To be a bit annoyed about school awards?

[ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs]

Dd1 is in 2nd year, going into 3rd. She is an intelligent and very hard working girl. She is one of the few in her class who always completes her homework. She has come top of most of her classes in exams, getting 100% in 4 subjects and high 90s in all others. They have just had their awards announced, for which there will be a ceremony. Dd hasn't won a single award, even in the subjects she got 100% in. The awards are for "effort" and "endeavour" and have been given to children who didn't do as well as dd in the subject. She is embarrassed and upset, as all her friends have won awards.
What is going on? We realise and have explained to her that it seems to be important today to try to encourage children who haven't done as well, despite working hard. But for 13yo dd, it feels like she has worked hard and done well, and it's not something to celebrate. Why are the school so afraid to give reward to children who are very capable and achieve good results? I'm not outraged or anything, I realise that her effort and achievements will eventually be their own reward, but I'm mildly miffed that her diligence and ability are to be ignored by the school. What message is the school sending to more able pupils? You don't count?

Sorry, only read the op, but at our school they give a prize at prizegiving to the person who does best in the year in each subject but also effort prizes. Also colours for people who have contributed a lot to sports and music in matches/orchestra. Other certificates are for attendance and behaviour and when they get a certain number of merits. (Those aren't given at prizegiving.)

Sadly I have experienced this closure of the attainment gap. When dd was 7 and an avid reader her teacher at the time told me that it was important the others "catch up" and that I shouldn't let her "get ahead of herself"

So frustrating... I had experience of this. My DC were all strong readers so kept being asked to help the weaker readers. I'd have no problem with them doing that occasionally but it would end up being all the flipping time. One teacher called my DS her 'reading assistant' - she thought it was cute but I found it annoying as my kids just wanted to read on their own not help out the other kids.

Ha thought of this thread as very put out 8 year old complaining yet again tonight that as she finishes tasks early it's her job to help those who are slower. Err no thought that was the teachers job

OP, may not be relevant to your DC but research shows praising ability reduces achievement whilst praising effort increases it. By rewarding ability, you are giving the wrong message to children.

But those who do well academically will mostly have still had to put a lot of effort in. I think very few will be so naturally gifted that they don't have to revise for a test or put the time into homework etc. My son gets very good results across the board, but he works damned hard to get those results (probably too hard). The few times he's rushed his homework or forgot to revise for a test, the results have been noticeably poorer.

At DS Primary school there's a "star of the week" who gets to wear their own clothes on a Friday. When DD was there she was convinced there was some sort of rota worked out so everybody got a turn. I didn't believe her - until they gave it to a child who had left the term before!!!

Ha there so is a star of the week rota Hopping most of the kids work that out by year 3. It is difficult for schools, wanting to encourage everyone and be "fair" but in doing so they totally devalue the award system so it is essentially meaningless.

DD was when a child who was consistently appallingly behaved (he spat at DD unprovoked) was proudly named "star of the week".

It is difficult for schools, wanting to encourage everyone and be "fair" but in doing so they totally devalue the award system so it is essentially meaningless.

Agree entirely. Not worth the paper/card the certificates on written on. The kids aren't stupid, they realise very early on that they're worthless and meaningless.

Maybe the solution is to give all children a chance to put some effort in by making the work sufficiently challenging for everyone, even those who are very able? Then there wouldn't be this problem of highly able children feeling ignored and unappreciated.

There's a sort of prejudice around that says the more able will do well anyway, and so they'll get their time in the sun later, but so often that doesn't happen because it takes more resilience than most people have to be continually overlooked throughout your formative years but to keep trying and hoping that eventually they'll be allowed to do soemthing interesting at school and if they try hard at it, they'll get the sort of recognition that everyone else seems to get.

I think looking outside school for motivation and goal setting is the only way.

I am trying to think up ways of encouraging my academic child right now in out of school endeavours. Not in a area with much going on however.

Ideas welcomed at this stage!

YANBU

I've always been please the DC school have handle this type of thing generally much better than any of my schools did.

Looked back over my secondary school reports as an adult always c/d effort but 70% + in exams if not top marks in year.

