School displaying DD's attainment levels on the wall

[Erinsboroughrocks]

DD is in y6 and working towards her SATs. The teacher has a chart on the wall with each child's name listed. Next to each name is a colour for each subject. Green is working above, orange is working at and red is working below. All the children know what the colours mean. DD doesn't like having this up and I feel a bit uneasy about it. WIBU to ask them to take it down (or instead put up a board of colour coded teacher observations in the staffroom 😉)?

Glad you got a swift resolution.

For those who say it jostles the bottom achievers to aim to get out of the bottom may believe that - but have you ever actually spoken to a student in that position and found their true feelings?

My ds has ASD and SpLD. He has lots of support in juniors, and it was withdrawn at secondary - they gave him a laptop.
The school published the results, their target and at the end of each test or half term etc what they had achieved and how far off their end of year target they were.
Ds worked his bollocks off. School is already difficult for him with having autism and with a spelling age of a 6yo (despite constant inputs) he has no way of communicating his knowledge - even with a laptop.
His self esteem plummeted - not helped by the fact they were set based on overall CAT scores. So he was in second to top group (top 5% for NVR etc but bottom 20 for VR).
So his baseline achievements were 3/4 points below the person above him, his target was often lower than the others achievements were already and his progress was slower. He spent day in day out watching the other pupils pulling away from him.
He's no snowflake - it's not about resilience - it's about the fact that even when he felt proud of achieving something it would then be displayed publicly and compared publicly.
Although in maths he was always top - and the one day he made a remark - factual and not designed to hurt anyone - "at least I'm top at something and stayed there at last" he was punished for it.

That and other policies of the school led to to an attempt on his own life.

New school now - absolutely amazing how much he's changed. He still is way behind and behind progress expectations but he's never made to feel he's not good enough and had an LSA with him academic subjects.

One of the biggest disappointments for children going into secondary school is when they realise that they’re average, ( of below) when their parents have made them believe that they’re amazing.

Really?! That shocks me - my dd is only 7 but she already knows exactly where she lies in the class for everything. She broke the code for the group names on her first day back and can tell me exactly which group every child in her class is for every subject. She often reports things along the lines of “Lucy is trying being moved up to the green group for reading for a couple of weeks to see if she likes it” and then “Miss Smith has moved Lucy back to the yellow group because the yellow group is doing a book that Miss Smith thinks Lucy will really like”.

Admittedly dd is very observant (and a total nosy parker!) but if she knows that at 7 I’m pretty sure an 11 year old will have a rough idea where they lie in the class before they get to secondary.

Llangollen & Gilly22
Kids are not daft, they know how from early on exactly how they are doing against their peers. How can they hide from this when it’s all teachers talk about and it’s in every workbook, every school report and it’s discussed at every parents evening? My DD decided in reception that she was rubbish at maths because she worked out she was not on the ‘clever table’ and this has stuck with her ever since.

Kids know how they are doing and they don't need is a great big chart announcing their attainment to anyone who walks into the classroom.

No really, no! That was made up by someone who has not the first clue about children!

There are also research showing that kids being molly cuddled and being told that "everybody is a winner" don't got that far.

How long do you keep pretending their lack of results has no consequences and that it doesn't matter if they don't do well? Also, if you hide all their weaknesses, you don't praise their achievements? It makes no sense at all.

Good luck when the poor sod will be fighting for a place in their chosen school, their sport team, their university let alone a job. Pretending that "everybody is equal, everybody is a winner" drags everybody to the bottom and is doing no one any favour.

If a child is not doing ok in maths, there's no harm to let him know.

When I was in junior 4(yr 6 in old money) we had none of his rubbish my maths was crap and I had help they told us a couple of days before that we would be having tests (Richmond tests ) none of the stress of SATS.

If all the children already know how well or not they are doing compared to their peers, I can't see the point of this thread at all

If a child is not doing ok in maths, there's no harm to let him know.

But you've just had about 6 people tell you that of course the child bloody knows. Even if my son hadn't cotton on yet, the fact we work on it with him every day might be a bit of a clue, don't you think? And if they were still way off meeting expectations even after working every day for months, what would your magic solution be then? A bit more humiliation and rubbing it in?

As for the point of this thread, it's that since the kids know already, how about not giving it the seal of official dictat by posting it on the class noticeboard. Give me strength.

