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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel unhappy about school giving ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ prizes

65 replies

olympicsrock · 19/07/2018 07:39

A friend posted a proud mum picture yesterday of her son and daughter who attend a mixed secondary school. They have each won school prizes. Initially I thought great but then read that they were the ‘Biology prize for Year X girl’ , ‘French prize for year X Boy’ and ‘ overall academic achievement for year X boy’. I could understand if these were sports prizes but why do they have to have equal numbers of prizes won by girls and boys? Doesn’t this downplay the achievements? I felt very uncomfortable about this. Do others?

OP posts:
DeadGood · 19/07/2018 07:40

Why do you think it downplays achievement?

dingdongadingding · 19/07/2018 07:40

Your children don’t attend the school so it’s not for you to worry about

adaline · 19/07/2018 07:40

I think it's fine - means more pupils have a chance of winning, surely?

PrincessPear · 19/07/2018 07:41

I agree. If the two best kids are both boys or girls, they should win. Gender shouldn’t matter.

GunpowderGelatine · 19/07/2018 07:43

I think it's fantastic to represent both sexes and wish more schools would do things like this.

WallisFrizz · 19/07/2018 07:43

Double the amount of children get recognised so no, it doesn’t bother me. It also means that there will be guaranteed recognition for girls in subjects that in the past boys may have had more success with eg science subjects.

VikingVolva · 19/07/2018 07:45

Well, they wouldn't be handing out prizes for best black child for biology, best FE Asian child for maths, best white child for geography, best Buddhist child for history, best Jewish child for English or whatever.

That is seems OK for sex/gender does tend to show that that characteristic is different in society than other characteristics (which have been legislated on)

LolaDolly · 19/07/2018 07:46

Surely it's because girls tend to perform better at school than boys, so it creates a chance for the boys as well.

GunpowderGelatine · 19/07/2018 07:51

Well, they wouldn't be handing out prizes for best black child for biology, best FE Asian child for maths, best white child for geography, best Buddhist child for history, best Jewish child for English or whatever.

Probably because with so many races in schools there'd be too many categories, but there are only two sexes so it's much more do-able

Imchlibob · 19/07/2018 07:52

Would it be better if there was just one prize per subject, and equal numbers of prizes for girls and boys, but it generally just so happened that the prizes for maths/physics/computer studies/design & technology went to boys and the prizes for art/english/humanities went to girls?

Can you imagine the conversations the head teacher would have to have along the lines of "OK you have each chosen your top pupil in year 9 to receive a best in subject prize but unfortunately we have 11 boys and 7 girls nominated this year so I need 2 of you to nominate someone who isn't best in-year to make sure we are balanced"

ChangeofName911 · 19/07/2018 07:54

Its fine. Unless barbie for girls and football for boys.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 19/07/2018 07:58

No I don’t feel uncomfortable about it. It’s good their giving out double the number of prizes.

Maybe your friend chose the school for a number of reasons including this.

YABU, and butt out of your friends children’s schools decisions!,

NewYearNewMe18 · 19/07/2018 07:58

I used to have to organise this and it was a night mare. Generally the same two or three pupils in each year group would 'top' everything, so that would have made for a particularly boring evening. I had to restrict them to two prizes each and ferret around for other suitable children. Then there was the gender imbalance. We had a local all girls school which did suck out all the girls in the area so our co-ed school was a 70/30 ratio but girls had to be equally represented - especially in STEM subjects - to the exclusion of the boys who had achieved.

Prize giving is a load of political box ticking and positive publicity for the school if they can get their local MP or a 'celeb' to do the awards and get it in the local paper.

Poloshot · 19/07/2018 07:59

Yeah you are

Iused2BanOptimist · 19/07/2018 08:01

The school that did away with head boy and head girl now have a head boy and a deputy head boy. Hmm

hidinginthenightgarden · 19/07/2018 08:03

YABU to give a hoot considering A - your kids don't attend the school and B - they are trying to be fair and recognise that both sexes try at all subjects. Imagine you would more unhappy if you heard that girls had won art, English and Geography and boys had won the rest!

Pressuredr0p · 19/07/2018 08:04

I've name changed for this.

In my school, all sex-designated prizes except for sports have been dropped; it's now who's best.

In a mixed school whose population is imbalanced in favour of boys, it began to look very silly to be giving out prizes to boys for being boys. This year, we have female school captains and vice captains. Girls massively carry the weight in terms of events such as chorals, productions, charity work, environment, so why shouldn't they get the credit?

UnderHerEye · 19/07/2018 08:04

The reason that girl and boy catagories are needed is because otherwise the girls would get overlooked. And yes it’s 2018. And yes I work in education.

PotteringAlong · 19/07/2018 08:04

You’re being ridiculous.

gunnyBear · 19/07/2018 08:14

Girls outperform boys generally and by an even greater margin in certain subjects. This is a fact that those whining about the patriarchy like to ignore.

They like to have women only spaces and segregation when they think it benefits females but not when the 'bepenised' get a look in.

Boys and girls are different and excel at different things. Such is life.

claraschu · 19/07/2018 08:17

I agree OP. It is sexist; there is no reason why sex should have an impact on ability at maths or English. Giving separate prizes perpetuates that myth.

Bibesia · 19/07/2018 08:20

they are trying to be fair and recognise that both sexes try at all subjects

Are they? If the top boy gets a prize regardless of the fact that ten girls have done better than him, does that demonstrate that all the boys are trying as hard as the girls?

Bibesia · 19/07/2018 08:22

Why does everyone assume this will be weighted in favour of boys? As pointed out, girls tend to do better than boys academically.

ADuckNamedSplash · 19/07/2018 08:24

Double the amount of children get recognised so no, it doesn’t bother me. It also means that there will be guaranteed recognition for girls in subjects that in the past boys may have had more success with eg science subjects.

Agree with this, and it might go some way to encouraging a better balance in these subjects for further and higher education. All my A Levels were in STEM subjects and for 2 of them, I was the only girl in the class. Maybe if some of my female secondary school peers had won awards for their achievements in those subjects, they would have considered taking them further.

PandaPieForTea · 19/07/2018 08:25

The reason that girl and boy catagories are needed is because otherwise the girls would get overlooked. And yes it’s 2018. And yes I work in education.

Don’t girls generally outperform boys?

I don’t ask to be argumentative, I’m just curious.

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