At the beginning of every quarter, teachers, parents, and students arrive at school to discuss how the student is doing at school, sign off for next year’s course selections, and most importantly, develop Individual Learning Plans (ILPs). ILPs, the shorthand for these meetings, allow teachers and parents to address topics that may not be able to be discussed during a regular class setting or during Student Support. Families receive helpful feedback on how  students can raise or maintain a high grade, and teachers get feedback from the students on which teaching techniques students find most effective, pushing for a constantly-improving academic environment.

ILPs also help maintain student engagement. After all, being engaged with your teachers is one of the most important aspects of student success in school. According to Scholarship Points, staying engaged can help develop and boost your teamwork abilities, communication skills, and organizational management.

They also note that your overall school experience can be more fun if you’re engaged in the work, and this rings true for myself. The better kids do in school, the more fun they have. According to Victoria Jones, a researcher at Harvard University, students are shown to improve and maintain their wellbeing if they are doing well in school. The major conclusion is that “happiness is positively associated with intrinsic motivation (a personal drive to learn) for all students, and also with extrinsic motivation (outside sources like rewards, praise, or avoiding punishment) for students in grades K–3.” Though happiness contributes to a direct correlation to higher grades, the test did suggest that happiness and standardized test scores were not related to each other. Jones did state that further tests are needed to confirm this information; however, it does make logical sense that genuinely motivated students are both more happy and successful. ILPs are a simple way to kickstart the motivation needed to do well in school.

ILPs connect students, their families, and their teachers, allowing improvement to be made with both the teacher and the taught. ILPs help grow and improve the school, making the learning environment easier for both sides of the school education. At the end of ILPs, new information and light is shed to the attendees, helping improve Horizon Honors as a whole.