To be fed up with an education system that ignores bright but quiet kids.

Children who got 50-60% more than likely did work harder than someone who got 100%.

that's so untrue and summarise what is so wrong with the system!

I hate this ridiculous dismissive attitude, I realise that it's based on jealousy mainly, but it's so wrong when it's about kids.

one thing I have learned in the decades since school is that being quietly excellent doesn't get you far. If you want recognition and advancement you also need to make yourself visible, make yourself heard, and be willing to say pleasantly "I got all the questions right - am I getting any points? What should I be doing differently to get points then?"

100%. Make it an invaluable life lesson, they need to learn to be heard and seen. It's shouldn't be like that, but there you go.

Comfort your kids also by saying that at least their efforts pay off. Other kids with lower results very likely didn't put as much work and effort, and the very minuscule amount of kids who DID try as hard but achieved nothing are not to be envied.

Whilst I empathise, the issue isn't that your DD isn't getting any rewards, it’s that rewards are used as a method to motivate less able or less compliant students. Giving rewards for what should be an everyday effort in the classroom is counter productive. The desire to learn / improve should be intrinsic, not motivated by external rewards.
That being said, it’s the system most schools believe will work best (even though it doesn’t). My DD was very much like your DD by the sounds of it. And I’m a teacher, so have had to implement ridiculous behaviour systems over the years. All based on external rewards. All a waste of time. Star of the Week, Headteacher Award, Dojo points, Traffic light systems, Golden Time - all pretty pointless.
Regarding your DD, I would explain to her that the rewards / points systems are used to try to get some children to improve, but as she can’t improve on perfection, she doesn’t need it. My DD would occasionally say it wasn’t fair, and I’m afraid to say that I’d point out the things that were really not fair such as a child having an SEN or physical disability, or parents who couldn't buy the nice things for their DC that we could buy for ours. We worked hard on self motivation, focussing on her rather than others.
I would, however, have a chat with her teacher to point out how the points system seems to bar anyone who always gets top marks! We used to have to read out the spelling marks at my last school (I know 😢) and I would circumnavigate this by saying if a child had improved, stayed the same or dropped marks from the previous week rather than reading the actual score. I didn't give Dojo points even though there was a tab on Class Dojo for 100% in spellings! I gave verbal comments - well done for maintaining / improving your scores, and discuss with the class how they could improve for the next spelling test. I would also engineer it so that those whom I knew would not be able to take the tests with any success had their spelling intervention group with the class TA out of class away from the others.
Can’t you tell I hate spelling tests!

This. Quietly clever and waiting about for recognition gets you nowhere.

I saw this as lot when my daughter was in primary school. It's not good at all.

I certainly agree that a small child is going to find it incredibly hard to not want a 'well done" and shoukd get one.

Buy I think a c-b is good academics!

I think there are a couple of things going on that are impacting here. One is that your child isn't being challenged - extremely frustating but sadly all too common as schools have an obligation to get as many children up to the minimum standard as they can, and they aren't rewarded or judged onw hether they can help higly able children do better. Unfortnately, this is one that I see no solution to in the short term as it's a case of resources as much as anything. the options for you are to challenge him privately - tutor, extra work at home, academic clubs or private school.

Re the reward thing, that IS an issue and one I would discuss with the teacher. I think it's quite easy for the teacher to slip into this - rewarding effort rather than achievement. If your school is a good school, and the teachers are good teachers, a quiet word should allow them to find a few opportunities to praise/reward your child. DD is easily achieving "above expectations" for everything and I've had to do this once before when she was just slipping under the radar but usually I don't as the school really does make an effort to recognise every child, at some point.

This year, she was starting to get upset as they have a weekly assembly at which children are identified for good work/effort/progress and she hadn't got one yet... but sure enough, home she came with her certificate last week as I think they aim for minimum one reward assmebly per child per term!

I didn't blame the teachers, its hard to manage 30 kids, especially when some need more attention than others, I only intervened when DD was being used as behaviour management for "naughty boys" and got stabbed in the leg with a compass by one.
The only Secondary State option we had didn't set at the time (does now) and teacher friends advised us it was a VERY bad option for a child like DD.

Teach them to value their own achievements instead of looking for external validation.

All children want external validation. Its how we learn that what we do makes a difference.

High achievers do put lots of effort into their work, and are encouraged by these awards just as middle and low achievers. Able children can be disheartening by always been forgotten and therefore not achieve their full potential.

Its a difficult balancing act for teachers. If everyone has a turn, children notice this and the recognition is devalued. But any other way and children will miss out and feel like their efforts are not good enough.

I call BS on "they'll do well anyway" and "learn to achieve self satisfaction in results".

The most successful people from my school were solid C-B grade students who went into lucrative careers.

And the person who NEVER needs praise or even a little bit of external validation when seeing others receive it is either the Dalai Lama or a sociopath.

I actually find it quite refreshing to hear that efforts are being made to reward the lower achieving kids as it was the complete opposite when I was at school.

OP your child finds work easy and naturally scores highly which is reward in itself. They are trying to reward those who may have worked just as hard but won’t score as high because of less natural aptitude. Good for them.

