To be annoyed those who are good are not rewarded?

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It's just been announced who will get the year reward on Monday. It's kids who have been on report (which means isolation, letters home and teacher support) the reason being they have tried hard.
My daughter is beside herself. She is predicted below average grades but has studied, done extra lunch time work and tried every single lesson and now is at expected or just above. This has been down to pure determination. She doesn't find it easy to behave, she works all the time to earn her merits and yet none of the hard working conscienous pupils get a reward.
I've told her that hard work is its own reward and that in the long run it will all be worth it. But is it so difficult for the teachers to realise that the quiet hard working kids need some recognition?

This is the problem with awards / rewards.

Well done to your dd!

I totally get it! When I was at school I was naturally clever, always worked hard, did extra reading/practice, always helped others and was polite and organised. I NEVER got the awards or rewards so by year 8 I gave up. It was more fun to be naughty and toss it off in class with my mates having a laugh.

My thoughts at the time were, what's the point in trying when I don't get any positive attention for it?!

BUT I will say that I never used to get it off my parents either. If I got 99% in a test my mum would ask why I lost a mark etc.

As long as you carry on recognising and being vocally proud of her achievements at home then I suppose it's a good lesson in resilience if nothing else (as shit as that might sound).

I suppose it’s a good life lesson. Life is not fair. Kids need to learn to be self motivated, not reward driven. Validation should come from within, and the knowledge that we are making the best use of our talents to serve God and our fellow humans.
Give your child praise and credit for the efforts she has made, even though there’s no recognition of it from school.

You could be cynics and explain that the rewards are actually nothing to do with children who are on the right track, but are a part of the disciplinary system for children ricocheting between reward, punishment and last chances. They're a sticking plaster for a broken system which actually tends to fail the children who get the "rewards" long term. Not being part of that cohort means you're one of the ones who is going to be ok...

Only explain if she'll understand and not repeat it to her classmates though - and I'd back it up with a trip somewhere similar in the holidays if it's the kind of thing she likes.

Most kids actually see through those rather desperate carrot and stick reward and sanctions systems by mid secondary and eye roll unless it's s new system they haven't got wise to yet and are startled at the unfairness of.

How old is she?

That's life. People who do brilliantly and those who make significant progress, are often rewarded more than those who keep up a steady average.

However the 'steady' ones often do better in the end and that's what matters.

I would buy her something nice for working so hard.

My son's school do hot chocolate Friday with their head of year, and they sent a really nice letter saying 'it's time to reward the kids who are always there, on time, and do their best' without being the ones who get attention for being brilliant or annoying or noisy .. Just the good solid kids. I thought that was really nice. DS is a solid middling but does always make the effort so it was nice for him and similar others to be recognised for a change.

DS was in Year 2 when he informed me that he did not want merit points as they were given to children who found sitting still difficult.

I am a teacher and hate most rewards systems as they seem stacked against those “good” children who quietly getting on doing their best without making a fuss.

Its not fair, but you can reward her yourself. At least she'll know you appreciate her efforts.

It’s probably not the teachers themselves making the decisions; it’s most likely a behaviour/incentive system designed by SLT.

I say this as a teacher who finds it really galling when the DHT at our small village primary goes out of her way to reward the children who struggle with behaviour, yet doesn’t even know the names of any of our solid middling/lower ability children who work flat out all the time.

My eldest son is really academic and well behaved but quite quiet and never got any recognition in primary school, he’s in high school now and does seem to be getting recognition both academically and otherwise.

Mine are only in primary school and already the headteacher awards for “most improved attitude” and “excellent behaviour on a school trip” etc are raising eyebrows. If your child isn’t bringing one of those home you know they are doing ok. Reward her at home.

@MrsIronfoundersson I love that. My daughter will never be top but she works hard and that would help.
For those who asked she is year 7 so 11, young in her year. I have told her how proud I am and I really don't think she can do anymore.

I am experiencing this exact thing with DD1 who is just leaving year4. She says a lot of”what’s the point in trying my hardest” when its always the same children that get the rewards/merits. The ones who have misbehaved for weeks on end and then behave for a few days.
She sits quietly gets on with her work and is completely overlooked, for the kids who the teacher can not control and I’m not sure how to motivate her to keep putting in the effort.🤷🏼‍♀️
We reward her at home but she needs the recognition from someone in authority within the school too

I find rewards systems like this really hard as a teacher. You want to just give rewards to the kids who deserve it, working hard, being polite and helpful, following instructions etc. But then you're asked to make sure every child gets a reward at least once in the year, so instead of genuinely rewarding the pupils you want to, you end up keeping a class list and ticking off the pupils as you allocate the reward each week. Then thinking of some spurious reason why little Johnny deserves Star of the Week, when in actual fact he's constantly disobeyed you, not even tried to work, run off round the school almost every lesson, hit five other children in class that week and squashed your breaktime banana that was on your desk.

