Reading results out in class, AIBU?

[Supercala123]

My 15 year old dreads lessons where they read test results out in class, to the point where she almost refuses to go in on days when she knows this is happening.
For balance my daughter gets very low results in some subjects and top results in others but she equally dreads this happening in all lessons. She says people laugh at her if it’s a low result and she feels embarrassed if it’s a good result. She says she just wants to get on and doesn’t understand why this has to happen in school.
Am I being ‘that parent’ if I gently raise this to School??

Pricklyball, that makes me feel so sad for your son. So much effort. Poor thing.

When I was at university in France more than 20 years ago I remember being surprised that results were posted on the board. They had been almost a secret at my school. You did find out what others got of course, because the teacher's book wasn't completely covered or because you saw their paper if they were sitting next to you, but they definitely weren't shouted out. My grandmother used to ask who was 'top of the class' and I got the impression that public marks used to be very much the done thing. I thought it had finished about 30 years ago though.

"the teachers might as well stick a "kick me " label on your back for the school bullies."

Yeah, but the bullies know who the able ones are anyway.

Hermione - you are correct about her self esteem. She’s a quiet girl who doesn’t ever cause trouble. She was a sitting target for bully’s at her previous school and her self esteem is in her shoes as a result. We are working on this x

From a teacher's perspective.

Many student have absolutely no idea what the attainment levels are. They sort of assume that the best in class is an A grade student. So we have to spend time explaining and illustrating what an A grade (and all other grades) really is.

Every set of test results get shared around a class / across classes in less time than it take to blink - they all know who came top, almost before the last paper is handed back.

Over the last decade or so the idea of being successful with less than an A grade has diminished. So the student who works hard and achieves a C is discounted by many. Yet that C grade will get that student tot he next level of education - if they look in the right places, modify their expectations.

When I started teaching I was praised for the atmosphere of trust in my classes. All students knew each others attainments and goals and would happily work in pairs I set, matching strength and weaknesses as well as matched pairs. Later students would be shocked at that practice, would grumble at being asked to work in set pairs, parents would complain, Ofsted frowned upon it. Oddly attainment and student satisfaction dropped - OK, maybe not so odd.

Nowadays many parents and teachers were all taught that grades, results, goals etc are all secret, confidential. They cannot conceive of a reason for anyone else to know their business. They have no experience of valuing 'lesser' achievement, nurturing it, celebrating the individual, not the grade.

As far as I can see, and this thread confirms it no one is happier for that change, far from it!

It's crap for the able pupils too, btw. Getting your good marks announced with great fanfare week after week - the teachers might as well stick a "kick me " label on your back for the school bullies.

Yep - this has just happened to DD2. If she does well they are vile and say she's a know it all etc etc, if she does badly they gloat and call her some disgusting names. They have competitions to see who can 'beat' her. It's destroying her confidence and turning her into a very angry teen. I've just been into school to discuss the issue with her year head, who took it seriously.

Thankyou curious I appreciate a different perspective. It’s true that expectations of ‘good and bad’ results are skewed. If all classes had teachers who valued and encouraged attainment diversity I don’t think this would be a problem so I whole heartedly agree with you. I wonder if my approach to school should emphasise so I will endeavour to speak to School with this in mind.

Annderry - this sounds so much like my daughter. I hope you get this resolved and your DD is happier x

@ CauliflowerSqueeze
yes and no, the teacher had one of the cooking classes mark the other classes test/exam for her and then give her the marked tests back, but when my daughter ( and a few others) got lower marks the class had a discussion about the students who had low marks, a couple of the girls were in my daughters friendship group ( and didnt know she had a hard time with reading) found the comments in class and being told that she had a learning disability, in front of the class, and a class my daughter wasnt in, very upsetting along with the jokey comments from the other girls.
so when my daughter told me i called a couple of the and asked if what she told me was correct, they confirmed it was and i called the school to complain and started several months of trying to sort it out.
when i went to my monday night quilting group i mentioned it to the ladies and most of them had a "Mrs Nasty" story about the very same teacher, one was in a year 13 cooking class they had to bake a "cake" for an assessment the next day, one young lady said to "Mrs Nasty" "my cake isnt cook enough to pack yet can you please put it in its box for me when it is cooled", "Mrs Nasty" replied she would... the next day the young lady came into get her cake so she could present it for her assessment and couldnt find it or her cake box, she asked "Mrs Nasty" and was told she threw it out, box and all... the young lady got a 0 on her assessment

cooled not cook*
I should mention, i loved school and can only think of one teacher who i had issues with, and oddly enough we were members of the yacht club and he was always nice to me there, he was mean to my sister too
and all my sons teachers have been awesome! he loves school...
And once we got it sorted and my daughter was given permission to sit "Mrs Nasties" classes out she had no more issues with going to school, no more calling us up in tears asking us to come get her as she couldnt face going into her class room and have her glare at her and make PA comments the whole time

This has reminded me of an occasion in secondary school when my maths teacher absolutely laid into us all one lesson for having done really badly on a test. He was going on and on about how low our marks were, how disappointed he was and so on - until he suddenly said ‘Except for Coffee. She came top!’ I was already bullied and seen as a swot - this did not help.

Yanbu.

