Head teacher doing “shout outs”

[Atalune]

Head of large secondary is doing positive shout outs for children who are deserving.

And as bloody usual it is the majority of really bloody naughty kids who are doing sweet FA! Or those who are struggling with their mental health ( I do not grudge these)

As an ex teacher I KNOW it is important to motivate the ones who need it. The ones who are low. But I am so fed up.

Dd- she really thought he would get one this week- full marks in the work, work submitted is of a high quality, she’s joined all the lives. SHe’s keen she’s engaged. Did she get one? Nope. Her friend who is doing fuck all and crying all day long and doing no work is getting them all the time.

I DO understand that those who are struggling need more. I do I do. But I am so fed up of the kids who are working hard, doing well. What about them? Always overlooked! And so now she’s crying and saying what’s the point?! It is unfair. I can’t email the school we will look like total brats.

Grrrrr, life isn’t fair.

Just a vent. I’m on the edge today.

This is a masive bugbear, I’ve even posyed about this. DS us in Y1, has always been well behaved, friendly and supposedly a model student as per his reception report. Got f*all recognition or praise for working hard on his reading but instead would come home in tears when the troublemakers got a chance for hot choc with the headteacher for showing some vague value. I asked his teacher , reply was something vague about other kids demonstrating it better? I’m not raising him to be the Pope but a little bit of kindness, friendliness, hardwork everyday deserves some praise. It’s worse in lockdown because there’s a video every week with kids who have done more than school work. I feel absolutely rubbish that i have apparently failed in inculcating these values and doing extra work whole trying to hold down a full time job. I’ve politely written to the school but this has not had any effect. I agree with previous posts about encouraging them to work for self satisfaction rather than these vague values that I’m sure most adults won’t win prizes for.

Well that’s made me feel crap. My daughter has worked consistently hard in the weeks at home and has had 2 shout outs, a certificate and now an invite to a special zoom with the deputy head for her amazing reading. I believed it was because she deserved it because of her hard work. She’s not naughty or lazy so don’t tar all schools with the same brush

@twoshedsjackson

I was asked to implement "Star of the Week" at my last school, and I really tried to give it my best shot. But we were told that, no matter what, everybody would get their turn at being Star of the Week, no matter what, and I suspected that it wouldn't take the boys long to figure out how it worked. Sure enough, they did; far from being positive, it backfired twice over; it was seen as something that came your way whatever, and the decent little grafters felt unappreciated, while reinforcing the notion that rewards would come to some, just because it was their turn.

You'd think that was the case but not for my DS. He's in P7 now and TBF they probably stop doing it in the lower school (but who knows) but not once. No pupil of the week, no star of the week. No champion cards, no stickers, no wee toys. Nothing In 7 years. P1 and 2 had less than 30 and the kids are in school 36 weeks, you'd think maybe just once (not even once per year)....but no. It annoys me more than him, maybe he's not the best pupil, maybe he doesn't concentrate as much as he should. But kids get them for being a good listener or making the teacher laugh and crap like that. I wish I'd said something earlier. Let the school know, this is affecting YOUR daughters mental health, hers is as important as the kids who are outwardly showing poor mental health.

@Lianne1977 why on earth would it make you feel bad then?

[quote Greenmarmalade]@Lianne1977 why on earth would it make you feel bad then?[/quote]
Because according to op
as bloody usual it is the majority of really bloody naughty kids who are doing sweet FA! Or those who are struggling with their mental health.
That’s not true in many cases!

Omg is this still going on! My kids (now in 30's) had sticker charts at school, bronze, silver gold. My dd was crying uncontrollably one bedtime when asked why she said "I'll never get to silver"?? When calmed she said that she did her work, behaved in class etc but never got a sticker to fill her bronze card but the naughty kids got them and the g&t kids got them so she didn't want to go to school anymore. At parents evening I mentioned this to her form teacher. She looked at me and then apologised as my daughter was one of her "invisible kids"!!! Those children that are no trouble to the teacher, their behaviour doesn't cause a problem and they don't need extra work to keep them engaged. She promised to ensure that that my dd and the rest of the "invisible children" would definitely not be forgotten. These systems obviously still don't work 🙄

It’s not the system that doesn’t work. It’s quite clearly the school and staff who aren’t implementing it properly. When done well, the system allows each child a chance for some really great public praise which gives them some positivity and a big confidence boost. Even the kids you perceive to be “naughty” (which is a BS term btw - you have no idea whether they may have SEN or an undiagnosed condition - or whether what you’ve heard about them being “naughty” was an isolated incident) might deserve a nice shout out for doing something really brilliant and noteworthy.

