Academic Honesty Policy

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Table of Contents

1. Rationale
2. Principles of the AFS Academic Honesty Policy
3. What Academic Honesty Means at AFS
4. School Strategies for Promoting Academic Honesty
5. Guidelines for Classroom Practice and Responses
6. Guidelines for Staff

1.0 Rationale

1.1 As a learning community, Al Fajer Private School recognizes that truth, honesty, and respect are fundamental academic principles, and they sit at the heart of the school's own values of loyalty and integrity. AFS is a KG1 – Grade 6 school: our students are young children who are still learning what it means to do their own work. Academic honesty at AFS is therefore first and foremost something we teach — through everyday classroom practice, praise, and gentle correction — so that honest habits of mind are firmly in place long before students face formal academic demands in later schooling.

1.2 This policy upholds Al Fajer Private School's values — loyalty and integrity; intellect, optimism, and creativity — and the laws of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

2.0 Principles of the AFS Academic Honesty Policy

2.1 The school emphasizes the positive aspects of academic honesty rather than the negative aspects of dishonesty.

2.2 Each student learns, at a level appropriate to their age, to take responsibility for their own work and their own actions.

2.3 Other people's work — a classmate's, an author's, a website's — is treated with respect.

2.4 Students will be given support, teaching, and modeling that help them understand and practice academic honesty; we do not expect young children to already know these conventions.

2.5 All members of the school community — staff and parents included — demonstrate academic honesty at all times, because children copy what they see.

2.6 The school's emphasis is on prevention through teaching. In a primary school, almost every instance of copied or over-helped work is an opportunity for learning, not an offense. Teachers explain and educate first.

2.7 Work that a student did not do themselves is not treated as evidence of that student's learning: the teacher will ask the student to try again independently rather than crediting the work.

2.8 The school recognizes that students come from a variety of cultural and language backgrounds, and that families may hold different assumptions about helping with schoolwork; the school works in partnership with parents so that expectations are clear.

2.9 Expectations grow with the child. In Kindergarten and the lower grades (KG1 – Grade 3), the focus is on doing your own work and telling the truth about it. In the upper grades (Grades 4 – 6), students additionally begin to learn simple, age-appropriate ways of acknowledging sources, so that honest habits mature into sound academic practice.

3.0 What Academic Honesty Means at AFS

3.1 For AFS students, academic honesty means:

3.1.1 Doing your own work. The thinking, writing, drawing, and answers a student hands in should be their own, unless the teacher has set a shared or group task.

3.1.2 Telling the teacher where help came from. Students are taught to say honestly when a parent, sibling, friend, tutor, book, website, or AI tool helped with a piece of work. Help is often welcome — hiding it is the problem.

3.1.3 Not copying. Copying a classmate's work, or letting a classmate copy yours, when the task was meant to be individual, is not honest work. Group work is different and valuable: when students work together legitimately, each child should still be able to show their own contribution, and any written work handed in as individual work must be the student's own.

3.1.4 Being honest in tests and quizzes. During any class test, quiz, or cycle test, students do their own work without looking at others' answers or sharing their own.

3.1.5 Acknowledging sources simply (upper grades). In Grades 4 – 6, students learn simple source acknowledgment — for example, naming the book, website, or person a fact or picture came from ("I found this in…"), or listing the titles of the sources they used. Formal citation systems are not expected of primary students; honest, simple acknowledgment is.

3.1.6 Using AI only as directed. Any classroom use of AI tools by students is age-appropriate, directed, and supervised by staff, in line with the Online Safety Policy. Where an AI tool has helped with a task, students say so, just as with any other helper (see also the Assessment, Feedback & Reporting Policy).

3.2 Because our students are young children, the school assumes that lapses are innocent unless there is clear evidence otherwise, and it responds by teaching in the first instance.

4.0 School Strategies for Promoting Academic Honesty

4.1 All staff will receive a copy of this policy and are expected to read it and apply it in everyday practice.

4.2 Academic honesty is discussed during staff training sessions, whole-staff meetings, and grade-level and subject meetings as appropriate.

4.3 Students are taught what honest work looks like through classroom practice: teachers model it, praise it, and build it into lessons — for example, class discussions about "whose idea was this?", celebrating work that is proudly a child's own, and simple "where did this come from?" conversations about books, websites, and pictures.

4.4 The school library and classroom collections support age-appropriate lessons on where information comes from, and upper-grade students are introduced to simple source acknowledgment (see 3.1.5).

4.5 Teachers design tasks that naturally evidence each child's own learning — for example, work completed in class under supervision, personalized prompts, and asking students to talk about their work.

4.6 Parents are partners: the school explains to families the difference between helping a child (talking a task through, asking questions, checking understanding) and doing the work for them, so that homework remains the child's own.

4.7 The Academic Honesty Policy will be posted on the school website, and age-appropriate reminders about honest work are displayed in classrooms.

5.0 Guidelines for Classroom Practice and Responses

5.1 At all times the focus is on the positive aspects of academic honesty. Examples include:

5.1.1 Verbal and written praise for examples of honest work.

5.1.2 Age-appropriate recognition through the school's rewards system (see the Behavior, Rewards & Sanctions Policy).

5.1.3 Celebrating the achievement of students' own work.

5.1.4 Informing parents when their child shows excellent honesty.

5.1.5 Using honestly produced work as a model for other students.

5.2 When honesty slips, responses are supportive, age-appropriate, and educational. The school regards incidents as accidental unless there is compelling evidence otherwise. The teacher's first step is always to explain and educate rather than reprimand.

5.3 Where a response beyond the classroom conversation is needed, it follows the Behavior, Rewards & Sanctions Policy. Incidents that are recorded are logged in the school's student-information system. [NEEDS AFS INPUT: AFS student-information system]

5.4 The examples below serve as guidelines only; staff discretion, in consultation with the grade-level lead or a member of the school leadership team [NEEDS AFS INPUT: confirm AFS academic leadership titles], is expected.

5.5 For serious or repeated incidents, the Principal and parents are informed, and the school works with the family on a supportive plan to rebuild honest habits.

6.0 Guidelines for Staff

6.1 AFS students look to teachers as role models, and the same applies to academic honesty. All AFS staff model attribution in their own practice — for example, crediting the sources of texts, images, and ideas used in lessons, displays, and shared materials.

6.2 Staff design copy-resistant tasks wherever practical: supervised in-class writing, personalized or open-ended prompts, and oral follow-up questions that let each child show their own understanding.

6.3 If a member of staff is suspected of breaching the principles set out in this policy — for example, misrepresenting student work or results — the matter is reviewed by the Principal under the Staff Code of Conduct Policy. Any investigation establishes the facts fairly, assumes good faith unless the evidence shows otherwise, and identifies whether further training or formal action is warranted.