My ds has asd and LD as well as muscular difficulties. He’s a whizz at computers and maths but despite his intelligence struggles across the rest of the curriculum.

He has an EHCP.

When his old school (he left for a variety of reasons) did this it made him dispondant. He worked so so hard but was always bottom. He just never felt good enough or that the effort was worth it.

It took a lot of effort from me and current school to teach him to compare his achievements against his own previous scores so he could see he was making progress.

@Gwenhwyfar

Yeah, but the bullies know who the able ones are anyway.

So? Why give them more ammo?

I don't know why they would have to be read out in class. When I was in school you were handed your test back with your percentage mark on it. No kerfuffle about spending 20 minutes doing it. 5 minutes max to just hand back your tests. Nobody needed to know your results.

And usually, when the 5 minutes was being spent handing them out, I'd just be looking to see what I had gotten wrong. No waste of time.

Just because you're academically able doesn't mean you will be bullied either. So giving bullies 'ammo' shouldn't be an issue if bullying is nipped in the bud immediately by the school. For whatever reason they pick on you.

In university I can understand it, as they really wanted to push us (or show us how poorly we were performing in my case), but in school, it's not necessary. So many tests, all year round. Everyone knows who the smart kids are and who aren't particularly academic. Nobody needs a semi-annual reminder of it.

If you've got problems with bullies, deal with that, not remove anything you think they might use.

A lot of kids see it as unfair that you wouldn't do this. My son came home from school and asked me why he is told that they shouldn't say a word about getting A's or whatever as its unfair to kids who don't do as well. But they make a huge deal of flaunting football trophies etc and nobody cares about kids who are crap at sport?

He wants to know why doing well in school is something to be hidden as if you are ashamed of it, when it is the entire point of going to school. He's 12 and I think its a bloody good question.

FWIW I think achievements in all fields - football trophies, reading certificates, maths results, participation in science fairs, parts in plays, music - should be celebrated. But this is a very different thing from publishing lists of exam results as a pecking order.

"This student did a science project which won at an inter-school competition - we should all celebrate what they've achieved" is great thing, but a different thing (I think) from saying "This student did better than the rest of you in this exam." It's the difference between celebrating effort and achievement, versus setting it up as a competition in which some people win and some people lose, and making the people who've lost feel like failures.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that kids and their parents are realists - they know that exam results impact on future employability, they know that working on the supermarket checkout doesn't pay well, they know (because a lot of them will have parents in this situation) that without a decent wage packet coming in, life is a never-ending struggle to make ends meet.

That's why I think we often end up with teachers and parents talking past each other on these threads. The parents fail to grasp that the teacher's job is to do the best they can (with extremely limited resources) for the maximum number of students, and they do a superb job of this. The teachers get (understandably, because they have 30 sets of stroppy parents to deal with) fed up with the "but what about my little Johnny, he's perfect" attitudes, forgetting that there's an important sense in which if, as a parent, you don't put your little Johnny first, you're not doing your job properly - because if you have a sense that your child is the one falling between the cracks in order to benefit the majority, you have to try to act to make sure he/she isn't left behind.

Curry he absolutely has a point. But they aren’t exactly equal situations.

I think it’s fine to announce sports teams and trophies they won.

Same way as it’s fine to celebrate those who academically are top 3 (for eg) in a subject.

But they don’t call up the netball team and say “our team came last. They list every match and Mary missed every shot she went for”

So why advertise “Mary only got 5% in her test and was bottom of the class”

Why not? It seems only fair to me! I wish this had happened at my school.

I was scholastically an achiever but terrible at sports. Test/report results were never read out, but it was seen to be okay for one's dismal time on the 100m to be announced for everyone to hear or one's lack of skill performing the flexed arm hang.
And I had that experience of always being the last one chosen when teams were picked...

It didn't do me any lasting harm. I was crap at sports. I concentrated on things I was good at. I learned that there are many different kinds of intelligence.

There is a hell of a lot of difference between a child whose level at that time is a C, having worked reasonably well, a child who should be getting an A getting a C and a child who has really worked hard to overcome for example a stumbling block, a disability, a language gap to move up from a D to a C.

Speaking as the mother of the latter, if the C is announced in front of the class all the sense of achievement goes. If it is announced privately she is over the moon.

Speaking as a teacher, a class teacher can cater to all of these individually simply by giving marks in a private fashion.

It is not just about different kinds of intelligence or skill. It´s about where the child is at that particular time in their education, which should be respected.

Amusing slightly relevant anecdote. Way back when my father was in school, they were SEATED according to their results. Apparently he used to decide where he wanted to sit in the classroom and adjust how he worked in tests accordingly ...

My secondary never did this. We got stuff back with marks on never publicly announced ever - at least never remember it being so.

Though first few weeks at DD1 secondary last year they did a science test - results read out to whole class DD1 top - cue a shit load of she can't be good a science she a girl crap. It wasn't helpful took some work at home a STEM for girls course and some enthusiastic science teacher to get her back to thinking a girl being good and excited by science is normal.

She also had years of really low marks is weekly spelling test at primary – despite putting huge amount of work into them and having classmate make embarrassing remarks about it which again not helpful when we need to get her to work on spelling.

18 months of it and she seems fine now but if it was causing her anxiety to point she didn't want to go in - then yes I raise it.