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 😉)?

I am afraid there seem to be very little resources for the most able kids, and they don't really matter in the current school system. It's quite sad.

And to answer a previous question, yes, I think a child achieving something should be congratulated for his results, in reading/maths/sport or whatever they are doing. The problem with praising efforts only is that we seem to try to make the end results disappear, and pretend it doesn't matter

Llangollen** I thought the same and then I had a dyslexic child and it’s heartbreaking to see her look at her peers and call herself a stupid idiot because no matter how hard she works she always looks rubbish when compared to her class mates.

As I thought, all you care about is the academic kids, and sod the rest. That is certainly sad.

I do not agree that telling children that results do not matter is doing anyone any favour at all, especially not in the long term. Results do matter

No ones talking about wrapping children in cotton wool, when they get to secondary school they are very aware that ‘results matter’. It’s just not possible for everyone to be in top sets and to get A. It seems it’s no longer acceptable to try your best and be an average B/C person because results matter only A will do.

Actually having read your last posts I think we probably agree on slot of points. We need to encourage and reward all pupils to stretch them to perform their best. I do worry about the very bright kids because not only are they not encouraged to push past the curriculum there is also an anti intellectualism is this country that means being clever is something to be sneered at and kids are sometimes afraid to show they are clever because they don’t want to be bullied.
I don’t think publishing grades at this age is the way to do it though.

gamerwidow

My solution for one of mine who did struggle was to release the pressure and concentrate on outside activities, where he could shine. It worked really well for us.

It’s amazing how this thread confirms all that is wrong with the society we have at the moment.
It seems the only way to respond to those with whom we disagree is to hurl insults.
Younger generations are infected with this malaise and many are snowflakes whether you agree with the description or not. These are the types that get to 18, leave home for university and can’t cope with the challenge of being a small fish in a big pond. They complain of ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ and demand extenuating circumstances for exams because they might underperform if they have a cold or backache.They have been cushioned from criticism, and conditioned during their schooling to see life’s ups and downs as possible mental illness. This leads to poor coping mechanisms for later life and just as importantly, it diminishes and trivialises genuine psychiatric diagnoses.
There was a recent commentary on some aspects of this in Spiked entitled ‘The year mental illness went mainstream’
The views of Kathryn Ecclestone we also very relevant to this debate.

TheVoiceOfTreason

We're talking one subject - computing.

So I get them

PS back to the original post I agree, it's awful and shaming to hard working but less able pupils. Glad they've taken it down now.

I also think the sports day analogy is fair. Sports day is horrible. And with sports day, those of us that were totally hopeless didn't just have our results published to the whole class, we actually had to get up and fail publicly in front of the whole school. Horrible! I still have painful memories of it now.... and yes, you can drop PE at a certain age. Being sporty is "cool" though, ergo being shit at all sports has a certain social stigma attached. Thank god we don't humiliate dyslexic kids by making them stand up in front of the entire school and try to spell things they can't (please tell me there aren't schools out there where this actually happens - I don't want to believe people are that cruel)

Sorry

We follow the curriculum - they light on and do X Y and Z - to some children's hey can do this already - use google docs for example or send emails -

If the child next to them gets stuck they lean over andnpoint them in the right direction or show them the button to press. Believe it or not kids like to be helpful.

It's doesn't 'not stretch them' it just helps others along

Oh and believe it or not, a decent school wants all children to be the best they can be - to do well be happy and confident and it's amazing how some kids take to things better than others, they just need to find their 'thing'

Demotivating, potentially really damaging for children with attachment issues and so very unfair given that lots of stuff around attainment is NOT anything to do with how hard you work but about your social class, level of parental education and/or engagement etc etc. All well researched.

So does it mean that if a child is coming from a less privileged background, parents didn’t go far in education etc they might well just give up now because all of those will have such an impact that hard work isn’t going to have an impact so it’s not worth even trying???

Interesting pov where you are basically saying that less privileged children should stop working hard to get a better éducation. Going even further you could even wonder why you send them to school seeing that they will never achieve anyway

Well quite frankly I tell my child that exam results don't matter I love. Him for who He is neither of my kids will probably exceed academically ds1 is not academically able and ds2 has severe autism and learning disabilities they are both fab and I love them to bits .

I do worry about the very bright kids because not only are they not encouraged to push past the curriculum there is also an anti intellectualism is this country that means being clever is something to be sneered at and kids are sometimes afraid to show they are clever because they don’t want to be bullied.

Yep I can confirm that.....

Fwiw I actually dint think that every child will be affected by a list like that one in the same way.
I have one child who is über competitive. Being challenged is what is making him tick. He loves and is looking for any challenges he can find. Rarely at school but at sports etc... A list like this or a list saying you were first/second/second to last will spur him to work and work hard.

