Star of the week

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AIBU to think this star of the week is a shit concept?
In reception and year 1 the teachers arbitrarily gave out sotw certificates and my dc1 who is, according to her teachers, very eager to please, compliant and academic for 1 during the whole time.

Since year 3 it's the children in the class who vote who for star of the week. Tt's the same handful of dc who get the sotw certificate, which is, in essence, a popularity contest.

Apparently children vote on who is the kindest in class. WTF is the educational and social value of this?

I am probably being a miserable old grump but i feel sorry for dc who never becomes the .

• got 1 during the whole time. Edit fail.

Well there are 38 teaching weeks in an academic year and normally approx 30 children in the class so it is unlikely that many children will get it more than once.

I don’t like the idea of other children voting for it but I do think that with the teacher picking it then it is good because it is something that every child should be able to achieve during the year at least once.

As a teacher I kept a list to make sure everyone got it at least once in the year.

Have you asked the teacher about it?

Same as plate- I kept a list and made sure everyone got it at some point in the year. Sometimes, when I couldn’t decide who to choose, I’d ask pupils to nominate another pupil but always made sure the winner was someone who hadn’t already had it.

The system in your child’s school sounds very odd

Apparently children vote on who is the kindest in class. WTF is the educational and social value of this?

Oh come on now

But...

I don’t like the idea of other children voting but there is some value to the star of the week/day system. At DDs school, star of the week and the merits system is set on individual targets for each child. So for one child it could be that they managed to write a letter, for another it could be that they played a game with another child.

Having said that, they did have a kindness tree where they could nominate their classmates. It was gently encouraging and some of the reasons children were nominated were particularly lovely. It did show a lot of thought going on in their class.

Getting the pupils to choose is just asking for trouble.

Promoting british values in school ie Democracy. By getting the children to "vote" it ticks the box that ofsted look for when they come.

Jackshouse The same children get of the week several times. Especially now when the class chidlren vote for the star.

Basically popular dc become the star of the week based on how kind the have allegedly been. My dc says they are trying to be kind and are confused why they never get voted for this weekly award.

I suppose history is repeating itself, I was not miss popular at school either. Trying to teach dc to try and be kind because he wants to be not because of peer review but it's a a little bit heart breaking for dc to feel unpopular.

Such is life I guess.

DullPortraits Do you think it's becasue of that? That's no so bad in a way. I could explain to dc that it's about politics and would they rather be the in the know advisor civil servant or the stick your neck out politician? Or is this a rubbish idea?

MamaLovesMango yours star system sounds much better as dc know what they are working toward. The kindness tree is lovely too.
It's the fact that dc doesn't know why his class mates never for him. He doesn't know what to do differently or how to be better.

My eldest son never got star of the month in junior school, not once. He always got good reports, was kind, helpful, very smart but never got it once.

DS3 was quite frankly a little shit and played up A LOT, I pretty much had my own seat in the headmistress office. But strangely he got star of the month at least 3 times. Still baffles me to this day.

Could well be.. similar with voting for class president/ student council etc. Theres not many ways you can show you promote democracy with young children and along with obviously safeguarding/ child protection, promoting british values is a big thing ofsted look at during an inspection: Democracy, is part of this xx

I hate the idea of having the children vote for who gets Star of the Week.

Most of them will vote for their friends or the popular kids.

I can see how the kindness tree a pp mentions might be useful in helping a teacher pick Star of the Week, but it should be the teacher doing the picking.

I feel star of the week is a good thing of done correctly, every single child should receive it at least once in the school year.
Children voting for who should get it can work of they are given a few children to pick between who havent already received it.

"I can see how the kindness tree a pp mentions might be useful in helping a teacher pick Star of the Week, but it should be the teacher doing the picking."

I agree, it's fairer. It makes me sad that dc thinks he is not popular.

I hate it, it's always the same few that get it at my dd school. I have challenged it, but got told it's done fairly

How is 1 child being the motivating for the other 29 dc? It's unnecessarily competitive. Being nice and helpful shouldn't be a competition it should be something that has value in its own right, no? And how would the class be able to know who has been kind and helpful ? Unless children are ostentatiously kind and helpful, in a look at meeeeee, I'm doing kind things all the time.

I think that something like Star of the Week is only motivational if every child feels that they have a fair chance of getting it. Which I think is only possible if the teacher is in charge of the awards.

If the award is effectively a popularity contest - which is what it almost certainly will be if it’s awarded on children voting for classmates - then it’s going to be the opposite of motivational for all but the very popular kids.

Mine are teenagers but I remember Star of the Week. I don't see any value in it whatsoever. Just praise each child for being polite / following instructions / producing good work etc as the occasion arises, without all the fuss and competition of Star of the Week

DS3 was quite frankly a little shit and played up A LOT, I pretty much had my own seat in the headmistress office. But strangely he got star of the month at least 3 times. Still baffles me to this day.

Onbail Same here I always assumed it was because the ‘challenging’ children - ie little sods- are rewarded in the hope that their behaviour will improve, whereas the poor good kids have to go without.