For hating school behaviour charts ?

[angrymumma]

My DS is in Y6.
His self esteem is rock bottom because of the new reward chart introduced by school ?
He's bottom of the entire class.
I don't pretend my boy is a perfect pupil. He's not. He's a 10 year old that's trying his best to navigate his faults. He's naturally fidgety. He is a July baby so one of the youngest. He has a very active mind that's engaged by practical interactions but SATS we are already getting tests after tests and a normally very happy boy feels in adequate less than half a term in.
Some kids are running round finding jobs to collect these 'rewards' to move them up the class rankings. I'm not bothered about him being bottom of the class. I know him and his work ethos. I'm the first one to admit he's not perfect but he's certainly not a rebel! I'm hurting for him :( you can collect them for extra homework but he already has SATS books, reading to complete, I have a 10 part project as extra which he's too tired to do so I'm not forcing him and this would get him extra points! As well as footy and friends/chill out to fit in for his mental breaks from education.

He's not naughty, he's polite & caring, hardworking but not fast. His mind is often away with the fairies but that's him. He's always been like this but he's top group for main subjects, surely it should be about getting him engaged and not making him feel so low by non recognition for not being fast or first, I fully appreciate teachers and the stress they are under for behaviour and results. I have lots of teacher friends. It's like he's not a person anymore, instead its competing 20 Y6's who's best. From cleaning up class rooms to test results and everything in between !
I always say just try your best! That's all I ask but he is and he's still bottom!
He never gets star of the week. Awards etc the dinner ladies love him gets loads of dinner awards for being polite/helping etc.

We used to have such a simple personal reward system now everything's so public and open.

Is it just me that doesn't like it?
Definitely having a word with school as he said he just doesn't feel good enough. He's shutting down, even the teacher contacted to say he's not trying this week. After a heart to heart this is the reason!
I've noticed he was getting really angry at home too. Luckily I've got parents evening soon and a fantastic open door policy so can raise the question !

Sorry for long post. Always scared of negativity of opinions so bit worried about posting ! ( I suffer anxiety so don't need to feel like a shit parent on top 😂) I think I over think things but I hate seeing him upset!

Dd's form teacher at secondary showed them a "league table" of how many merits, detentions and behaviour points each child had had that term. She only did it the once though, so I'm not sure if anyone complained about it. She is quite proactive about their behaviour generally though which is a good thing.

Pengggwn
I sometimes think people forget that when you have 32 children in a room what someone's idea of fidgeting is can actually be quite disruptive.
E.g. if i say I everyone to face the front and Timmy chooses not to face the front bevause he would rather sit otherwise and fidget then I have to repeat the instruction which disrupts. If Charlotte is too busy tapping a pencil that she doesn't watch my model then not only does she make it hard for others to learn, in 5 mins time she will be saying 'i don't get it!'

I put it this way, how annoying must it be for a student who is settled and trying to work to have a student next to them rocking the desk, tapping pencils, clicking pens, shouting 'Mrs pops!' to get my attention (whilst twisting side to side and straining with their hands in the air)?

Your son is one of 32 children in the class. Your attitude is concerning - only tapping his pencil... he's in year 6, his behaviour is not acceptable. Have you thought about home education or something? I'm not sure you understand how classrooms of 32 work.

How would the teachers feel if they were publicly ranked in order of top to bottom for all to see? Bet they wouldn't be too keen on that and it doesn't feel any different when you're 10 years old either.

It sounds though as if there are lots of chances for pupils to earn points in differnet contexts rather than it just being about one aspect which is good and keeps it much more open to all.

As long as the teacher takes into consideration each pupils ability then I don’t see an issue.

In my dds class they have 2 systems. For behaviour they have clouds they have thunder cloud for being naughty, rain cloud for been naughty but overly naughty, sunshine for being good and rainbow for being super good. My dd is usually on the sun or the rain cloud. They have to move their name down for sometimes silly reasons though.
They have a dojo system for rewards. They are aliens that they have to collect 10 of for doing different things. When they collect 10 they get to go to school in their own clothes for the day.
It works but 1 of the dojos is silly. You get this dojo for telling the teacher about things which has obviously lead to all the kids tittle tattling on each other constantly! How teachers deal with that I don't know

Iactually like that the often-ignored quiet well behaved ones get acknowledged.
Your DS's behaviour is worst of everyone in the class week after week! The solution to this 'problem' is in his own hands

toomanykidstocount
I know many schools that rank subjects by results on the first inset day back.

To me, if it's a rank one above the other then I wpuldn't have that in my classroom.

If it's what I see more commonly in primary where there are 4 zones children can be in and they move up/down the zones then fine.

I think it is worth discussing the behaviour chart with the teacher but the primary issue should be discussing DC's behaviour. I find it very difficult to believe that all other 30 children are only higher because they do endless jobs (whereas he does jobs that aren't recognised). What school has enough jobs for a class to do like that?

Op says it is a very small school, so if there are only say 10 year 6 it would be possible for 9 to grab and live "doing jobs" and her son to be bottom without being actually naughty or disruptive. Or he could be really irritating! If the school are good and approachable it should be easy to sort out. Good luck today op.

