Kids having to rank their LEAST favourite classmates?

What an awful thing to make them do.

Thank you for this! A teacher did this with my class when I was in grade five (a loooooong time ago) and I always wondered what it was about. I admit at the time I didn’t like the idea of it and didn’t understand why we were doing it. That said, the teacher who did it was the best primary school teacher I ever had and I did better in her class than any other.

Look at the post you’ve quoted. She’s not going to complain, she’s going to ask. You’ve extrapolated that it’s this Dreikurs stuff, but what you’ve described sounds like a whole series of well thought out questions, and OP, and you, don’t know whether that’s what’s been done. So steady on with the ‘I’ve just told you’ and pretty much ordering OP not to complain when she’s not suggested complaining.

Just wow!!!

My son is autistic. He is the loveliest, kindest child you could ever meet. But when he isn’t around me he totally lacks the confidence to speak. Meaning he has no friends despite really wanting one. If this exercise was carried out in his class it would be so upsetting for him and me. Not appropriate at all.

I used to teach and I’ve never heard of this method. Is it an older method? After a few weeks I think most teachers would sort of know their classroom set up and who likes who.
As a parent, I feel I know who likes who and who hates who from my daughter 😂.

This feels like a really bad idea from the school. I don't even really like the idea of children 'ranking' their favourite classmates, let alone their least favourite. I would have thought most Primary class teachers (although admittedly maybe less so at this point in the year) would have a good idea of who gets along, and who does not.

I would contact the school and ask about this activity, explain what your daughter has said and ask if she had misunderstood what was expected. If they confirm it happened as your daughter reported, I would ask why she was asked to do it, why it was felt appropriate.

Are you sure "play with least" hasn't morphed in to "least like to play with"

I can tell you this by looking at the class and teaching them for a week, using my eyes and seeing hoiw they interact, without having kids write anything.

It's simply true.

If one child is disliked by ALL or the majority of others there will be a reason why. And the ADHD is every other kid now so won't be a thing

what an awful thing to say. They may just be a little different. I was not popular in primary school because I had adhd. Was a perfectly kind child.

@MagicUser1

And I heard via the grapevine that many of the children had put this boy's name down as a child they did not want to be in class with

I would say that the grapevine spreading the results of a named child is an excellent example of why formalising and documenting this pseudoscience activity is a bad idea.

Lots of high schools will ask children who their friends are when starting and aim to ensure at least one friendly face in their class at high school. Many will also discreetly check for difficult relationships via their connection with the primary school. That is enough.

If its going to be turned into anything claiming scientific backing then the evidence needs to be presented.

It's an absolutely terrible idea for the many reasons stated above.

I remember vividly a similar incident in my own school days. Whatever the teacher's motivation may have been (and knowing the teacher, I have to assume her intentions were not positive), it was a disaster. All the children discussed their rankings, and they became yet another way to bully and exclude certain classmates. That year remains etched in my brain as horrendous from beginning to end. I wasn't even the target of bullying, but it was awful to witness and I felt powerless to stand up for others (and felt like a coward because I didn't speak up).

Anyway, those are the sort of consequences that can result from such an exercise with children in primary school.

Awful! I’d certainly be having Words with the teacher!

Plenty of children will fall in the middle ground here and not get a mention at all because they are just not noticed by their peers, especially if the class numbers are weighted towards one sex. A good teacher should be able to spot the class dynamics without asking children to do this task and a lot of the children will bring their reputation with them anyway through staff room talk. It may have justifications just before they go to secondary school if the majority are moving en masse to the same school.

I have used this when classes are to be mixed up - but DCs only have to give 3 names they would like to be in the same class with.

Way back in the 60s at a girls' grammar we had to opt who to be with in VIth form.

Poor practice from the teacher.

I've used sociograms (or similar) but only with the positive question (which kids do you like) not with a negative question (which do you dislike).

it is certainly useful as a tool for teachers / researchers to get an idea of the dynamics of a classroom, but there are definitely risks too.

I don’t think it is very nice

Wow some teachers really are child hating bastards

I can see why this information would be useful to a teacher, but you’d have hoped there would be a way to find out more discreetly and in a way less likely to prompt playground chatter.

NRTFT but in early September 2020 when schools were reopening, in my secondary school students had to have set places to sit in the tutor room. All years were in bubbles, so they were confined to one section of the school site and teachers moved round the rooms, rather than the usual students going to specialist classrooms.

I put a message on our tutor group's Team asking them to message me with the names of 2 or 3 students they would be happy to be paired with, and the names of anyone they would find difficult to be with. I didn't necessarily want reasons but there were a couple of tricky characters in there. Given that they would be spending 4 - 5 hours per day sitting next to the same person, it made sense. The messages were entirely private and I promised that I would not share what anyone wrote and would do my best to accommodate all the requests received by the deadline. The results were interesting and fairly predictable in terms of who people thought were easy-going or kind.

Those students left school in July 2026 and pleasingly, a lot of the friendships endured. I did say to them that one day we'd all look back on 2020 and 2021 and reminisce about how strange it was, and at the Leavers' Party, we certainly did.

Sorry to make this about me BUT (!), when I was in year 7 our form tutor had us all write confidential positive and negative feedback for all our classmates.

24 years later and I still have a piece of paper somewhere with the 25 negative things about me my classmates had written. Batshit!

While I instinctively don't like the idea, in reality, I don't think this is entirely the worst idea - although it does need to be managed properly. And whether or not this is done by the teachers, trust me, the children are routinely announcing to anyone who will listen that they don' tlike person x or they won't be friends with them.

But as has been said here, I can see how it allows children who don't always feel they have a voice, to speak up. And in the irritating "be kind" mindset, perhaps it makes teachers think about why they're encouraging Child A to hang out with Child B when Child A doesn't want to. There was a boy in DD's class at primary who was very difficult. his mother thinks that DD is "toxic" because she refuses to play with him and she refuses to engage with him when they play online games together. The reality is that this child has hounded her, practically stalked her, has been in her space endlessly and the school refuses to see it as anything except him trying to be friends. So yes, if she was asked who she would want to NOT be next to, she'd put his name down and I'd support that and if the school or the parents have an issue with that, I'll happily show them the endless spam message (and yes, I've talked to the teacher and yes, I've attempted to manage it but it kept getting dismissed).

One of our local high schools does this for incoming year 7s. And I heard via the grapevine that many of the children had put this boy's name down as a child they did not want to be in class with. I feel bad for him but I really hope that the high school will see this and identify that thisis a child who struggles with friendships and perhaps try to help him.

Writing down the name/number of any child like that, either "most like to play with" or "least like to play with" is barbaric.

Same thing at this age, surely?