Another school trip one but ...

[IanStirlingrocks]

As a parent or member of school staff what would you think of this? I'm genuinely conflicted.
Our school is very nurture based.
No issue with that at all.
We have a nurture team who take the children with challenging behaviour for 1-1 sessions.
These children got taken on a very nice school trip, soft play, bowling, lunch type thing.
This was tricky as they got taken regardless of recent behaviour so others in the class have witnessed these kids kicking, biting, swearing, calling the head teacher a cunt, you name it really. Then they got rewarded with an extra trip.
But ok, I do get why it's done.
The real stinger though is that the whole school also has Class Dojos, points you can earn and spend on prizes or treat like extra play.
2 Dojos for an excellent piece of work for example.
Every child on this "nurture" trip got awarded 100 Dojos each for "being good" on the day.
Now, I'm really committed to a nurture approach but I can't help feeling for the other kids in the class whose learning gets disrupted daily, yet they behave well. They were at school working hard and might have earned 5 or so Dojos for working hard and behaving well.
It feels unfair.
What do you think?

Yanbu. All this does is make the good kids wonder why they bother and make them behave badly too, imo.

YANBU. Yes, not everything is fair at school because different children need different approaches. So a trip like this for those kids is important.

But then for them be rewarded for said trip with another massive reward... that could have a detrimental effect on some children (confidence issues, mental health etc.). A reward for good behaviour, like 5 Dojo points, is fine. 100 just seems too much.

YANBU

We had this when my DS was at secondary, the ‘challenging’ kids got a trip to a theme park at the end of term, the well behaved kids got sweet f a.
It’s infuriating.

Completely agree that it's very unfair. I also think that when children are capable of exercising control over their own behaviour and are capable of understanding the impact of their behaviour on others, we should not shy away from calling bad behaviour bad behaviour. The term "challenging behaviour" has its place, eg in the case of a child whose behaviour is challenging because of a disability or health condition that they cannot be expected to control. But children do sometimes choose to behave in a way that they know is wrong. I think the notion that there is no such thing as "bad" behaviour on the part of children is misconceived, and does children no favours in the long run.

@CourtneeLuv are you suggesting that the children with challenging behaviours are not good kids? Perhaps their behaviour is due to a cognitive disorder or similar and to suggest that they are merely bad kids is both discriminative and unkind.
just a reminder that to parent a child with challenging behaviour every day is not a task that many adults would want and these children have and will continue to have less opportunities than kids with no challenging behaviours, right through life.
A little more kindness is needed,

YANBU. By all means find a way of rewarding good behaviour for those for have extra challenges, but it needs to be a different system. We took our DCs out of state school after naughty children not only dominated the teacher's time throughout the year but also 'won' at the end of the year. Just part of a the bigger picture of why we did, and it all goes against having a decent work ethic. These were not children with ECHPs, so I am not being discriminatory. Those with ECHPs often win though as more staff are giving rewards for little things though and it isn't fair, not to them or to others. They should have different systems to recognise different achievements.

I see where you're coming from and know the comment wasn't actually directed at me but actually I think (certainly in our case) the kids are given a lot of kindness and understanding and the parents a lot of support. I don't disagree that this is needed. Maybe good and bad as descriptors of kids are unhelpful.
But... there are quiet, helpful, hardworking children in the classes who actually end up getting a lot less in class and are often just as much "in need" only their need shows itself differently.
It is a tricky one because I do understand why we do this sort of thing but still can't help but feel that the balance tips in favour of the children who cause the most problems.

Thanks for your replies everybody, it's very difficult to balance everybody's needs I know that which makes it a contentious issue whichever side of the fence you're on.
As a parent of a quiet but anxious dd and also a member of staff this has niggled me today so glad to know I'm not alone anyway.