My point is, my kids are lucky enough to go to a school where this is all done fairly. During the last lockdown when mine didn’t get their shout outs until half way through the term we still applauded those who did and felt really happy for them, no matter who they were. Teach your children they won’t necessarily get praise for absolutely everything all the time. They may have to wait for it in life and may have to be appreciative of where they do get it (eg. From family, form teachers). Not getting the HT shout out precisely when you want it for your children is really not a big deal and I’m surprised that parents and children are so precious about it. Will you also be upset if the perceived “naughty” children do better in their exams than your child? It’s the same thing, you don’t know how hard they’ve worked, and you certainly don’t know how deserving they are. Focus on your child, by praising her and all her efforts and she will be fine. An email to the school may just get you what you want, but then you’ll probably feel annoyed that she didn’t get it on merit, which is ludicrous as she’ll probably get a mention sooner or later anyway.

The schools and staff seem to be the problem, not the system itself.

Will you also be upset if the perceived “naughty” children do better in their exams than your child?

If it's anonymous, of course not.

if it's some kind of bullshit "positive" discrimination (ie discrimination full stop) then absolutely.

Whattifo.... If you read my post you would have established that "naughty" was my daughters words and in fact the words used by her teachers at the time. There were some SEN kids in her class there were also some that just did not behave because they didn't want to. They liked the attention and knew that when they had a good day they would get stickers and sometimes chocolate as a treat. The one very disruptive child went onto secondary school and did well, had hot a job, but along with that goes round spray painting buildings in the town and defacing peoples property. Sure there maybe something that makes him that way but still acting up. When children are not high achievers or have statemented issues, they just go to school, behave as expected, do their work and get ignored because the staff know they can rely on them to just get on with it. So doesn't work as those children don't get the stickers or the chocolate for "having a good week". I just told my dd that in the end the stickers dont matter as we were proud of her and her achievements and she and most of her class never got gold and continued to be invisible whilst at that school. She has not excelled academically but is a caring, thoughtful and now ballsy young woman. She works in a school where they don't have this sort of system. As for the other kids in her year I couldn't care less about their exam results I cared about hers and what she wanted to do with her life. She's mid 20's and what she is doing is nothing like we thought she would do, but may change direction and do something different again who knows. Oh and I wasn't the type to email school that's why I waited for parents evening and mentioned it to her teacher the only time I've headed into school was at another school over a much more serious issue. Also why do you not accept that some kids are just disruptive, no SEN etc just are. I've worked with children and some just misbehave because they can 🤷‍♀️

Of course some kids are just disruptive, and some have SEN, and some have isolated incidents of being “naughty” which then sticks with another child who reports it home and that child gets a reputation. Labelling isn’t helpful. The point is that OP hasn’t got a clue whether the children getting the shout outs are deserving of it - or frankly what their behaviour is like either. I think it’s disgusting sometimes the way some parents talk about other people’s children. If I ever hear the term “naughty” I challenge it, and I’m quite shocked that you’ve said you’ve heard teachers using it. The teachers in our school never use such demeaning terms for children and they shout out to all children equally for whatever that particular child has shown effort with and accomplished. The way it should be.

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer There is no such thing as positive discrimination when it comes to exam results. Don’t be absurd. And it may be anonymous, but you’ll soon get teens sharing what results they got and posts on social media and parents being proud or showing off. Your child will then wonder again why they weren’t “rewarded”. Are you then going to moan and bitch that the perceived naughty child or the child that does sweet FA got better results than yours? Still not knowing how much actual work they did to help them achieve it? Do grow up.

