TREE has been developed so as not to be another initiative that teachers have to implement, with all the inevitable extra work. All opportunities for pupils to demonstrate that they have "achieved" within TREE will be within everyday teaching.

Teachers will only have to highlight that there will be opportunities for pupils to demonstrate that they have successfully achieved an attribute/skill and it is up to the pupil to record the evidence. The initial evidence will be entered by the pupil into their planner which will be transferred onto the on-line TREE system at a later date.

There is no specific time scale as to when this should be done i.e. every week, it is entered at whatever time is most appropriate for the school. As the pupil planner can be used as a home school link many schools find that parents are sending evidence into school from home requesting a leaf for their child. Schools have commented on the fact that by explaining to parents what TREE is about it has become a very powerful tool in showing exactly what it is the school is trying to achieve and how parents can support vital development through reinforcement at home.

Behaviour
The development of personal skills, primarily related to behaviour has been at the heart of many Government policies over the past 10 years and a vast amount of money has been spent in trying to address the areas of concern.

Many schemes have tried to tackle behaviour problems in isolation with varying degrees of success but many are not sustainable when funding levels drop. For any programme to be successful it needs to be fully integrated into the day to day curriculum of the school and be affordable in the long term.

With teachers giving positive reinforcement of appropriate actions all pupils are seen as the same and with the emphasis being placed on the pupil to record the actions there is a far greater chance of behaviour being thought about and change noted. From a very early age the qualities and behaviours required are reinforced by all adults who come into contact with the child and many examples of positive behaviour can be given. As TREE is integrated into the normal school day and not an "add on" the awarding of leaves will fit with whatever reward system the school operates e.g. book tokens, class prizes.

Citizenship
The TREE qualities have been cross referenced with the QCA document on Citizenship. All areas that are listed as being important for pupils to have discussed and developed are in TREE.

They can be shown to have been covered by reading the pupils planner and the
teacher page on the online application can be used to show graphs of class coverage of certain areas for planning purposes.

A major benefit for schools is that when a Citizenship report is due the pupil can highlight the 5 pieces of evidence they are most proud of and the system will deliver the Citizenship report. In essence TREE can prove that Citizenship is being taught throughout the school curriculum and evidence of this is recorded by the pupils themselves.

Personalised Learning
TREE places pupils at the centre of learning as they record their own development within areas not normally recorded. The emphasis is on how the pupil is developing the skills and attributes needed to take advantage of good quality teaching.

Parents also have an input as they often send letters into school asking for leaves to be awarded for work carried out at home. One of the strengths of TREE is that on transfer to secondary school a picture of the whole pupil, which the pupil have themselves recorded is passed on. Cluster schools have transitional data to support pupils on transfer from year 6 to year 7.