Recognising and rewarding student achievement is a powerful way to boost engagement and homework completion in Sparx Maths. This article explains the different ways you can track, celebrate and reward student progress.

XP and Sparx Levels

Students earn XP when they complete exercises in Sparx Maths. They reach a new level each 1,000 XP, and their XP accumulates across academic years. Students who complete all of their Compulsory homeworks should achieve about 5,000 every 10 weeks. When a student achieves a new XP level, they will be notified. They will also be able to view their current and recently achieved XP levels from their Rewards page. We will also inform parents if a student has recently levelled-up in the weekly update email we send them (if Parent Emails are turned on).

How much XP students earn in different Sparx Maths tasks

Up to 420 XP for Compulsory homework
50 XP for Compulsory completion bonus
25 XP per unused question swap
Up to 50 XP for bookwork accuracy
405 XP for XP Boost homework
135 XP for Target homework
20 XP per Independent Learning task
1 XP per correct times tables question in Independent Learning

Milestone levels

Special milestone levels are awarded at:

Levels divisible by 5
Levels divisible by 25
Levels divisible by 100

These milestones can be incorporated into your school's reward systems.

Tracking student XP and levels

Access detailed XP data through Reports > XP Report to view:

Individual student XP totals
Class and year group XP rankings
XP earned over specific time periods
Current student levels and progress to next level

You can also filter the report to only show XP earned between specific dates. This can be helpful for identifying top students for the current half-term, for example.

Celebrating achievement

Student leaderboard

Students are opted in automatically to the leaderboard which will allow them to see where they rank in their class, year group, and school over different time frames. They will show on the leaderboard with a randomly assigned nickname which they can change whenever they like. Students can opt out of the leaderboard if they do not wish to be part of it.

As a teacher, you can access the Leaderboards by going to Reporting > Student rewards > Leaderboards.

XP Report

Access detailed XP data through Reports > XP Report to view:

Individual student XP totals
Class and year group XP rankings
XP earned over specific time periods
Current student levels and progress to next level

You can also filter the report to only show XP earned between specific dates. This can be helpful for identifying top students for the current half-term, for example.

Certificates

To help reward and motivate students, Sparx generates XP level-up certificates. You can generate these in bulk, download them individually and create custom certificates for other achievements.

Some Sparx schools like to award certificates during assemblies, while others favour sending these as postcards home so that their parents or carers can see the great work the student is doing.

Bulk certificate generator

To generate multiple certificates pre-populated with the student's name, XP level & the date they achieved the level, click on the Certificate Generator button at the top of the XP Report page. You will be able to make the following options:

The date range when the level was achieved
Only generate certificates for each student's most recent level
Only generate certificates for milestone levels (multiples of 5,25 and 100)
Include a teacher's name on the certificate

Individual certificates

You can also download individual certificates through the Certificate History tab on each student's profile.

This page will also show when the level was achieved, the date the certificate was last generated, and by whom.

Other certificates

The Custom Achievement Certificate can be rewarded for things such as:

Fantastic effort
Best improvement
Good resilience, e.g. a student who completed all their homework while at home with a broken leg
If a student has made a really good turnaround, for example gaining a lot of XP in a short space of time

Class of the week

Student of the week