WhatToDo82
I would imagine that the so called discrimination would be something like 'naughty child I don't think much of turned it around in year 11 with the help of some pastoral support and maths/English intervention... that is discrimination because my nice child should have had it'.

Ultimately some people seem to have the view that there are nice children and naughty children, and the naughty children should be shoved in a corner somewhere out the way of the nice children and left to it whilst the teachers focus on the nice deserving children.

I think most people just want systems that don't demotivate.

[quote WhatToDo82]@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer There is no such thing as positive discrimination when it comes to exam results. Don’t be absurd. And it may be anonymous, but you’ll soon get teens sharing what results they got and posts on social media and parents being proud or showing off. Your child will then wonder again why they weren’t “rewarded”. Are you then going to moan and bitch that the perceived naughty child or the child that does sweet FA got better results than yours? Still not knowing how much actual work they did to help them achieve it? Do grow up.[/quote]
Anonymous for the one who MARKS the test! As long as it's fair, it doesn't matter if results are shared after. If someone is genuinely better, that's just life.

If the lazy child gets half the marks just to show up on the day, then no.

Same thing.

Children are perfectly able to accept that someone wins a race because they are faster, or get better results on the day because they were better. They are also able to understand if naughty kids get preferential or special treatment at school. That is the problem.

NO ONE is asking for children to be unfairly rewarded, the thread is about the exact opposite!

whilst the teachers focus on the nice deserving children.
no need to make stuff up, no one said that.

The issue is pretending that so-called nice deserving children can be safely ignored, that their hard work and consistency doesn't deserve to be acknowledged and pretending that because a child is quietly getting on with it they don't issue or need support.

The issue is pretending that so-called nice deserving children can be safely ignored, that their hard work and consistency doesn't deserve to be acknowledged and pretending that because a child is quietly getting on with it they don't issue or need support.
I would agree with that.

It's just funny on this thread to see how many people apparently know exactly what all the other children are doing, exactly how much help they're getting, they know how much effort other children are putting in, know all about everyone else's home lives.

Funnily enough people seem to be absolute experts on what's going on in the 'naughty' children's homes, and certainly seem to think they know enough to claim that they are getting rewards for doing FA in lockdown.
There's a real sense throughout this thread that some are less concerned with an appropriate rewards system than they are being annoyed that a child they don't think much of might get some praise.

You do know the parents are not in class, don't you? It's the kids who know who is misbehaving, refusing to work, being a general nuisance or even a bully.

It's the kids themselves who talk 🤷

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer
And yet this thread is full of parents who apparently know all about the other children's lockdown lives and who is doing what.

I'm all in favour of an appropriate rewards system that allows all children to be rewarded for making progress in their own ways. I also don't like ineffective behaviour and reward systems that overlook children.

I don't buy the idea that all these posters claiming to know that children getting shout outs in lockdown know half of what is going on in other homes. Like I said up thread, one of my students who displays really challenging behaviour in school has actually got one of the highest engagements on one of the online platforms we use. We don't do shout outs at my school, but I guarantee some people on this thread would be all frothy if that child got one.

and rightly so if one child consistent and engagement is ignored

while another one is being praised for doing work once or selecting only what they feel like doing.

It's unacceptable to reward one-off work or good behaviour and ignore consistency.

Make her your star of the week? Print out a certificate and award it?

again, how would you feel if your husband prints out a certificate

when your lazy colleague just got a bonus and a raise?

Most adults just become cynical .. like the kids!

Yep, very unfair.
Years ago ( about 2004 )when my youngest daughter was doing BTEC.
Worked her socks off.
Only those on EMA ( means tested ) were in the running for a £100 extra payment ( on top of the £30 payment a week they were getting to encourage them to stay in education. ) the £100 was for the most hardworking E M A student of the week.
My daughter used to complain bitterly to me that she was probably the one working hardest on her course but was not eligible to receive a reward. I too was a teacher and knew that she was putting her all into that course.

My daughter at the start was head down getting all the work done with full marks and got nothing she then started struggling with her mental health not sleeping, barely eating and tears all the time so is getting no work done and nothing and I can't even get a teacher to call us back so we can ask for some sort of support.

My sons school doesn’t have this.