Favouritism

[Nicedayforawedding]

How do people generally cope when their child’s teacher has favourites or the school generally has their golden children? (Primary school)

Even I need lockdown I’m finding it hard.Certain children have lots of pieces of work shown on the dojo with glowing praise.Others like my child have the odd piece of work on there with just a comment from the teacher.

[Nicedayforawedding]

*I mean - even in lockdown

[Boredsheep]

I’d stop sending the work in.

[dreamingofyellowandnavy]

As a teacher, I am experience this with my son and it's so frustrating. I also work at the same school. All grim really.

[Porcupineinwaiting]

I think the trick is not to pay to close attention and to encourage your child not to either. Once you start counting up who gets what it becomes obsessive and depressing.

One of the most important things my children learnt at primary school was to judge for themselves when they'd done well, rather than waiting for external validation. It was a long and painful process but so much better than when they were hanging around desperate for praise like dogs for biscuits.

[Pyracantha1]

I share your frustrations. Sorry I'm not sure what the answer is but wanted to let you know that you are not alone. Remote learning has thrown this issue right at me as I can first hard see this.

It bugs my dc as they know that they have the right answers, are participating and working super hard. However it's not reflected in the weekly 'awards ceremony'.

[Greenpoppins]

I think it depends on the age of the child. If your child is older and can understand that it is petty for an adult to act like this then I'd talk to your child about it. You can give the positive feedback yourself.

If it's for a younger child I'd raise it with the teacher. I asked our school to increase the ways children could achieve 'praise' or 'rewards' as they had a single weekly class prize (for 4 year olds!).

[bettycat81]

Lockdown is really magnifying it at our school. Same kids all the time. They even still have a celebration assembly. My Son got very wound up yesterday as one of the children who got an award lives very near to us and we have seen them out mixing with other households - not obeying rules, yet they get an award.

In lockdown kids can't even compare efforts and each childs (and their families) circumstances are completely different.

[MrsCaplan]

Lockdown is magnifying the inequalities, in my experience. We just laugh now and call homeschool 'Parent School', since the parents are clearly doing all these magnificent projects themselves. It's grim, isn't it? I feel your pain, OP. My DD noticed the favouritism from Y3 onwards and it's so hard to unsee and unfeel it. Gah.

[Onceuponatimethen]

Feel your pain op - it’s always been like that hasn’t it!

[Nicedayforawedding]

Yes I remember it being like this at my primary school and it’s upsetting.

I’ve now given up with the dojo,it was stressing me out seeing the occasional one photo of my child on the pre and daily eight or nine photos of the favourites per day.

Not to mention the fact that these parents take photos of their dcs work from a distance (so you can see their enormous kitchen or living room).

[Stellaris22]

Could have written this post myself OP. It's horrible as it really is the same children getting praised even in lockdown at my daughters school.

She can work really hard and put loads of effort in, and her work is rarely praised. I've stopped showing her the online things now because it upset her when she has put effort in and it's not recognised.

The children's work that gets praised publicly is brilliant, but it would be nice to distribute the praise more.

I'm crying most days because I know when she eventually goes back (Year 2) she's going to be really behind. Even before lockdown she was hugely behind in basic maths and at home I can't get her motivated to learn.

[Stellaris22]

Plus some of the children are the ones whose parents can afford home tutors outside of school time. It's depressing.

[Nicedayforawedding]

My ds will be behind too I think.I find it really hard trying to get him to do any work,he tried at first but now he doesn’t seem interested at all.

It’s really hard when there are favourites in school,i think children understand fairness really well and they lose motivation when they see a system that’s so unfair.

[Mrsfrumble]

Ugh, why are all these schools sharing pictures of work? I’m so glad my children’s school is not doing this. We submit work on google classroom and we get feedback, but it’s all private. Same with dojo; just communication between teachers and parents, so no idea what anyone else is doing, thank goodness!

What a crappy way to highlight the inevitable inequalities coming to light when children live in varying circumstances.