I have one child who couldn’t care less about that. He would look at such a list with disdain (same disdain he had to a reward chart or the threat of a punishment as a younger child). He was also struggling at school. But his answer to that was to put his head down and work hard. Has always done so, even as a 5~6yo (Y1).

So whilst I get that some children will find that distressing, I think it’s worth remembering that not all children are like this.
Beside, they know VERY WELL who is doing, not so well etc.. wo said chart. They know that from reception tbh. So the ‘I want to protect their self esteem’ idea is a bit moot imo.
Much better to build up their self esteem and teach them resilience and the wish to do better next time.

What bothers me about this is the danger of categorising children at primary level as either clever or not clever. Those who see themselves as being in the ‘not clever’ category can become despondent and it’s almost a self fulfilling thing that they won’t achieve because they don’t believe that they can.

Also with regard to anti intellectualism, my experience is the opposite intellectual snobbery. DD is at a pretty normal school but her peers are particularly competitive and like to remind her regularly of her average ability.

My sons school have suggested ds1 doesnt sit his sats now personally agree ds will fail them and they will knock his self esteem but interestingly he isn't the only one at least four other patents have been told this so in in interests are ds1 school working ?

So does it mean that if a child is coming from a less privileged background, parents didn’t go far in education etc they might well just give up now because all of those will have such an impact that hard work isn’t going to have an impact so it’s not worth even trying???

Interesting pov where you are basically saying that less privileged children should stop working hard to get a better éducation. Going even further you could even wonder why you send them to school seeing that they will never achieve anyway

I can't imagine how you could possibly have read that into my post.

I'm also not sure what issue you have with me citing the fact that bright children from deprived backgrounds are routinely left behind in our education system.

There seems to be an idea on this thread that you can only motivate learners through this kind of shaming. Actually that isn't how motivation works at all. Whether it's ethically right or wrong seems almost a moot point to me - it doesn't work!

Totally agree with hazey - some children will be the hardest workers and still bottom. How does publishing that give them confidence?

Totally agree with hazey - some children will be the hardest workers and still bottom. How does publishing that give them confidence?

And on the other side of the coin some kids will not work very hard at all and still come top.

In maths dd is that child. In an average maths lesson dd does the work, she does the extension task, she does the “special extension task that her poor teacher stays up late every night to set just for her” and then there is still over half the lesson left so she fills up the water bottles (her special job).

I approve strongly of praising her for focusing fully on the tasks she has even though she could easily drift and chat and still get everything done.

I do not approve of praising her because the pathways in her brain fit together differently to most people’s. That is genetics. (At her age I spent maths lessons tidying the music room, dh spent them drawing.)

She will almost certainly spend her entire adult life being rewarded for the way her brain is. At 7 I want her to be rewarded for being kind. For working hard even though she doesn’t have to. For not distracting others just because she has finished.

It’s amazing how this thread confirms all that is wrong with the society we have at the moment. ...Younger generations are infected with this malaise and many are snowflakes whether you agree with the description or not. These are the types that get to 18, leave home for university and can’t cope with the challenge of being a small fish in a big pond.

There has always been a drop-out rate from university, it's in no way unique to modern times. And quite often the ones who didn't cope were precisely the ones who swanned through school with their names at the top of those class lists and then really struggled to find they were those small fish in a pond of young people as bright or brighter than them.

There might always have been a drop-out rate at uni, and some students less able to cope than others, that's life.

What is more worrying is how little students are able to cope nowadays. Until recently it was unheard of for parents to be involved in university life at all, at best they would drive there, drop kid and belongings and drive off, maybe picking them back up at the end of year.
Ask university staff (of any level) if that's still true today...

I expect thread like that very soon, with parents complaining about the outrage of publishing list of students showing their marks.

A couple of things strike me. Maybe in “the old days” it might have been better if some parents had been a bit more involved in the lives of their 17/18 year olds away from home for the first time? Certainly a lot of my peers were very unhappy in their first year, and had to struggle on largely unsupported.

It was also a system where a higher % of both students and staff had been away to school, so expectations were different.

Also, I think both parents and students are now very aware of getting value for money, so parents are bound to be rightly interested in what they are getting for their outlay.

So not a simple as some people seem to think.

There seems to be an assumption that the target grades are the same for the whole class - for secondary at least, they do vary on the individuals capabilities and are proportionate to what they’re capable of. For example, a child can get one of the lowest scores but if it’s higher than their personal target, then they’re above target - it doesn’t mean that they’re the one with the highest marks. Below target means they’re working at a level below what they’re capable of.