Everyone given gold award except DD

It's not really a "bonus" to get a piece of paper, presumably in front of all the other kids, that says "you're the worst in the class". I'm sure the child will have picked up on that not being a good thing!

After a bad experience with a dance class I wouldn't go anywhere near another one. They take it far too seriously and are in no way inclusive

I actually think making her the only child to get silver sounds a bit like bullying tbh. That said she probably wasn’t really the only one. As pp said it probably felt that way to her cos her friends all got gold.

This is what happens when kids “graduate” nursery

My ds would have been devastated if this had happened to him. He wasn’t great at dance or sport and this would have hammered home how useless he felt. I didn’t give a shit about resilience when he was 8. If it turns out to be correct that ds really was the only one, I’d definitely be having a chat with the teacher.

I would be annoyed too OP, the school should have been more transparent about their approach and made it clear the children would be graded. They shouldn't assume that all parents would want that type of extra curricular for their child.

It’s not gleeful - I was the kid who gave stuff up because I wasn’t always great at it. I won the ‘most improved player’ award, which everyone else at netball knew meant the whitest person on the team. But as an adult I wish I had been taught to chill and have fun and ignore that stuff because I quit things I loved/enjoyed all because I thought I had to be better, to impress others. If OP can I still that into her daughter and her daughter can continue to enjoy a hobby without letting this sort of shitty stuff get to her, then she will be all the happier for it. All the competitive stuff is utter bollocks, if OPs DD can move past it she will be so much happier.

My sympathies. I got really fed up when mine were younger with there being no sporting or dance activities/ clubs that were just for fun after about age 10.
It doesn't matter how hard you practice, some people are uncoordinated or have eyesight issues etc that mean they're never going to excel in these fields and even more have no interest in pursuing them professionally so why not have some just for fun/ not competitive! There's enough competition for grades/ exam results etc in school as it is.

Your DD enjoyed the dance classes and as a bonus she got a silver medal. If the other girls danced better than your DD then they deserved a higher medal. She's not in a nursery anymore where everyone has to get the same reward regardless of effort put in or ability. Nothing to say if she keeps practicing she won't improve further and get the gold medal.

Exactly this.

Has she been given any criteria to work towards, any way to understand why she only got silver rather than gold, what she could work on to earn that gold?

If not this really seems very unkind and not remotely constructive!

YABU how about using this as an opportunity to talk about everyone having their own strengths and weaknesses and the importance of taking part instead going off in a strop to the teacher because your child didn’t reach the standard required for gold?

I guess I don’t see it as competitive: it’s achieving a standard, or a goal. You achieve it or you don’t. Like a swimming badge. Not a race, where there is only one winner. The focus on effort rather than attainment applies to both kinds of clubs, and I find it really helpful advice.

You have to rethink this, maybe she didn’t reach gold this term but will next term.

I’m with you here OP. I think it’s unkind and unnecessary to single out one child.
Giving everybody a gold award bar one begs the question why whoever it was in charge of the afterschool activity felt it necessary to hand out so many golds. This implies that all those that got them were of exactly the same standard. I find this very difficult to believe - some of them would have been better than others
If she was so intent on giving the participants a tangible reward it would have been kinder for her to award a gold silver and a bronze.
I don’t disagree with those that say we have to prepare our children for the fact that they can’t always be the best - of course we do -but to single out one child in front of all the others seems unnecessarily unkind and all the more so as this was at an afterschool club with no known competitive purpose.

Have the others been attending since the start of the school year, or Christmas?

Anyway, you say she has really enjoyed it. If she has enjoyed it each week, why on earth would you give her the option of stopping and starting something else?

I would be telling her she has done fantastically after only one term, emphasise that is about her enjoying it…and we learn by persisting and improving and getting better at things.

Talk to her about her disappointment, and the fact that she worked hard at a new skill, which is fantastic. Build her resilience, rather than flopping around with ‘it’s not faaaaiiir’

How many in the class? If there are 30 pupils and 29 of them got a gold award, that seems wrong, because it's unlikely you'd have 29 dancing to exactly the same standard and one below it to the extent of meriting a lower award.

If fewer than 10 in the class, that would be more understandable.

Considering this an after school fun activity on a Friday evening that your daughter has enjoyed immensely I think it’s absolutely nuts that gold/silver type awards of any type have been given.
Yes, if it’s a competitive dance school with recognised exams then you have to accept the results can be tough.
But for an extra activity for kids to enjoy at the end of a school week? It defeats the object of it being fun. And let’s face it not every child in there is going to be a prima ballerina are they? Imagine generic stars and little prizes for attendance, funky dance moves, being a kind student to others, the list is endless of things you can recognise.
A friend’s daughter is a teacher has a class exactly like this which she takes. At the end of each session she does a 5 minute free section, where kids can literally move in any way they like to the music. She says that’s when kids who struggle in other ways really go for it.
I know from her that the benefits to all of the kids are immense.
So whether there was one gold star, or a whole plethora of them, it’s not fair at this level.
School is tough enough, of course kids have to learn about not always winning, but they also have the right to do something fun without it being an Olympic style level of grading.
That is exactly what I’d want to feedback on. And I’m a former teacher who has run all sorts of extra curricular activities for fun and that’s exactly what they were.

If the OP’s daughter knew she was in a competitive situation it would be brilliant advice. But she thought she was having a bit of fun with friends after school and has been blindsided that treating something like fun was actually being in a judged situation. One where until proven otherwise, she was shown to be lesser than everyone else who was there. And it’s highly probably being taught by someone who didn’t have the slightest clue what being ‘gold’ or ‘silver’ worthy of dancing actually was since it was a school club, it would be different if this was an actual dance club run by a professional with certain expectations of attainment by the end of the term.

Until you hear back from the leader about the criteria used to decide who got each award it is futile to speculate. I agree it is poor that you were not aware of the grading system when you signed up. I was the child who due to disabilities never got a single award at Athletics at school. I simply wasn't good enough at any activity. The teacher was sympathetic in her explanation but I accepted it as just one of those things. I was OK academically and did go on to Higher Education. (First in my family to do so). I just learned a bit earlier than some of my class mates that someone has to be the worst at something and it doesn't mean you are a lesser person.

This is brilliant advice.

I can’t stand this gleeful ‘teach her about resilience’ bollocks. She signed up for FUN. Not demoralisation. That isn’t going to boost anyone’s resilience - it’ll just make them withdraw. Which is where the unfairness lies.

I would ban competitive sports in school for primary kids. It should be a hobby activity for those with the interest and the physical advantage. All primary aged children should be physically active and that can be learning sports skills, outdoor activities, gym, walking, running, dancing but it should be fun and inclusive. Competitiveness just drains the life out of it for the kids who need it the most.

Yanbu op.

Absolutely! I agree. I think we also need to consider the attitude we want our children to develop towards being active and keeping fit. So many people avoid going to the gym or doing any kind of sport or fitness related activity because they worry they will be judged for not being good at it. I want my children to enjoy being active so that they develop healthy lifestyles. The OP's daughter was not attending a competitive dance school, it was a bit of after school fun. I hope this does not put her off taking up an active hobby in the future.

I highly doubt she was the only one who got silver, likely she just saw it that way as her closest friends all got gold.

Is it all stupid? Yeah. But honestly if she really enjoys it, who cares? Teach her to keep going for the enjoyment. The amount of things I enjoyed that I dropped out of because I was humiliated by not being the best as a kid - it was so stupid of me. Teach her some resilience and that actually, not being the best at something doesn’t matter, what matters is her enjoyment of it. Thats literally all that matters. The rest is null and void.