I hate, hate,hate, those stupid leagues/reward charts/behaviour dojo yokes(or whatever they’re called) with a passion. Such a waste of my time and energy (as a teacher). A lot of my younger colleagues use them though. Felt pressured one year to use that stupid sun/rainbow/cloud rubbish-NEVER AGAIN!!! Disappointed children waiting for weeks for it to be their turn on the sun(could never bring myself to put them on the raincloud!)-what is the point of it all? We didn’t have this nonsense when we were in school and we survived! Rant over!

We did! I remember star charts in 1977

He’s one of 20.
Mummy doesn’t fight his battles.
So as a teacher you think it’s ok this chart makes him feel like shit.
Because he won’t go round looking for jobs and sucking eggs at lunch time. He would rather be out with his friends. Y’know be a kid !
He’s 10. Yes I said tapping a pencil is annoying. He’s not exactly swinging from the ceiling. Why do people think children are robots.
My point is with it being publicly ranked.
Someone made a good point let’s see you get ranked. No matter what you did or felt like not get moved up.

I’ve not once said he was perfect or an angel. He’d be the top then wouldn’t making some other child feel inadequate 🙄

But the only chance to earn points isn’t by doing extra jobs so you are focusing on the wrong bit in a way. He is making the choice not to do extra bits which is fine but he needs to understand that other people have differnet priorities and some will want to earn extra that way which is equally as fine.

And I know plenty of companies who have “league charts” for employee performance!

There are 2 issues here, 1. if your son is disrupting others learning, and tapping a pencil is disruptive then he needs to find a quiet way of fidgeting that is not disturbing others (blue tack in the pocket is good if the teacher allows it)

1. The behaviour chart I agree with what others have said, they are a way of humiliating the children who find it difficult to behave and a way of threatening the 'good' children; why would anyone want children to feel humiliated or threatened? There are ways of dealing with behaviour that are more positive than this but when you work in a school that uses such a system it is very difficult not to use it. I have recently attended training that partly addressed school reward charts and am trying to change my practice accordingly but years of using charts to reward and punish is a habit that is hard to break.

It’s his timing. Last year they caught him up on handwriting. But he’s slower. So he misses the points for being fast/on time etc as he takes care trying to write correctly. As I said not first or fast.

Thing is, your posts are full of negativity about behaviour charts, the kids 'running around' to get points, behaving like 'teacher's pets', and the one chance you've got to get to personally engage him with the rewards system at home, you've already sacked off because it's too much work and he needs to 'chill out'. You're excusing poor behaviour because he's young or fidgety or 'no angel'. And your response to when his lack of effort is picked up by the school is to want to bin the reward chart completely, even if other kids are engaging with it and it's helping with positive behaviour.

You don't care about the chart. You don't care about the rewards. Your DS has followed suit with the lack of engagement, but the problem is that he does care about the lack of reward. So why not encourage him to do any of the easily achievable tasks that would make an impact on his total?

So you need to talk to the teacher about why he isn’t finishing the work - is it as you think that he is just trying too hard for quaity and as such not getting it done (which in itself needs looking at as it’s got to be a balance), is the amount expected unfair or is some of the problem he isn’t concentra Hence not getting it done?

Don’t go in angry or kicking off, have a quiet word with the class teacher about the fact your concerned he isn’t getting his work finished.

Your son having a July birthday is significant. There was an interesting series on the attainment difference between summer born and autumn born children recently on radio 4 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b095c2vq

Year 6 is a horrible school year because of the SATS pressure, and the constant coaching and practice for tests that even teachers know are pointless. It destroyed DS1's joy in learning, and nearly did the same to DS2. Luckily DS2 has rediscovered it in secondary school.

I hate those charts! My DS is in Yr 2 and thankfully his teacher this year believes that the children should behave without a cloud/rainbow/sunshine. But we had them for the previous two years and he often came home saying he had been a good boy but still hadn't got on the star/sun or whatever it was.

He used to ask me why and in my head I'd say 'because they were trying to motivate the naughty one or it wasn't someone else's turn' but I didn't have a good answer to share with him. In reception he'd be told he'd move up the chart but then the teacher would forget but of course DS didn't - and again, asked me why he hadn't been a star that week or Mr X hasn't given him a point

I get these things work for some kids but not for all and in our case like OPs, it caused constant disappointment and self esteem damage. To work properly in their most basic form, teachers have to be 100% consistent and have the memory of an elephant but that's just not practical when you are managing a class and trying to teach is it?

And of course, my middle-of-the-road DS didn't get much positive or negative attention. More often than not, it was the disruptive kid who got the badges/stickers/certificates thereby sending the message to the kids who were well behaved most of the time weren't worth noting or rewarding. And that is impossible to explain to small children who want to please.

At 10, we worked out how to game the house point system and those who CBA to do it got to the top and those who couldn't, stayed at the bottom and didn't give a shit about it.

If it means anything to him, he'll game the system like the other teachers' pets.

(These systems are totally crap and counterproductive but I don't imagine he'll suffer any lasting harm once he sees how stupid it all is)