I got very good GCSE results I was only invited to the congratulatory award thing because some others in my sixth form asked why I wasn't invited when I had better results than them. I was brought up not to push oneself forward - I was a mixture of mortified and please anyone though I was worth sticking up for - school claimed it was a mistake after first talking about lack of effort from me despite there being only one subject i could have got a higher mark in and that was taken early at schools insistence .

I did A-level there and had horrible time but did get to a good university - while there few things happened to lead me to getting assessed - turns out I have dyslexia - best describe as a drag on my abilities and to get past that I was putting in more hours than many of my peers and had been for years to detriment of other areas of my life.

I do get the point you're making OP. Yes, you're right she will reap the benefits of her handwork later on, but it can be a bit upsetting to see everyone else get awards if she doesn't. I wouldn't make a big deal of it, but it can be annoying.

I think that if schools are going to give awards like this, they need to give awards to high achievers too. For instance, not everyone who does well is confident and these awards can help them just as much as those who work really hard but don't achieve as highly.

I was the child who always worked hard, did well and was very rarely got awards. There was one point, as a younger child, where I got quite upset that no matter how well I did, even though I was well behaved etc, that I didn't get any of the awards for effort or achievement while most of my friends did. I felt overlooked and at one point worried that this meant the teacher didn't think I worked hard/didn't like me. Looking back, of course it was silly (think this was last year in primary school) and as I got a bit older and more confident, I recognised that I was doing all this handwork for myself and so it didn't bother me- but at the time it did. My parents reassured me and didn't feed into my worries. I'd say that's what you should do too.

There's a sort of prejudice around that says the more able will do well anyway

Which is the reason why many people criticise the comp system for not properly stretching and developing their more able students. It's the assumption that "they'll do well anyway", so the school concentrates more on the border line pupils.

That means the "more able" students will probably get Bs or As, but could have done even better, maybe more A/A*s, or maybe they could have taken more challenging exams (in a different environment) that their "bog standard comp" doesn't offer.

Maybe, though, those "more able" students will feel disenfranchised, bored, "the forgotten minority", fall by the wayside and not get good grades after all???

That was the point I was trying to make @Badbadbunny, but you said it better.

The message I try to give my DDs is that working hard is about setting goals and achieving them for yourself and not about pleasing others. Working hard at school to just to please your teachers or parents is not going to be fulfilling if you don't always get the certificate or recognition expected. However, there is far greater personal satisfaction from having personal goals and achieving something that you've set your mind to and worked hard towards.

This is an important life lesson because outside school you need to be self motivated to succeed and there are no certificates for just getting on with your job.

It can be emotionally difficult and demotivating to be top of the class.

There is no way to demonstrate that you're improving, if you always get top marks. If you always get 100% or close, you never actually know how well you're doing because the test doesn't discriminate finely enough at your level; you just top out. Therefore it can feel like there's no point trying any harder to do the very best you can, because a lesser effort will get you exactly the same mark. You don't get to see the progress you're making.

One of the other things that's difficult to deal with is that if you're always top, always get 95+%, or always get an A+, the motivation to try hard is not so you can be proud of a good mark, but to avoid the embarrassment/disappointment of getting a bad mark. You're trying hard out of fear of failure, which is a bad life lesson.

DD & her mates fire their grades at each other in banter. Definitely not demotivated.

My 8 year old has already given up hope of being recognised for good behaviour/hard work/good marks as he already noticed his achievements seem to get ignored as there is always a "naughty" kid who behaves for 5 minutes and then gets the reward/attention

It's quite sad really

I agree, it is a bit sad. I was one of those kids who did well academically but ended up underconfident because it was the sporty kids that seemed to count, and this was at a private school where it was all about achievement!
On the opposite side dd2 who is 11 and in her last year of primary is a really lovely singer, and has spent the last 7 years desperate for one of the singing parts in school plays. It always goes to the same girl, so until this year dd2 had believed she is a rubbish singer Finally this year there was a contest which was judged out with the school and she won!! (over the usual girl). It boosted her confidence no end and the school seemed really surprised at how well she could sing- she'd just never been given the chance!
It just really seems like there is one rule for the academic side and another for the talent/sports side. It feels really incongruous.