AIBU same child gets chosen for everything at school

[bonfireheart]

I wanted to check whether anyone else would raise this with school. DD is in year 6 and everytime there are chances for roles of responsibility think 'school council' roles, or 'play leader' or external visitors coming in for a special project - the same girl gets chosen for the role. It's been going on since they were in year 1.
It's got so DD says well no point putting my name forward because we all know who is going to get it.
And I'm not just expecting DD to get them. All the kids in her year group are lovely, many who would benefit from the extra responsibility and boost to their confidence.
Would you raise it with the school?

DD got a lot of speaking parts in reception/year 1 because she could read clearly and fluently. After the 5th class assembly where she was cast as ‘narrator’ alongside the same 4/5 other early readers she was desperate to do something else!
Once they moved up to junior school the parts were much more evenly spread.
We were lucky in that her school catered to children with hearing issues so there was a broad spectrum of abilities (some of the deaf children had other needs) and they were very conscious of including them all. On sports day adaptations were made to include everyone (eg the egg and spoon race had a wheelchair user balancing a ball on his lap while propelling himself along the course) In school plays the children who signed had the role of additional narrators. Lots of little things but it doesn’t take much to adapt activities to keep everyone involved.
I hope next year when your daughter moves up to secondary school that she feels it’s worth applying for roles she is interested in.

It happens in our school a lot too. We've got a lot of teachers who's children also attend the school and it's a joke how many times they get picked for the lead role in school performances/ solo's in the choir. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely performers, but there's plenty of other children who'd love a shot!!

Yes I would, it's unfair. However you need to present it in a way that explains that all children deserve the chance equally.

In our primary one year group had to contend with the headteachers child. So every play they had the lead role, won every competition ever held, was in all the sports teams (not even remotely sporty, although I'm aware this is not always the point) . Name it and headteachers child was No. 1, I'm not even joking!Parents did go in and complain or try and reason but Headteacher dug their heels in further. The nepotism on the whole was terrible the next favoured were other teachers DC, then LAs DC, then midday assistants DC and then the sucky up parents DC. There is definitely a hierarchy when it comes to favouritism! We just gave up and to be fair my DC hated plays etc!

Hopefully your school isn't quite thus bad OP!

As a child in the 70s there were children chosen for everything until for some reason the school changed the format one Christmas. Instead of one play it became a series of sketches/music culminating in a short 'panto' performed by teachers...so the sketches allowed different groups of children to perform...some of the sketches were written by the children too...some children sang, some played instruments, some me did comedy sketches, some did short plays...The teachers panto was brilliant...

My own kids both had experienced of watching favoured DC all through school...both state and indie...

dontknowwhattodo80
It's also awkward teaching staff children because I always feel like I'm more inclined not to give them anything out of paranoia about favouritism.

I remember on one occasion a colleague's child kept making the cut for different things (e.g. ran the fastest time, had an instrument to grade 7, scored in the top 10 in a subject - so empirical things, not opinion). On something else I said to my head of year 'Sarah would be the prime candidate for X but I'm a bit conscious that it might look like favouritism'. Head of year said if you'd have picked them as a random child then put them in. Elsewhere on the list for the same opportunity were others who had lots of talent but hadn't had time to showcase it.

Personally, for any opportunity I make a list of everyone in the form who would be good and benefit from the opportunity. Then start ruling out people. (E.g. If child A has already done x y z for different departments but child B doesn't have the same enrichment shining moments then child B would be the one to be chosen)

You'reright, Maisy Pops, they weren't. I was tired last night, working yet more unpaid overtime and feeling nothing I did was ever good enough for the parents. And I know teachers don't get it right all the time. And I'm sure there must be some primary schools where the same child gets picked for the starring role every year. But I just don't believe it's common practice, and if it does happen it's entirely accidental. Teachers change year groups in Primary regularly. They move schools. There isn't usually a list in the staffroom that says Flora played Mary in Year1 so don't give her a major speaking part for the next few years. It isn't a conspiracy, it doesn't have anything to do with PTA connections and I think any cases where teachers' children are shown favouritism will be vastly outnumbered by those where the teacher's child never gets chosen for anything.

LJdorothy
I know that feeling.
At the start of term i had a particularly ridiculous complaint that I was promoting good behaviour, but they weren't happy because I didn't specifically tell them that I promote good behaviour.
We all have the "bloody hell can i do nothing right" moments.

Based on what i hear at secondary I think it is common, but not the majority after all, we hear more from people with issues (just like if you looked at the relationships board you'd think terrible relationships are the norm).

Candont DS1 was not a performer - he got to do the sound for the Year 6 Production and was so helpful to the teachers directing it that he got a special mention from the Head at the end - it was great, because he took a "non-job" and did it really well, never having been picked for anything before.

Was lambasted for stating my son was one of those "child" that gets picked for every thing

Son walked in a 3:40pm started homework at 4pm...he's just finished and has now gone to bed!! Had his tea at the table whilst doing his homework.
His phone constantly vibrating throughout the evening from friends wanting him to go on Xbox. (Apparently they've got homework too)
6 fucking hours doing homework!! He's 11yrs old FFS!!

