To think that primary schools are sending a really shitty message to well behaved kids

The point is schools are giving rewards for being far worse than average and then occasionally behaving less badly

Sounds like my experience 30years ago. I even went direct to the head myself to pleade my case which fell on deafs ears. It just taught me to be more resilient and another lesson on why life isn't fair. Learn, accept and move on.

And yet schools give awards for being much worse than average.

As I've said above, my experience is in the secondary sector. I recall the anger among staff when we found out that the school Behaviour Support Base had installed a Wii, solely for the use of children referred to Behaviour Support.

Yes, staff protested to no avail.

As I said in a pp, we had an older pupil advising juniors on how to misbehave in order to maximise their rewards.

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not talking about children who were on the spectrum or who had other specific difficulties.

The school was in a catchment where there were "mass indicators of deprivation". In fact, when the pupils who had figured out how to play the system kicked off the children who suffered were those who came from "bad backgrounds" but used school as a safe place.

I've seen a lot on MN about children with ASD having meltdowns, etc. Yes, that happens - but I've known even more children with ASD who need calm and safe boundaries. What happens to them when the needs of the noisy few are the focus?

Thankfully, when the the Principal Teacher of B.S. retired and was replaced the first thing that the new PT did was to lock up the Wii.

Children aren't stupid. They could all see what had been going on. I've no doubt that the original PT sold the Wii idea to the HT as "It'll give the children time to decompress." What it actually did was give children an incentive to cause mayhem elsewhere so that they could access the Wii instead of doing their schoolwork.

Ditto all the other rewards that they were given.

As I mentioned above, one of my pupils confronted the PT of B.S. about this, dismissing the PT's protest that rewards were for being "good" with "Aye, but ye've got to be bad first!"

My very quiet, well behaved, average performing 10 year old never gets a thing, never gets noticed. Yet the child who behaves badly gets an award for not hitting anyone this week (yet then goes on to hit someone after being given the award). It’s really knocked my DD’s confidence as it happens time and time again.

It’s how it’s always been sadly. Just as it is in the workplace.

I agree. Mine has gone seven years without once having his name on the board (for bad behaviour) but has never once had an award.

He is desperately shy and struggles with speaking in front of anyone but this year he has achieved it in their special assemblies etc. I really thought given how hard he's tried and that everyone knew what a massive effort it was for him to do so that this time he'd get something.

Nope, all the kids who are the biggest pains in the arse were rewarded.

I'm just hoping that never having been a big fish will help him when he is just a number at secondary. Those who have been the primary stars have seemed to struggle more going from a very small rural school to a large secondary.

Edited to say these are general awards and not for academic achievement. I don't expect those but the 'being a good role model ' type.

Well that is and always has been the problem with a rewards based system. They don't give awards for being average.

This may change, with time.

Dd was near the top of her class in everything, but not the very top. She worked hard, was never in any sort of trouble, very good attendance, kind helpful etc.

I still feel a bit tearful when I remember her saying, in about yr1 or 2, 'However hard I try, it's just never good enough " when she got to the end of the year with no "star of the week award"
(remember there were 30 children in her class and 39 weeks of school, so there's no reason the teacher could not have arranged it for her to get one, just once)

However, she is just about to complete her teacher training now, and will be a primary teacher next year.
She still remembers how she felt, so this is one thing she will make sure she never makes anyone else feel.

I’m sorry about that- sounds like the school handled it incredibly badly. But to repeat, I was saying how I handled it with my own children when they questioned why a peer got an award and they didn’t. It was a good message for them to learn that they were luckier and more privileged than many others.

I am not sure they do.

School knew my son was dealing with horrendously difficult stuff with his dad but because he was one of the good quiet children he was very much left to get on with things.

And school know my daughter has really severe dyslexia but again because she works very hard to compensate and because she is always well behaved again they never recognise her effort. It's apparently very common for girls with dyslexia to work incredibly hard and be "extra good". But these aren't girls who are breezing through school.

School aware their dad has been abusive and also goes away for months at a time.

I do everything I can for them at home but the idea they have it easy and that is why they are well behaved is frankly unfair and over simplistic.

I do understand this. I was talking about how I managed those situation with my own children. I am assuming that the school will usually understand about the background of the children and take it into consideration when dishing out gongs.

Once again you show a complete inability to understand that badly behaved children can have lovely home lives and well behaved children can have really really tough lives outside school. Not all well behaved children have loving and attentive parents. Some children respond to trauma by being quiet and good.

It's illuminating how poorly understood this is

i was very clear to my lucky, privileged, clever, well behaved children that some children had it much harder than they did, and were much more in need of the certificates and so on. Our children got rewards from us, but understood that usually, school rewards should go to children who had much harder lives than they did. And in some cases didn’t get recognition from home.

