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

Many of them are.

And this also annoys me, when badly behaved children who are clever get awards!

Its different at our school.

They have favourite families. The HT awards are listed in the regular letter home and there are a few families whose siblings come up time and time again. Its not all bright kids although a few are. My friends daughter has had one (or more!) every year for the past 4 years, DS has never had one. His teachers tell me he's kind, polite, hard working and well behaved, his reports are lovely. But they don't seem to notice him for recognition.

I agree. I’m a primary school teacher and cringe when colleagues give big awards to badly behaved children. Yes they might have worked hard on behaviour and/or got difficult home lives but to the quiet, steady children it looks like they’re getting rewarded for bad behaviour. One year a colleague became emotional during a speech about what an amazing year a child had had, despite causing so much disruption and upset, he’d ‘tried’. Meanwhile, the ones who got on got no such speech.
I try and pick those middle children for awards.

Yep - the poorly behaved kids get rewards for the one time they behave well and the kids that behave well all the time go unnoticed. It's terrible.

It does seem unfair but I think generally awards are given to children that need motivating.

What a horrible post. Neurodivergent kids who find life harder are “little shites”. Nice.

Why not call it that then? A managing behaviour award or something similar. Why call it a HT award?

OP I did lots of long term supply (secondary) and as you can imagine when you first turn up at a school all the 'characters' play up because you are 'only supply'

I took to calling parents to say, "I know your DC didn't get the attention they deserved but I'm working on the behaviour of others, I do notice DC and I appreciate them working"

One college I worked at did a 'postcard home', anyone in the department could nominate a student and then the postcard was sent through the post.

It was a good system, it was up tot he student whether they told someone or not, unfortunately the cost of postage now probably means they have dropped it.

Positive discrimination is a thing and it's rubbish. I agree if a kid is badly behaved 90% of the time and good 10% they should be punished not rewarded for the 10%. Praised when they are good, yes but not rewarded to the detriment of the kid who has tried really hard all year to be good. It might not have been easy for the good kid either. My son was a middle of the road child, well behaved, well liked and didn't get anything in primary. The naughty kids however got to spend Friday afternoon in forest school. I know of one who started to be naughty so they could go to!
It's different in his high school thankfully, the naughty kids get punished and don't get the good stuff whilst the good kids get recognised as they deserve to.

I'll never forget a lovely teacher who saw that I'd tried so hard for the Year Prize all year (which went to the top acheiving student - always the same boy after I won it in reception - he was better at Maths than me) and made up her own "class prize" and gave me a book of cat poems, which I still have 40 years on.

Agree it’s rubbish.

Told this story before but it cracks me up. My extremely grand friend had the same when her lovely quiet lad came out sad that once again a little tyke had got star of the week and he never did. She said briskly “we don’t need external validation in our family darling” 😀

Our kids' primary had a dinnerladies award for polite behaviour. I think it's really useful to have a range of awards that recognise different skill sets and getting different staff around the school to award them is the best way to do that because they see different aspects of the kids.

^This
I agree with you OP.

The excuses for why children that follow rules and try hard but aren't brilliant shouldn't be recognised is really depressing on this thread, especially from those that educate children.
I'm leaving this thread. But you know what, all those hard working but not brilliant children who behave themselves and dont disrupt other children but don't get any recognition from the education system will be the ones that keep society functioning. All those that got a certificate for being quiet for 15 minutes, wont.
.

I have supported teachers and the education system for 30 years but I am seriously wondering if I was taken for an idiot by your posts.

As a teacher do you not understand it is about a perceptipn of fairness from the child. You say it is about parents managing expectations of their child.
I'm going to be clear to you as a teacher, from a parent of a number of children who all are high achievers.
If a child spends 14 years in classes doing what they should do and trying as hard as they can and sees that the only peer in that 14 years that is recognised in their peer group is someone who doesn't abide by the rules or achieve anything, then what their parents say about how good they are, if they actually do say, will have minimal impact.
Plenty of average achievement children don't have home validation. Have you thought about that.

