor award for ‘use of educational technology’ on Thursday 17^th November. Vivo was congratulated for the innovative way it helps to encourage improvement in both attainment and behaviour as well as its work to develop money management skills. Keep up the good work everyone!

Vivo Miles in action

The following video gives a sneak peak at a school using Vivo Miles. See Vivo Miles in action to find out what teachers and students think about this rewards system.

Video Transcription:

Bett Awards 2010
Leadership and Management Solutions Category
Winner Vivo Miles School Rewards System

Student: Welcome to The Duston School.  We’ve got a new rewards system we think it’s really well for students and teachers.

Achievement and behaviour are key priorities for any school. And at the Duston School we try give them a highest priority as possible. And we try to do that by rewarding every young person in a much personalised way.

Teacher: For your fantastic inflation of the lungs I am going to award you with Vivo Miles. Remember how many Vivos I said I was going to give you?

Student: Thirty

Jane Herriman. Head Teacher. The Duston School:  The old system we used to do for reward students was a stamps system of awarding students by their behaviour and their work, and a credit mark.

Jennie Thornhall. Assistant headteacher. The Duston School:  The student’s voice within the school, they raised concerns that they want as happy as they could be without our old rewards system. 

Their concerns were that it really wasn’t being applied consistently throughout the school and they thought actually that was quite unfair, and secondly, some of the old students did not really valued our old system that much.

Student: We get Vivos for good behaviour and good work that we can spend in the online shop.

Teacher:  Vivo Miles is an online web-based and it integrates with our current data management system which means, when you log on as a teacher your classes for the day are on there. It brings on your register and you are able to reward your students simply with a click and a button. 

Teacher: So in terms of asking questions, 50 vivo miles for asking the questions, well done!

Student: Thank you.

Peter Kouzaris. Global Education teacher. The Duston School: It’s the easiest rewards system that we’ve ever introduced. It hasn’t added at all to my workload and once the initial setup has been done it’s really very easy to teachers to use. It’s there, you bring your class up and you reward your points in the lesson.

Student: You can spend the vivos in almost everything, in key rings, mp3 players. I am saving up until I have enough to buy something really special.

Student 2:  We also save the vivos to donate them to charity that is absolutely excellent, off course! I have found passion about raising funds for Haiti, so we want to raise funds for Haiti by money and we also encourage people at school to donate their Vivo Miles.

We raised about ten and a half thousand Vivo Miles which is amazing!

Jennie Thornhall. Assistant headteacher. The Duston School: Another great thing about the system is it really helpful with the inclusion agenda in particular parents. Parents are able to have a look with their children at home, what their balance is, they are able to see specifically what they been rewarded for. So in the past it was simply that they gained the reward, whereas now they can see exactly in which lesson, for what particular skill, or what particular activity their son or daughter is undertaken. 

Parents are also able to receive the information about their son or daughter rewards by mobile phone that increases the line of communication.

Peter Kouzaris. Global Education teacher. The Duston School: You get your thirty vivos it’s a lovely mark. Well done, let’s give him a round of applauses. 

I love seeing the reward system in some classes has had a dramatic effect on learning. It’s increased interest and certainly motivates children to perform to the very best.

Jane Herriman. Head Teacher. The Duston School:  The Duston school it’s been in a failed category until last year, for seven years. It was the longest failed second school in the UK and we could not for long way in the last few years, and I would actually say that the introduction of Vivo Miles has been instrumental in wanting young people to achieve even more. 

Jennie Thornhall. Assistant headteacher. The Duston School:  The difference the system has made for teaching and learning within the school has been huge and not only has raised the profile of rewards, and does not only encourage students to buy into their system.

It has actually had a big impact in their achievement, because they want to gain rewards and they value the rewards, it’s necessarily having the impact we would like to see on their learning, but they actually are trying out new things that perhaps they might not have done before because we were not able to reward them for helping out in parents evening, to helping out with extracurricular activities. So it actually embraces all the things the students can be rewarded for at school and moved them away simply from a reward system being based on academic achievement which is really important to us as we want to promote the success of the whole child.

Schools with Vivo Miles

Vivo Miles is an award-winning web-based rewards system used in 80 Local authorities, Vivo Miles has proven its ability to improve student motivation as well as raise attendance and GCSE grades. 
Lets have a look at some of the schools that have adopted Vivo Miles as their reward system and the way they are using it:

• Droylsden Academy
• Swindon Academy
• St Peter’s Academy
• Heston Community School
• Woodside High School
• The Crest Boys’ Academy
• Poltair School 
• Furness Academy
• New Charter Academy
• The Skinners’ Kent Academy