Gutted for DD1 - prizegiving

[BathshebaKnickerStickers]

Devastated tonight for Dd1.

She is brilliant at school. She tries so hard. She has just had an amazing report, great comments and near the top in almost all her subjects.

2 years ahead of her year group in 2 of her subjects.

Having counselling at the moment (school knows) about some MH problems.

2 lots of (intimate) surgery this year and months and months of healing and painful complications.

It was her school prize giving tonight. First thing I knew was her friends’ parents posting on Facebook about how proud they are.

I’m sure their children deserve it, it just seems so unfair that it’s almost a secret accolade for the chosen few.

No wonder her self esteem is through her boots - there is no system to positively feedback the “almost”.

DD2 is very academic but, at her school, the speech day/prizegiving used to go on for ages, as the school would dredge up some semi famous alumnus to give a (usually boring) speech. Therefore, I am ashamed to say that I had mixed feelings when she told me that she had won another prize!

Two thoughts:

At primary school my teacher used to award points throughout the year. He then translated this to book tokens at the end of the year so even if you got 5 points which was the fewest in the class you'd still get 50p in book tokens.

In secondary school I was academic and worked hard. I wasn't the most musically gifted and most definately was crap at sport so why shouldn't my success be marked in the same way as someone who has been chosen to play county hockey. The fact is in life there are rewards for success and to try and protect children from this fact just results in disappointment later on. Upper secondary school is the place for prizegiving though, not primary.

We get 2 nominations for our subject for prize giving per year group. I can think of at least 10 in each of my own classes who would deserve it. We get 10 nominations for over 1,000 students

In my DC school though the same children get nominated for several prizes, one year one boy went up to get his prizes so many times it was almost a joke by the end- 'Not you again'. They also seem to reward the same children every year. Maybe they should limit the prizes to one per person, and also check to see if that person has won it in previous years. That would be more fair. If teachers can usually think of several deserving candidates then it won't mean that excellence was not being rewarded, it would mean that different children who were also excellent could also be recognised.

I actually don't think prize giving needs to be a 'thing' at Primary School. However, I do support it at Secondary School, although I think each subject area should have 2 prizes: one for achievement and one for progress. That way both natural ability and hard work are recognised. I do think that it is important for the student who gets the highest grades to be awarded the achievement prize and for the student who makes the most progress over a yr to get the progress prize. Children need to get used to competition in life and to situations where they will work hard and still not 'win' - not get the job, not get the promotion - whatever it might be - and be able to manage their feelings so that their self-esteem is not affected. They should also be taught to celebrate the success and efforts of others - even if they have not been officially recognised for theirs on that occasion. We should be teaching children to be resilient not getting rid of anything - like prizes - that might cause them to have difficult feelings. Sorry your daughter didn't get an invite this time, OP. I am sure her opportunity to be officially recognised will come.

@BathshebaKnickerStickers, maybe look at it this way.You have said yourself your dc is brilliant.

Whats the harm in giving somebody not so brilliant a night to shine.

Dc4 had select mutism.Never spoke a word from playschool through till 1st class.They made remarkable breakthrough that year.
And he won Student of tbe Year that year.Because he fought so hard.

Do you think he didnt deserve it.Only gifted, brilliant students should get awards.

The boost he got from that award propelled him so much, he was dismissed from Cahms and no longer has to go to his remedial teacher.

I never went to any prize giving events at school, however I can't say it ever made any difference because the things that really had an impact were being the last one every time to be chosen for sports in PE lessons ("oh, I suppose we'll have to have Jane then") and teachers not believing in me, or even believing me - the only thing I excelled at was reading (hardly a thing to be proud of at my school) and so I finished first most often, as we had to share books I'd have read the page 4 times by the time the slow reader next to me had finished and then I'd get accused of lying if asked why I wasn't reading but was looking out of the window.

If I had ever been invited to an award giving evening I'd have been shocked and mortified.

the freaky geniuses

I love the irony of this ^ , by some one who describes her children as my kids had never been nominated despite being hard workers, bright, kind, well behaved blah blah^ - clearly they aren't imbued with anything like tolerance and kindness towards others.

In my school prize giving was held on the final afternoon of the summer term, and you only had to go if you were getting a prize. It might have been nice lower down the school, but I very much remember in lower sixth being pissed off that most of my friends were sloping off to the pub at lunchtime and I had to sit in a stuffy hall listening to an exceptionally dull alumnus! But I'm genuinely surprised that some people are annoyed that it's 'secret' - surely making the whole school sit there when only a handful can win prizes is much worse? Prize giving is rubbish if you have won something, who would want to sit through it if you haven't?

I must be lucky at my daughters school they go out of their way especially the VI department to ensure that every student knows how well they have done.

It is just horrible to see our children crushed.

Yeah it wasn't a secret, you just weren't invited. Are all invitation only events secret? At our school there are two prizes per year per subject, only one nomination per kid and only space in the hall for one parent.

School prizes are a very bad idea. The dcs at the top of the class are likely to stay at the top for their entire school career so will naturally get the prizes most years. This isn't good for anyone. I was in that group and was bullied remorsely for being a 'spod'. It had left me with long term issues over being unable to talk myself up for promotions and hiding success from others. My class mates (I was a very competitive selective school) hated me, and would saboutage any of my work that was put up on the wall.

My dcs' school has a better approach. Every child gets a least one prize during their time at school. They award for endeavour and improvement, attitude, helpfulness etc not just achievement. The school atmosphere is kind and inclusive. I chose it for that reason. I want my dcs to understand that success if good, but not a prerequistite, and life skills are important.