It is unfair, but without smaller class sizes or more staff it is unavoidable.

In fact it is actually optimal.

The teachers job isn't to be fair, it's to give a whole diverse class the best outcomes. If they don't have the resources to deal perfectly with every student, then they have to allocate those resources (time, energy, attention) to where they are most effective at keeping the class on track. That inevitably ends up as the top and bottom students. If they don't give more resources to the bottom, the whole class is disrupted. For the best students, they get more resources because they are often used as examples or almost learning aids for other students. They also get rewards to try and motivate other students to emulate them.

You can try and talk to the teacher, and it will probably help a little. But the reality is that the teacher is likely already doing what they need to do, to best balance a whole class of different levels and interests.

Personally, if you know your child is like this, I wouldn't let her rely on being noticed. Give her treats yourself for doing well, and maybe get her into smaller clubs and classes outside of school where it will be easier for her to get recognition from teachers.

@coolbreezes there were no assumptions made. It was an example of a conversation that could take place in order for the OP to help their child understand the disappointment of not receiving a certificate.

And there are no 'excuses' for poor behaviour. However, in order to understand human nature and child development it's important to acknowledge the varying elements physical, social, etc that contribute to behaviours seen in our young people.

Naughty kids should be punished, not rewarded. As it is now many of them grow up be thugs.

I've experienced both sides of this. DS has some behavioural issues, was often in trouble at primary school for fighting or general disruption, but he's also academically gifted. He was forever winning writer of the month/mathematician of the month, whatever, as well as star of the week and head teacher awards for "improved behaviour".

DD, bright but not standout, always well behaved, polite and conscientious, was pretty much ignored. Towards the end of Y3 I actually contacted the teacher to basically say, look, she's a great kid but she never wins anything and she's started to be really upset by it, especially as it hasn't escaped her attention that the most disruptive kids win stuff. She was given star of the week for "always trying her best" the following week, which appeased her somewhat.

This year (y4) she has a teacher who's new to the school. At the first parents' evening, in October, the teacher actually said to me unprompted, she's a really lovely girl, hard working, helpful, cheerful, kind, and that children like her often slip under the radar but she'd endure that didn't happen with her. And sure enough, it hasn't. This year she's received several awards and been given extra responsibilities (e.g. currently she's helping year 1 learn their song and dance for the end of year concert). She's come on leaps and bounds academically this year and her self esteem has never been higher. All thanks to her lovely teacher.

I'm a retired Scottish secondary school PTC/Faculty Head.

Some of my pupils (God bless them) confronted the Principal Teacher of Behaviour Support over the fact that one of the school bad boys had been telling first years to misbehave so that they could get treats and rewards.

"No, no! You've got that wrong! You only get the rewards for being good!"

"Aye, but ye've got to be bad first, haven't you?"

It’s an assumption that she’s found it easy though. Working hard all year, calmly getting on with things may have taken a great deal of effort. Especially if she’s been sat next to disruptive children or classroom very nosy and chaotic.

At our school we used to have meetings about “grey children” and ensuring they were recognised

It seems somewhat unfair to assume well behaved children finding being good easy

There are a lot of assumptions made about these children

And a lot of excuses made for the badly behaved ones

I totally agree with you and I’m an ex teacher! Average well behaved children often get overlooked in a class where there are a high proportion of kids with behaviour issues. So many teachers give the reward to little Johnny because he hasn’t told someone to fuck off for 2 days. Little Johnny accepts his award on a Friday and is back to swearing at everyone again by Monday. ‘Catch them being good’ was peddled out when I trained but it’s utter bollocks.

@CathyBlowsBubbles That's great that one of your children is academic and gets certificates or recognition for it. I'm really sorry that your other child isn't the same and you find their differences difficult to mange. That's not the school's issue though, is it? That's about sibling rivalry and comparison between your children and how to handle their brilliant but diverse personalities and nature?