Still, the teachers get to fuck offl home early....bastards!!

The teachers get to fuck home early Seriously? Are you that ignorant of a teacher's workload? When I stopped teaching after having ds1, I didn't know what to do with my new found free time in the evenings and weekends.

I don't know about the children getting all the good parts, my son is only in year 1, and in his only play (last Christmas) he played the part of the star, which seemed pretty good. I don't know what he will be doing this year.

I did notice however, that at the last few school fairs (Christmas 2017, spring '18, summer '18) the PTA people seemed to win all the raffle prizes.

There were two massive raffles at the Christmas one, one was decent prizes like season tickets to the local soft play worth £50 or similar, vouchers for meals out etc. The other was a load of Christmas hampers, all stuffed with chocolates, wine and so on, probably all worth at least £50, some more. We'd bought about a tenner's worth of tickets and didn't win a thing. Fair enough these things happen. Except that I know a couple of the mums on the PTA. One of which I went to school with myself and she bullied me all through senior school. She won about 2 hampers and about 3 of the other types of prizes. Another PTA mum won a hamper and a voucher. Another PTA mum won two voucher type presents. I think out of the whole lot, there was about 4 people who weren't PTA mums who won something.

I am convinced it was a fix, and I have refused to buy tickets this year although the bitch I went to school with has left, her kids go to a different school now. We will see how this year goes before giving any more money to these things. I want to support the PTA and the school of course, but it makes it very hard when these things happen.

Maybe they just bought loads of raffle tickets, in a lovely effort to support the school, and therefore their chances were greater? I know at my school, the PTA make a massive effort, both in time and financially, to help all the kids.

Ex PTA person here. I only ever won a box of dairy milk at our schools raffle and as I don't like milk chocolate, I can assure you it wasn't a fix.

My friend always runs the tombola stall at PTA fairs and she always makes sure we get something good!

Still, the teachers get to fuck offl home early....bastards!!
Goady or woefully misinformed? I can't tell given the claim that an 11 year old has 6 hours of homework (suggested for an evening).

They don't even do 6 hours of lessons a day! If any student has 6 hours of homework to do on one day it's because they've not managed their homework throughout the week.

@MaisyPops
You are misinformed..
Tue - 3hrs HW
Wed- 5:45hrs HW
Tonight-3hrs HW

He's been forewarned that tomorrow Friday they will be given a lot more for the weekend.

His classmate who has an elder brother getting ready for his final exams next year - gets 2-3x the HW his elder brother currently gets
Their parent is both a teacher and a school governor and has openly said the amount of HW is ridiculous.

Next year the school will finish earlier (2:30pm) as a result HW will increase - we've already been informed.

More fool you for having a child do 6 hrs homework. You need to speak to the teacher so that they know your child is struggling and needing that long to complete it. You can bet no other parent is having their child sit doing homework for that long so I would assume some kids are able to get through it much quicker.

Only foundation stage do a nativity at our place. The rest of the school just have a Christmas concert where they learn songs and sing as a massive ensemble. It’s madness at times, but you’ll not find a more balanced and fair madness going. Or tuneless, for that matter! :o

BumsexAtTheBingo
I'm inclined to agree.

And it comes back to how a child can be set more homework in time than lessons in a day? I'd love to see a homework policy that states year 7 can do 6 hours of homework a night. I can't actually understand how on earth that would get past SLT, governors, put out to staff and be publicised to parents and get everyone nodding along (especially when you consider one of our local schools is in the local rag every term for daring to expecting students to follow basic rules. You can get easily get front page for child doesn't follow rules. Mam pulls compo face and is fuming that school have rules and the comments go wild.)

I also find it hilarious that any school with a policy of 6 hours of homework a night would possibly be the type of school where staff can 'fuck off early'.

@ BumsexAttheBingo

He isn't struggling, Christ he had a test today and got the highest mark in class/in year 20/20
He hates not knowing, so questions he gets for homework he just researches the topic relentlessly until he's satisfied he can give a full and complete answer.
It seems an awful lot of pressure for an 11yr of child.

He hates not knowing, so questions he gets for homework he just researches the topic relentlessly until he's satisfied he can give a full and complete answer.
So he chooses to do hours of additional research.
If someone is spending 6 hours on homework because they feel the need to do hours of additional reading then they are struggling to manage homework and workload.

Yeah that’s choosing to do hours of extra research in his own time not 6 hrs homework. Which is fine if it interests him but the school aren’t insisting on it.

I've been on the PTA and my DC have had starring roles as barn yard animals! 😂 I think it's just down to teachers favourites tbh. We have a school Twitter feed which is a stream of the same children photographed daily (not mine). The one thing that sticks out for me is one little boy who I know has a rubbish home life is always up there smiling. I can only conceive that he is because he is so happy to be at school and away from home, so I'm not sure it's always what you might think.

Old thread but bumping!

Why?