FREE burgers and popcorn are being given to kids who behave at a troubled Brighton school.

The idea, suggested by Falmer School students, comes in the wake of an OFSTED report which slammed pupils' bad behaviour, bullying, smoking and swearing. Students have responded by insisting that rewards rather than punishment could do more to erase the blot on their school's copybook. The initiative is based on results of a questionnaire sent to Falmer's 613 pupils, showing they are overwhelmingly in favour of the carrot rather than the stick. The Lewes Road school is proposing to award prizes, including cinema tickets and fast food vouchers, to encourage hard work, good behaviour and attendance. Pupils have formed a ten-strong crime prevention panel with assistant head Nick Schildkamp and Moulsecoomb beat bobby PC Pete Small helping spearhead the project. The task force has applied for funding from Sussex Police Authority, which hands out £310,000 a year to promote crime-busting initiatives in the community. The school's crime prevention panel said in a statement: "We are very much aware of the close links between poor behaviour, truancy and youth crime and we would like to suggest a positive approach. "Students feel rewards would encourage and motivate them, improve their behaviour and attendance, and they would help raise the profile of education in the school. "In order to attempt this we need prizes, rewards, incentives and these cost money. Falmer is a good school and we care enough to improve it further still." The move follows a similar scheme at the school last term. Pupils with a 100 per cent attendance record could enter a prize draw to win a compact disc player, vouchers, towels and T-shirts. The prizes were donated by Richer Sounds' charity arm Persula, McDonald's and Southern Water. Mr Schildkamp said: "The idea very much came from the students, and we are delighted about this. "Rather than us bringing in new rules this is a positive way to help the students motivate themselves."

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