I do think there's a lot of conflating of primary and secondary school in these comments. At primary school (particularly the younger end) you can have things like star of the week to ensure that everyone gets a prize and that's all nice and makes a small child happy. By secondary (and by upper primary, really) children will figure out for themselves that a prize that everyone gets or which is on some sort of rotation is totally meaningless, and it also seems fair to reward actual achievement - no one seems to think that all students should get to play for their school first team if they want to on rotation, even though some are very upset to not make the team. But when it comes to academic subjects it's somehow offensive to acknowledge that some of them are higher achieving than others?

My childrens' secondary school did prize giving by invitation, with all children who received an effort or an achievement certificate invited, and some of them getting awards. Friends were allowed to come and give support if they wanted, and two children from each year gave a very short speech. It was a nice evening. They also did an event for everyone in their sports teams (dd said they got better food and decorations). In the final year prizes were handed out during the graduation ceremony, and one of their schools also had a special event for the top in district children. One year dd was invited and ds wasn't and that was fine. Not so fine was the end of year assembly at primary school where the whole year group was up on stage and marched off as they received certificates or prizes, leaving four children including ds on stage alone. That was horrible.

At DC's high school, the "reward" is squash and biscuits in the HT's office. I'll just leave that with you all...

Dc4 had select mutism.Never spoke a word from playschool through till 1st class.They made remarkable breakthrough that year.
And he won Student of tbe Year that year.Because he fought so hard.

I think that he quite possibly deserved it more than many others.

When one of my children was a primary school there was a homework project to make a model and parents were invited in to see the finished pieces which were all on display, including 3 which had been chosen as prize winners (other children's, not mine).

The one that came 1st had clearly been made by the child and was made out of bits and pieces lying around at home whereas the ones that were 2nd and 3rd were absolute masterpieces involving moving parts and expensive materials that the parents had made.

What was really disappointing was the way that parents were commenting about why the first one won as it was awful, others were much better etc. The class could hear this :-(

ds had a prize at his schools prize giving last week, he is in S2(Scotland second year of secondary) and got the prize for a subject he hates and I know he puts no effort into as he has already worked out from the options columns he can drop it at the end of next year in favour of other subject he enjoys. I have no idea why he was awarded it.

It was the first secondary school prize giving I have attended and it was a bit of an eye opener. There weren't actually that many children awarded prizes, one boy in S3 was awarded the subject prizes for every one of his 9 subjects, plus an additional 3 prizes (the James prize for maths, type thing). Obviously very academically able, but him being awarded 12 separate prizes meant another 11 slots for other children to be recognised were gone. There were also quite a few children got 2-4 separate prizes.

I guess its fair, as they were (I assume) genuinely the best at each subject/area, but having seen a very clever relative, who studied physics as a hobby instead of socialising/physical activities, excel academically achieving many prizes each year and accepted directly into 2nd year physics at university only to drop out 18 months later due to severe MH issues I would much rather my ds had a good life/school balance than get any more school prizes.

Mine have also never been given prizes for anything, unfortunately it seems most kids are in that category as it is always the chosen few that clear everything up. Don't be too disappointed, it happens to the best of us.

At DC's high school, the "reward" is squash and biscuits in the HT's office. I'll just leave that with you all...

Similar at our school (only Haribo as well) - a tea party in the staffroom with the headteacher for the stars of the week. The kids absolutely LOVE it and I think it's fantastic (but we're infants)!

One of mine blazes a trail of star of the week awards and certificates - she just has an amazingly resilient attitude to everything for such a young kid even if she finds things incredibly difficult... the other - top of the class across the board but has an inability to keep her mouth shut so her behaviour pulls her down and she doesn't get anything much.

DD is coming to the end of secondary school, she gets awarded an effort "prize" every year - she does work hard and her successes are very much down to her own efforts.

After the first one, she never goes to the presentation. She always says "I'm not going to sit for 2 hours to be given a piece of paper for basically always doing my homework".

So they give the "award" to someone else.

This is secondary for both upper and lower school. The two prizes are attainment (so who is 'top' of the class) and progress so you don't have to be the cleverest to get one. We also do them for leadership, resilience and school ethos.

" It can make children who try really hard and do well, but just short of “best”, feel very disheartened. "

That's life. Best to get children get used to that. I know it sounds brutal, but that's the only way out.

My school had no prize giving but did have prizes that they sent by post. I was second in four subjects in 6th form and got nothing, while four people got prizes, I’m still slightly miffed but at least it was objective.
Where I have a problem is with subjective prizes. I’m still cross that the most dedicated bully in my dd’s junior school class was given Dux (top of the class) one year, fair enough, most of the rest of the class spent a fair amount of time crying themselves to sleep due to her careful and calculated destruction of their happiness and probably didn’t do that well at school. Next year someone else got Dux, she got “most improved” which is obviously impossible. Until you realise that her mum is bff with the teacher who decided the prizes. Mum just as scheming as daughter it seems. Still bitter after all these years.

The other one I’m still annoyed about was the Easter bonnet competition where I would eat my dd’s self crafted effort of the winner wasn’t made by a professional florist from about £30 worth of exotic flowers.

At DD's old junior school they made a point of saying that the prizes were awarded for effort, not attainment - specifically to recognise the children who may not be the highest achievers but have made amazing progress or tried their very best all year.
And there was only about 14 for a year group of 120.

Absolutely no reason for anyone to get pissed off their DC wasn't recognised. (and neither were the DC).

I think OP needs to understand on what basis the prizes were given.

My older DC have a yearly prize-giving thingy at their secondary school - they hate it! Winning an award means getting your photo up on the big display board in the main corridor - the ultimate punishment a teenager can endure.