To be fed up of the same children winning all the awards at school?!

I was going to comment and then saw that cory in the first reply you got said it all. I also agree with her last post.

I don't see any "face fitting" and certainley no "alpha parent" with ds1.
I had to go to his school for an event on Saturday and I didn't even know where the bloody main hall was, that's how involved I am with the school.

Is it so hard to believe that some DCs are rewarded for being the best at whatever the award is for?

Why is always assumed that the kids who win awards must have pushy parents?

Because I was one! Not taking anything away at all from my DD who got the school record prize at the end of primary school and very likely deserved it on her own merits, but I was that mouthy interfering completely hands on mother with a finger in every fucking pie and I know is was as much a thank you to me as a well done to her. You will be pleased to know that I am much less narcissistic now!

The most important thing is not whether your ds gets an award but how you teach him to deal with whatever he gets or doesn't get.

My dd has loved the theatre and dreamed of a career on the stage since she was 4. She never got picked for any main parts throughout junior school. I could have treated this as a terrible injustice and encouraged her to feel hard done by.

Or I could do what I did- I pointed out that not everybody could get main parts, that every part matters to the whole of the performance and that doing the very best you can as a minor angel or chorus member is just as important.

And then I made sure she had other opportunities to learn and develop: I signed her up for ballet lessons and then for youth theatre. And encouraged her to think along the same lines: it doesn't matter what part you get, it matters how much you learn from it.

Dd is about to start A-level drama and hoping to audition for stage school after that. Doing the fifth angel from the left in the nativity play has done her absolutely no harm.

I hate things like this.

DH is a school governor, I'm on the PTA, so I'm sure you can image the tutting, eye rolling and comments we get every time one of my kids get picked or win anything - "ooh, her again, it's only 'cos her mum's on the PTA/Dad's a governor". DD1 won a place in an art show run by the National Gallery, but oh, no, she only won because her Dad's a governor. Not because she's actually quite talented or anything. The competition judging had absolutely nothing to do with the school.

My eldest is kind and thoughtful and works hard. My youngest is dyspraxic so has to work twice as hard as her classmates. But no, they've never achieved anything off their own bat, they only win because their Dad's a governor

And actually, if these people actually looked at the back of the school newsletters where they list award winners each week, and compared who wins what, my DD's haven't been picked or won stuff more than anyone else.

YANBU. I've noticed its the same children being picked for things too.

Why is always assumed that the kids who win awards must have pushy parents?

Nothing wrong with the best person getting picked for stuff. Some kids work hard and are good at everything it seems!

What gets on my nerves is favouritism though. At DDs primary one girl was picked for absolutely everything music/drama wise. She was good, but no more exceptional than many of the other children. She was the blatant favourite though so got picked above equally talented and committed DC. That is very unprofessional and wrong.

I have another perspective . One of my kids is one of those leader plus sports plus way above on grades. He DOESN'T win much at all. Yesterday he brought home a school one pager showing him to be level 8 as opposed to 6 on most things.

There was an awards day this year and he won nothing. He said it was because awards were for the most improved kids. He was quite happy with that. To be honest I think he is too confident to care much.

My younger son is less confident and more likely to need encouragement for effort.

So I like that system to be honest.

People should not only receive reward for achievement, especially when it comes so naturally to them. Others do need it.

Most larger families have a mix of personalities anyway.

I can remember when the older son was very young, he needed 4 merits to win some ultimate badge or other, but said he wasn't bothered to win it. I asked why not, and he replied that " first I'll have to be naughty, and then good again, and I just can't be bothered!" We all thought it was funny, and so did he.

.. snd by the way just because these kids win doesn't mean that someone else didn't TRY harder... or that coming 8 th wasn't a HUGE achievement.
I am thinking of keeping my son off school on the last day. He is in y5 and had AS. I know he won't be getting any awards as I haven't been invited to assembly. . And I also know I am going to have to field questions all summer about why he wasn't picked. What am I meant to do? Lie? Or tell him the truth. I hate being put in that position. The golden ones already have enough luck
They don't need their huge egos boosting any more. .

Yes, but at primary a bit of imagination would be good.

My sporty son did not get picked for the local school sports athletics. No, they have 2 or 3 exceptional athletes who then get picked for 3 or 4 events each. We win the school competition in all age groups, we always do. But why not branch the competition out so they can only get picked for 2 events to allow my son and others, who are on the edge of being picked, to represent the school.

Often we talking about natural aptitude at primary, not hard work per se and how old you are in the year. The kids who get picked for sport tend to be autumn born at my son's junior school.