This is a real issue. My DD has SEN, but because she's quiet, tries hard, and meets the minimum academic targets, school hadn't even picked up her needs. She's in a class with a few very disruptive DCs, and she was just completely overlooked. As tough as the first lockdown was (I'm self-employed and not a key worker, so I had no work for months and months first because I wasn't allowed and then because the schools were still shut, we WOH and one of us had to be home with the DCs), I will forever be grateful for it as it was blindingly obvious to me there were issues. She was then able to return to school with a big long list of observations that they haven't been able to dismiss. BUT despite all that, she still gets very little extra from school because she isn't disruptive and does 'well enough', even if it's well below what she's capable of (as her assessments showed). A friend's DD in the same class is severely dylexic, but again quiet, well behaved, and tries hard. This also wasn't noticed by the school until the parents flagged it post-lockdown. In her case, it would have been been spotted eventually as her achievement nose-dived, but not until a couple more years were wasted as she wasn't even on their radar. I suspect my DD would just have rumbled along achieving the minimum and we would have been labelled as the kind of parents who had unreasonably high expectations of our DC's ability (it is clear when you take the time to chat to her she's bright. Her tutor came out of their first session stunned at the difference between ability and in-school achievement).

OP, the trip sounds really poorly handled and the Dojo points were a step too far. I don't agree with the trip either TBH, but at least that's on a par with the bat-shittery of end of term attendance parties for those lucky enough to not get sick or have a health issue that necessitates regular medical appointments (and it is likely a good number of non-disruptive SEN DCs will also find the attendance parties unattainable due to appointments, so will have no chance of either kind of reward). The undisruptive really do notice and feel the injustice. Things either need to be kept on the down-low or have a veneer of fairness for their sake.

Maybe the teacher didn’t understand the value of the points?

I have twins separate classes. DS always had three times the points as his sister.

Her work was always better, more details etc and he always got more reward.me.

On the plus side, whilst these kids are out of the way your kids can get on with learning their lessons, which will benefit them in the long run.

The way I see it, those dc have had many, many disadvantages. Let them have this one small advantage. It does not make up for the many ways their life of a dc who finds school a struggle is difficult.

I agree, they are not teaching the children anything by doing that. How will they cope in the outside world when they are expected to behave? (without getting rewarded)
Quiet children go under the radar in my opinion and they should be recognised more
Yes, there are children who really struggle but there has to be a balance

I would pull my DC out of a school with mixed behaviour groups like that. If there's enough resources for these trips, they can all be schooled together and not disrupt the others.

I have no problem rewarding children with challenging behaviour when it’s warranted. It’s positive if a child with challenges can turn things around.

What I do have a problem with, is the lack of acknowledgement that those who face fewer challenges perhaps, but daily do the right thing, get on with their work and are polite and friendly, get lost in the classroom and don’t rock any boats.

I speak as a former teacher, who always tried to acknowledge those who don’t make themselves heard above the louder ones. Even if it was just putting names on the whiteboard under a smiley face.

Quiet, hardworking kids are overlooked whatever their additional challenges. Girls in particular. What’s actually needed is really strong support in school for all the children. Not trips out for the minority

I agree. Your child is likely to be rewarded with a relatively stable, happy and healthy life unlikely the nurture children who are much more like to grow up in and continue in a chaotic life, reduced earning power with poor physical and mental health and die younger.

There is that argument I agree but you can praise and nurture and still allow equal access to trips
It should be open to all

Unless there is a standard way of awarding these points there will always be unfairness. One school I worked at one teacher would hand out merit points like confetti. He gave out about 20 points per lesson where others gave 2 or 3 points per lesson. The problem is some students were never taught by this teacher whilst others were taught by him 4 times a week and it was commented on that a student in his tutor group always won the top prize because he gave so many.

Dojo points for not battering your classmates are ridiculous for years ds was regularly hit abused yet rarely recognised it disheartened him he was a school refuser who sucked it up daily they got trips got to sit on the ipad all day in the lower years as "punishment" when they hot to high school it was a shock teachers said no called teacher a cunt phase 1 procedure initiated the main bully was gone before the first half term the others are still there but behaving

Primary did them no favours indulging there shit all from good backgrounds all with indulgent parents

What a crap example to set for the well behaved children. Why would any of them bother.

It amazes me that the British Isles mostly don't have schools and classes within schools differentiated by ability.
Where I grew up on the continent the entire (state) system was like that, with exams every 4 years so kids could move if warranted.
We had a president who was literally the son of a shepherd from a mountain hamlet, because the system was able to differentiate by ability rather than social circumstances.

I once briefly worked in a school where the children with severe behavioural problems were taught in a separate unit with the main body of the school. This meant that in gaining rewards they were comparing like for like, not giving one child a reward for not calling a teacher a cunt that day, while the child who never did, got nothing!