And yes, I know children can have tough home lives and need encouragement, but rewarding them with something they know is only because you have to is fairly detrimental.

A teacher here and while I understand some of the sentiment and thought behind these rewards I bloody hate them at the same time.
It's about equity and not equality in trying to make education inclusive by giving some children more than others because they need it.
Personally I feel it destroys certain children's confidence.

Our school gives each child a reward at the end of the year for the four capacities (see Scotland's CfE) and each child has their own personalised reason why. I've given awards for things like "improved behaviour" but also to children for "being a good friend", "being creative and engaging well", "becoming more confident during performances", "believing in their own abilities" and so on. I much prefer that, rewarding each child for something they specifically have achieved (these examples are deliberately vague).

Awards in our school are given to the children who are deemed as having a challenging home life.
I've come to this conclusion through seeing my own two DC overlooked for less able kids and kids who's parents are troublesome and uncooperative.
Always the case without exception.
My DC don't realise this and it's sad they put in the work and get no recognition from the school.

I work at an independent school (not teaching staff) and have to attend year end prize giving.

I found it interesting how they managed to find lots of ways to recognise the ability and excellence of each child without the awards being nonsense.

Awards for school spirit, community mindedness, class ambassador type awards, poetry, music, singing as well as awards for each class in each subject as well as overall winners, plus lots of sports awards.

Certainly not everyone got an award, but I suspect they had a balance between being accessible in the main for many, as well as celebrating truly outstanding achievement.

There are also clear criteria that all children know they have to meet to win an award.

I KNOW that time and money in the state sector make prize giving type events on that king of scale an impossibility, but I felt a real sense of sadness about it.

I know my little boy in year 2 wanted to know why the boy who has repeated bullied him and others ended up with the year award!!!! I can see why they are used to encourage but it does have a risk of dragging down the kids who are good and do make an effort.

This is something I really hate, it's purely because those are the kids that need the reward to motivate them, but it does come at the expense of those who are naturally gifted or consistent. In my opinion, it often doesn't do the "struggling" kid that many favours in the long run getting too much praise for doing something other kids do as standard, as that's not what the real world is like, so I would just comfort yourself that your daughter will probably do better for it in her future life. As long as she knows you are proud of her and maybe gets a little treat from you for working so hard, she will be fine.

I work in a Playgroup and just had a conversation about this.
We spend a lot of our time ‘shadowing’ the less well behaved children, intervening when they’re doing something they shouldn’t etc.

This is to the detriment of those that do listen or are less confident who get overlooked. Sometimes I look at wee Jenny in the corner and think I haven’t even spoken to her today as all my time has been taken up with the more ‘boisterous’ children.

I think this continues right through Primary as I’ve witnessed with my own children. They generally always behave, try their best, don’t cause trouble and as others have said it’s the more challenging children who are rewarded.
I love the Hot Chocolate idea too.

My DD’s school do not give awards. The HOY send a personal letter home telling you how impressed they are with your child how hard they have worked etc

DD1 never had one (she’s now left) and DD2 has had one every year 😂
DD1 was the kid on report and I am glad she didn’t get an award or letter because I was always as pissed off she wasn’t behaving

Our school awards each child 'star of the week' once thought out the school year (one child per class, per week) for variety of reasons -behaviour/progress etc.We've just had our last 'star out the week' awards given out and he didn't get one. 😩 I'm absolutely gutted for him. I want to mention it to the teacher but don't want to be 'one of those parents' 🙄

Moving the dc from a school that gave out sweets as rewards and treats to the worst behaved was the best move ever.

I still remember the day I did supply in a Year 2 class about 12 years ago. The children were the worst behaved I’d ever met. One of them smashed another kid’s head against a metal railing at play time on purpose hard enough that the injured child had to be sent home, another refused to come into school after play time and ran around the playground laughing at staff members, one of them crawled under tables then started chucking things around the clsssroom resulting in his little gang of mates also chucking stuff around. And so on and so on. I spent the day managing behaviour rather than teaching and I felt so sorry for the quiet kids who wanted to get on with activities but had to wait for me to deal with the ‘naughty’ group.

I was shocked when, at the end of the day, the TA got out her pack of stickers and started giving them out to these kids for various minor reasons, ‘oh you sat down for the register so there’s one for that.’ She gave out so many that most of them ended up with a full reward chart and got to choose a toy! These were the worst behaved kids I’d ever taught and yet they went home with new toys whereas their well behaved classmates had had to put up with them all day and got nothing!