After school in the afternoon is an hour of aerobic exercise or sports such as basketball or tetherball. I learned confidence, team work, and how to take a risk. The point system provides quick feedback to the students concerning positive and negative choices that they have made throughout the day. Each activity on the schedule is scored. The students earn points for positive participation in the activities and lose points for refusal or non-participation.
Points accumulate towards eligibility for the next level.
With each new level additional privileges and responsibilities are earned. The levels are based on the stages of change. Each level has tasks specific to one of the stages of change. For example, when students first arrive at Blue Hills Academy, they may be in of Denial and Resistance. Teens want to believe that the coping mechanisms they have developed are appropriate to the task.