I think that the idea is to have as wide a range of possible awards and achievements a s possible. I never won a sporting awards in my entire school life, that was offset by the fact that I won a lot of academic ones.
Good citizenship/eco awards cover a multitude of areas, as do effort awards.
The point I'm trying to make is that winning something isn't an entitlement, it should require some effort on the part of the winners.
So what sort of achievements and awards do you think your children could contribute in, and what isn't the school offering to cover that?
It is becoming an increasingly competitive system, and if the pressure is placed on jobs, pay and outcomes to rate a school, then that will impact significantly on the fluffy 'No one loses, everyone wins' approach of many schools up to this point.

Why shouldn't the school reward hard work, effort and achievement? That's how the world works

Soured you dear sweet thing you! If only what you say were true.
Regrettably too often it's the face fitting syndrome and the alpha parent effect. I have no problem at all with genuine talent and effort being rewarded.

YABU. It's life, they are winning the awards because they are the best. In adult life you will get the job because you are the best, not because you didn't get the last two you went for, therefore its your turn now. Life isn't fair, IMO its better dcs learn this early on.

You're also talking about my DCs. Both very academic, both won a lot of year prizes in their time.

One was an excellent actor and always got a leading role in school productions and the other was good at sport and in most teams.

Why shouldn't these two hardworking young people who were always prepared to put in the extra time and effort not be rewarded? Eldest didn't resent youngest's sporting success and neither did youngest resent his brother's success in drama.

OH is still bitter because he wasn't given the prize for English Lit in his O level year. He got the best results in the mock and his classwork and homework was consistently better than anyone else's. Everyone knew he should have won it. He didn't because the head thought he "had won enough already".

Ask any of the three of them to put up a shelf that stayed up or cook anything edible and you'd be waiting forever. That's not where their talents lie.

Tantrums, one of mine is like that but academically. Shit at sport mind but they try. I'm the same as you too, I work full time and always have done.

it is a difficult balance between awarding achievement and effort, without discouraging others who could be trying as hard, be more shy etc and may be bloody good at something given the encouragement.

Exactly abs I have never pushed him to run or swim or train for anything.
I'm not on the PTA, never have been.
I work full time, have done since he was 1 year old, I am about as far from a pushy parent as its possible to be, the only thing I nag them about is homework.

But he loves any type of sport. He researches what he should be eating to stay fit and healthy. He wants to excel in every sport so he researches and trains and works bloody hard

Why shouldn't he get recognition for that?

So the children who work and are the top should be ignored for fear of upsetting other children? What message does that send?

but if the same children are winning all the time, how can anything be done differently?

DS's school give awards based on effort as well as ones for being the best at xyz. It is really nice to see children being recognized and praised from all abilities.

Again, life is like that. Work hard, try hard and you'll win.

I never won any prizes in school because I was average, we didn't have awards for effort like you do now. Didn't bother me other than to make me work harder.

If course it's ok to be proud of your high achieving kids. I just hate it when everyone else has their noses rubbedin it all the time.

They seem to laud these SAME kids all the time for winning making all the average ones feel like shit

my dd is that child. well, apart from swimming - she'll never be selected for that.

she is, however, picked to represent at everything else - music concerts, choirs, sports, academic/presentation stuff.

she gets parts in school plays because she speaks well and clearly, can learn the lines and sing in tune. she gets picked to speak at assemblies because she can be relied upon to be in the right place at the right time, speaks clearly, remembers the order of things, etc.

she gets picked to go on the curriculum extras (science trips, mathletics challenges etc) because of all of the above, and she can eb relied upon to show the school in a good light.

why should she not be picked, when she makes a conscious effort every day to work hard, listens well, and tries her best at whatever she is doing (even when it isn't her favourite subject).

sickeningly Pollyanna-ish, I know she sure as hell doesn't take after me but it is just how she is. Why should she not be rewarded for being consistently a top performer and achiever?

Some children, like adults, are just more talented in certain things than others. Sport is competition and that's the way the world works. Are you suggesting that the school should pick less successful athletes to represent it?

You do realise that most Olympians start showing promise at school and work their way through junior competition, under 18s, under 18s, under 20s etc on the learning process to becoming successful seniors. To miss out on this development process to make some children's parents feel better at school is short sighted.

There is a learning opportunity here. Encourage your child to find out what the successful children at sports are doing and copy them, or do more. Are they eating a better diet than your child? Are they training more in their own time than your own child? Are they simply working harder? Is your child more of a long distance runner than a sprinter, or a thrower rather than a jumper?

If, as you say, the level of competition at this school isn't that high, your child should be able to work on what is necessary to succeed and do so.

As Tantrums and Balloons says above, her child is running 3 miles before school. You don't need pushy parents to do this as a child - I worked out at age 12 that my cross country running would be improved if I spent my lunch break running instead of queing up for the ice cream van!