Ultimately, when it comes to GCSEs and Alevels, there will be no reward points for effort so it’s good to recognise the hard work less able kids put in along the way.

Given the attitudes shown above, I think you'll need to go out of your way to really big up your children's achievements and show someone does care and does think they're smart. I think there is an issue that some people simply don't remember being a child, and this includes teachers. I still have vivid memories of school, and remember feeling very hard done by that one teacher would only praise the naughty children. Unsurprisingly, I started acting out in her class in an effort to get noticed, despite otherwise being very quiet and compliant through my entire school career. I also began to see hard work and "being clever" as detrimental traits - they got me no notice from the teachers (even on subjects like maths where I did struggle, but still tried hard to quietly work it out for my myself, and then failing and being reprimanded rather than helped) and low level bullying from classmates for being a "boffin". I think you need to have a word with the teacher about how your child's confidence is failing due to being ignored (as it would to any adult - imagine at work if a colleague was publicly praised for some mediocre effort, yet your excellent work goes without notice).

I can understand your frustration but your daughter is obviously very able. In the long term she will probably do much better in life than some of those other children.
That said it might be worth raising it with the school though I also agree that going from 50% to 60% correct os an achievement.

It’s always been this way and always will be. Focus on teaching your child to be more assertive and revel in stretching themselves and their own independent learning.

i presume your child has now moved onto a super selective school with 100% in SATs? Which frankly even the super brightest kids I know didn’t achieve.

I find it helps to be honest with my children that the stickers and certificates etc that teachers use are just behaviour management tools. I say to them that sometimes adults, including teachers, do or say things because it is the easiest way not the best way.

I remember this happening to me at primary school. I was quiet and well behaved, so went under the radar. The children that would mess around and were naughty most of the time would get rewarded with merit points whenever they behaved. So they ended up getting rewards for having X number of merits before me, even though the majority of the time they misbehaved. I knew even at a young age that this wasn’t fair or right.
As an adult I see how good behaviour should be praised so it wasn’t that the teachers were doing anything wrong necessarily. But I do think if you’re just a good child and don’t need the encouragement then you can be forgotten about.
It’s not really fair but how can one teacher be fair in a class of 30 kids with different abilities and behaviours. Tricky!
Just make sure you praise her a lot yourself. My parents always praised me and told me they were proud and I think this probably helped me
to just get on with it a bit.

Same situation here. Primary school, especially the last year of primary, is all about containing and helping the less able which makes it an incredibly frustrating, boring and confusing year for the diligent, quiet and intelligent ones. I guess it's a resources problem as usual. However, I have found high school to be quite different. The rewards are there for the hard workers and conscientious in my experience.

Mine were both quiet and clever. They never got "chosen", not for anything... other than the obligatory star of the week near the end of the year (when it is obvious they were overlooked, but everyone gets a turn).
But... They know they got 100%. They did their best and their best was obviously bloody good (and we celebrated their achievements). Other people didn't get 100% but did their best too, they needed to be told that their efforts were good.

Both got firsts in their chosen subjects, so it didn't stop them trying hard and doing their best all the way through.

Just couch it that others don't have the support that they have. Others need to be told that they are doing well because it isn't obvious...

This will be very hard to explain to your child, and i totally understand her upset, but intrinsic motivation to do something is better long term than getting points or a sticker.

Plus the reward is she did well in the test and the opportunities that opens.

The points are meant to be motivators but there is a theory they harm motivation anyway.

Every child should be taught to reach their full potential - however schools are compared (e.g.SATS) on how many score over a certain level. Your child already exceeds that so there is no value to the school in rewarding your child.

The system stinks. It serves no one well. The bright kids lose motivation and feel, for want if another word, unloved. The less welll achieving children are effectively told that a middling mark, or not hitting someone for a whole lesson is prize-worthy. It sets everyone up for disappointment later.

However, probably quite reflective of the workplace too - hard workers who keep their heads down are overlooked too.

@Hoppinggreen
we had exactly the same issue and ended up going private. DS was quiet and didn’t need support with work or behavior.
i understand teacher difficulties as there were 4 children who constantly misbehaved and it took most of her time to try to manage them.

Why might that be? And what do you suggest?

That is rubbish. Not the case at our school thankfully.

I would talk to the teacher. They probably don't realise the impact they're having. There is no reason why kids who get 100% AND kids who get less can't have a sticker/certificate/praise.

I would also encourage your child to value their own success and not worry about external validation too much (easier said than done, but such an important skill if you want to be a happy adult!).

After 1 week in Reception DD announced that she needed to be more naughty so that when she started behaving she could get on the Well Done Wall. She struggled to get her head around why doing everything asked of her got no recognition but sitting quietly on the carpet for 5 minutes was so worthy of praise for some children. We managed to explain how sitting quietly on the carpet for 5 minutes WAS actually very difficult for some children and she seemed to accept that but she was largely ignored all through Primary and was outraged when at the Leavers Assembly in Y6 she got no recognition at all for all her achievements and the outstanding student award went to a boy who had been threatened with exclusion for hitting another child just weeks before.
One of the reasons we opted for Private