*cottoned

Yes every kid in the class knows the order of ability groups and where they lie.At secondary (and some primaries) there are formal ability sets.How is this any different?

There is a difference between an individual child knowing they are finding things hard, and it being announced to the whole class that Jane Smith was bottom again.

DD's secondary does this well for some tests I think. The pupils know their individual score, but they are also told the top, bottom and mid score so they can see how that compares in their set.

What matters most at primary and lower secondary is putting the effort in and the parents knowing which subjects are weakest.

I disagree with all the people who think that this kind of behaviour prepares them for secondary school - I think the opposite actually - the people at the top of a very small pool start to think themselves outstanding and when they get to secondary school find, that in a much bigger pool, they are not and it comes as a terrible shock. This was particularly the case at university too.

This is the problem with schools in general - trying to make everyone fit into one kind of box rather than trying to find the strengths of each individual. I went to Cambridge, my DB left school at 16 with no qualifications - you can guess who is the millionaire now - it ain't me!

It sounds it's more about the parents than the children. It's the parents who feel "Humiliated" and probably offended because they can't brag about their offspring being outstanding. The result is that we are pushing towards classes of mediocre.

I do find it quite sad. There's a shortage of students applying to so-called "hard" university degrees. No coincidence there.

If a child is not doing ok in maths, there's no harm to let him know.

Well actually, I think there is. Children develop particular skills at different times. A child who is 'not doing ok' at Maths in Year 2 might have the potential to 'do very well' in Maths by Yr5, given encouragement. However, drumming in that he/she is not doing very well in Yr 2 will probably have the effect of fixing in that child's mind that they can't do Maths. Ever.

If all the children already know how well or not they are doing compared to their peers, I can't see the point of this thread at all

I think the point is that putting results up in a public place means that any random person (other parents) in the classroom can get a fairly detailed picture of how any child is doing in any subject, and that is not something which should be up for public scrutiny.

And there you go Hipee kids mature and blossom at different ages i was always fairly average I was ways in the middle sets got four c,s in my GCSE,s (In 1990) struggled but managed to get another 3 more c grades did badly in my Alevels and just about managed to pass my nurse training(academically) my friend at primary school who excelled academically is a teacher in the great scheme of things she didn't really do any Better career wise than me but other people who didn't do that great at school appeared to have excelled after leaving .

It sounds it's more about the parents than the children

I think you've hit the nail on the head!

Being compared with their peers motivates very few children. Most of the time it does the opposite.

Llangollen I think you are on very thin ice talking about the outcomes of the education system, because it appears to have signally failed to equip you with either reasoning skills or empathy.

Firecracker yes maybe, but unfortunately she was using a screwdriver.

Llangollen No its not. It is about the children having any self esteem and confidence knocked out of them by all and sundry know that the spelling is rubbish, their maths is rubbish. When you have a child who struggles academically and at sports and music and art they really don't need their peers knowing exactly what they scored in tests.

When we got the SATs scores (nicely in a sealed envelope), I told DD not to discuss them with others. No good comes of it. Either your child ends up feeling bad, or the other child ends up feeling bad. We said we were pleased with her scores and she had worked hard, that was enough.

Being compared with their peers motivates very few children
absolutely wrong!
I run a sports club for children 4-16, and they almost without exception love an element of competition in their training

Fire But that is children who have chosen to do the club. Those that don't like the element of competition won't do the club or will drop out. It is not the same as a mixed ability classroom.

This was the set up in my sixth form, pictures of everyone and whether they were on, above or below target which in some ways was demoralising if you were in the red zone in year 12 and your target was an A (and you can’t even get As at AS) whilst others predicted Ds were in the green. However, I see now that it also must’ve been a confidence boost for them and no one complained about it so they can’t have been too upset about it being plastered all over the common room.

frogsoup

You don't agree with me so you are trying to insult me?

One aspect of this that is very poor from the school is the lack of differentiation and appreciation of what will motivate or upset a particular child.

I don't mean that I agree with having results on the wall (I don't at all) but in some cases students are motivated by an element of competition- eg 5 of my mixed ability year 11 group love to compare their marks and I let them do so quietly as this motivates them to try to do even better, but it comes from them rather than me.

Others in the group like to quietly examine their paper and not share their marks, and if others have done badly they may need either quiet encouragement or in one case a boy said to me 'That's not good enough Miss - I didn't work hard enough' to which I wholeheartedly agreed!