I work in a school. I’d love to spend more time supporting and praising the middle kids but the reality is TAs have to support the disruptive and violent kids so that the teacher can actually get on with teaching!

We have a number of pupils across the school who would benefit from being at another school or placement but either there isn’t a suitable place for them elsewhere or the parents want them to come to us as they came here 🤷🏼‍♀️ utterly batshit parenting

All staff at our school are trying their best to support every child and their varying needs but there’s only so many hours in the day and money in the budget.

The best system that I saw was one where juniors could gain a end-of-year certificate for effort.

Our then HT couldn't believe the difference that it made to the kids: one certificate where all the subjects where the teacher was praising them for effort were listed.

Hardly cost the school anything and made such an impact.

Unfortunately, when that HT retired, the next one couldn't see the value in it.

Schools are letting good kids down by rewarding bad kids.

It's staggeringly odd that some (I assume) teachers are responding to this by saying "yes we know it rewards the wrong behaviours but it's down to parents to counterbalance our poor reward schemes)

Of course I made it clear to my children that hard work provides its own rewards, that I am proud of how they behave. And they do heaps of extra curriculars where they are valued.

But the point is that in having those conversations and noticing these things they (and I) lose a bit of respect for their teachers .

Furthermore, this is about how they feel during the day, when they are part of the school community. They should be made to feel they matter then too. School should understand that this is their world for 6 hours a day.

And of course, many lovely well behaved children have horrible home environments. Behaving badly is just one response to a difficult life. My children have both been through a lot both with their health and with a dad (my ex) who is either absent or abusive. Yet they behaved impeccably at school, were kind to friends, worked hard. The idea that the well behaved child doesn't need praise because they will get it at home is monstrously flawed.

I can hear your frustration. My youngest sounds similar to your dd2, junior school was a long slog. Awards and all, and I mean all special opportunities from year 4 went to the same 2-3 girls in her class, it was ridiculous as they weren't even the sporty or talented, they really weren't but they were outwardly confident and extroverted, admittedly they were also well behaved but so was my dc2.

It is so much better in secondary. I don't know what has changed but she is getting plenty of opportunities to shine now, I just think there are more opportunities for everyone, more clubs and activities and children find what they enjoy and are good at.

Time at junior school can be boring and annoying in that respect and kind of tribal. It also often matter who the parents are, how vocal or how much they are involved with school.

However I refused to let this unfairness define my dc2 and tried to use her experience as a way to keep doing her personal best despite a lack of external validation, and it really worked.

Once they tried out for a one off athletics competition in year 5, my dd beat the girl who used to get chosen for everything (sport, music, drama, art, eco councillor, class rep..........) in all the activities and the teacher still chose the other girl for the occasion. The rigged team subsequently lost in the actual competition against other schools, which I must admit amused me. I always encouraged my dc to do their personal best.

Help your dd to do the best she can at SATS, if she is good at doing her homework and a bit extra, she'll ace them. And work towards things outside of school. I highly recommend brownies and guides. It's amazing.

As an ex teacher, I would have preferred that the awards/ certificates were given to the best behaved children and those who put in the most effort. However, it wasn't up to the teachers, it was the Head who declared who they were to reward.
I always explained this to my class and introduced mini day to day reward systems for the rest.

My child’s school did what was called ‘Good News Week’. Every Friday in whole school assembly any child in good news week would receive a certificate. The difference is it wasn’t just for behaviour or accomplishments in school. We had ‘being kind at a sleepover’, ‘sharing the football at playtime’, ‘trying with his spellings’, ‘being patient with her newborn sister’, my kid got one for ‘walking Scafell pike at the weekend for charity’! Parents, kids and teachers could nominate a child for a Good News award and at some point the majority of the kids received one for some reason or another.

You sound very angry and if you foster this attitude with your dc, it might cause issues later down the line.

Schools make such a big thing of these and a Y5 kid who works hard every day and sees the awards continuously go to those who don’t is entitled to be upset.

The school don't owe your dd or anyone an award though. Your dd missed out, she'll get over it.

It's as if you think working hard must be rewarded. Working hard is a choice and if she continues, she'll do well, especially with SATS next year when she'll see that working diligently gets results and she can celebrate getting excellent marks in SATS with all the work she is putting in. It will be her time to shine.

Tell her you are proud of her brilliant work ethic.

This happened with my child too. I remember my child reaching about 10 after getting no recognition despite being just like your child and she said to me “what’s the point in being good? If I go in and be naughty then they will notice me and then when I’m good again I might get the reward”. It’s heartbreaking.

Unfortunately it’s what it’s like in modern society when you think about it. The average good people quietly doing good things go unnoticed, but the bad people who suddenly (often temporarily) reform their behaviour get treated like they deserve a saint hood for turning things around.

Op write in kindly and ask if there is anything they can do ( which if course they can because running out a little certificate isn't hard