AIBU to be mightily peeved at end of Term "Oscars"

[ohwellherewegoagain]

Ds1 is just finishing year 2, and the teachers put alot of thought into putting on an end of year awards ceremony type show. The kids were asked to dress up, looked very cute, and most parents got a little bit emotional. All good so far. I understand the need to include everyone, but I felt it got a little out of hand. The categories had nothing to do with any type of achievement (academic, sporting, artistic, whatever) and were pretty meaningless eg a bunch of girls getting a prize for "best friend". Now I don't want to rain on the kids' parade, but the thing is, it's not actually incentivising the kids at all. The following is not a stealth boast, because I have name changed to do this and have been at pains not to crow my DS's achievements all over social media. I want him to be a regular, grounded kid. But despite some ill health he got 100% in his SATs. Fantastic achievement. Did he get an academic award? Na.Just one for knowing how to use computers. He actually came away feeling that he was pretty shit. Surely that can't be right? Can't we get the balance right?

Unless you have some inside information you do realise that 100 on the SATs is an average score. Schools should not be giving out the percentage marks as they mean nothing

Friendship is a big, big thing, esp in years 2 - 5 and esp amongst girls.

Winning a 'kind friend' award, whilst it might seem like a trivial thing to you, I GUARANTEE you is a big thing amongst your child's peers. Staff in schools spend an inordinate amount of time on children and their friendships, and being a kind friend is a huge deal.

We aren't snowflakes, we are the antifa ...

7 year olds who can be good friends and kind to others are a lot less mediocre than you think. I feel sorry for your son.

I am so glad there were not any awards ceremonies for my children in Y2. It’s totally unnecessary. Most schools give recognition for all sorts of achievements all the way through the year. This is how it should be. It’s not necessary to make a big fuss at the end of the year. The schools bring the angst on themselves. Mine didn’t have anything in y6 either. Just a show presented to parents and the pta did a disco for them. The children are bright enough to know who the clever children are, the sporty ones and that “helpful friend” is given to the ones who haven’t won anything else! It’s all very silly!

I think it was a lovely idea.

YABU and really should be careful that your attitude isn't making your son feel that he isn't good enough.

Agree with previous posters: I’ve never heard SATs scores expressed as a percentage. Hmmmm . . .

And I’d rather be a ‘snowflake’ than the kind of person who says ‘mightily peeved’.

The SATS score thing is strange. They aren't given a score as a percentage, just a scaled score. If he got 100 he is actually pretty average and therefore that's probably why he didn't get an award for academic achievement. (Also the teachers were probably just trying to do something nice and fun for the end of term, but don't worry when he gets to secondary school we are a lot tougher and you'll be on here complaining he didn't get a reward for resilience, which is a thread I read a couple of days ago 🙄)

poor teachers.
did the other kids enjoy it?
was it just your child who didnt?
maybe ponder that for a bit.

At Y2 social development is a big thing, in my eyes just as important as academic success, if a child is struggling to socialise and have made headway in this then is as much a celebration as SAT results (and this is coming from a mother with a child who has sat a GCSE a year early and is on track for 7’s and above).
When my dd was at that age it wasn’t academic success I was looking for - we could work together at home on that - but on how she mixed with her classmates and coped with the downside of friendship groups.
And no, no snowflake here, she’s learnt the hard way, maybe you should look at your own attitude, posting that your child didn’t get the certificate you wanted is as much a snowflake attitude as any

As others have said a SATs score of 100 doesn’t mean 100%, SATs scores aren’t given as percentages. 100 is the lowest score for reaching the expected standard IIRC. This might explain why your son didn’t get a special award for it. Even the highest scaled score of 115 doesn’t necessarily mean that the child got 100% of the answers correct. I also think PPs are right that being a good friend is more important to reward at that age than test scores in a test that they might not have even known they were sitting.