To award my DC all the points

[SayHelloToMe]

DC is in reception. He is a summer baby so still 4.

When he started school, they gave this class point system to the class. Each day, some kids make it to gold. There is a big fuss of clapping etc.

DC has really set his heart to get to gold. Pre lockdown he was helping TAs clear up after lessons. He is bright, very good at maths, well ahead his peer.

Each day while at school, it was only the naughty kids who made it to school... behavioural issues, learning difficulties... so during lockdown, it was only the kids attending school who got to gold.

It’s painful to see him get his hopes up and never get it.

After I complained to school about home schooled children missing out, they said parents could award kids up to 3 points each day to be redeemed when school starts again.

AIBU to award him all the 3 points for each day of homeschool? He’s done all the homework, helped at home, been flexible around my work, etc.

Home schooled children are missing out, so anything that helps balance things up is a good thing

@SayHelloToMe

What about non SEN children? Why don’t they ever Get rewarded? Genuine question.

And this is why it’s actually called “what about-ery” 🙄

How about you raise your child to behave well for the intrinsic reward of that, and not give a shiny shit about school rewards?

That kind of behaviour management technique first appeared as a helpful tool for some SEN kids, and then reward charts spread everywhere.

When mine were in primary, they were all quite aware that the various versions (we had a lot of clouds and suns and traffic lights) were behaviour management techniques and what actually mattered was that they behaved. All of their friends understood this too.

Many years ago I had a child in my class who was prescribed steroids due to a life-limiting condition. I had a couple of parents try to get him banned from participating in sports day because the steroids would give him an unfair advantage. He was 6. (Note 'try' to get him banned; he wasn't)

Back in the 70’s in my school days, attention was paid to the brightest kids and the struggling ones were mostly left to get on with it and no-one (schools/politicians) cared if they dropped out later on. That’s changed and the opposite is now the case. After all, society improves if the more children are educated to a minimum standard of literacy and numeracy. Anything above that is a bonus.

However, I don’t think current state primary schools are the best places for bright, well adjusted children if you don’t want them to simply coast along. The school’s priority is to improve the outcomes for children who are struggling to meet the base level targets. You might even find your child will be purposely sat next to a disruptive child in order to help improve their behaviour although whether that negatively impacts the brighter child seems to be irrelevant.

To combat this perceived injustice, many wealthy parents focus on improving their child’s prospects by having them undertake lots of extra curricular activities.

Complaining to school about the unfairness of their systems won’t actually change anything so you need to decide how best to support your child during their school years. You might even consider moving them to a selective state or private school if you’re especially concerned.

Hello OP.

My lovely DD has ASD and is non-verbal.

She attends a mainstream school and gets awards CONSTANTLY. "Star of the Week", Headteacher's Award, "Most Improved".

You name it, she gets it.

She sleeps an average of 3 hours a night since she was born, which means I sleep an average of 3 hours a night too. Every single night. She's 9 now, incidentally.

But that's ok, because all those extra hours awake give me plenty of time to ponder and plan financial and practical arrangements to provide for her future.
I also get to worry about what will happen to her when we die.

In the interest of fairness, I propose you take all the pieces of glittery award paper she receives weekly from school and trade it for a healthy, happy child.

Does that sound fair to you?

I hate all these massive competitive systems at 4yo.

Most 4yo will try and be good and it's harder for them to feel they are noticed for it compared to their peers than it's great for them to get the damn awards themselves.

If you think your ds deserves the points give one whip the an explanation.

Send to school.

@babybythesea. You sound like a lovely person, the sort schools need.

@Cocomarine. I think you’re being unfair. Op’s dc is only young. Still 4.
He wants to get gold because he wants to be recognised as a good pupil.
Is that such a bad thing to encourage? How often do dc get upset if they misbehave and are told off for being naughty?
When he’s a bit older by all means explain that some dc need more encouragement.

Give him the points op it won’t affect anyone else.

^What about non SEN children? Why don’t they ever
Get rewarded? Genuine question.^

They do. Everyday. By not being SEN and therefore having many more opportunities available to them in the future in this ableist world.

I wish it was possible to quote posts that quote posts...

But to address this. As an adult, it's obvious that children without SEN have an advantage. But for a child, this system of reward can seem incredibly unfair and demoralising. From the child's perspective, why bother putting in the effort to go the extra mile when the teacher doesn't recognise or reward it?

These are young children - they all need encouragement.

Maybe a problem with these reward schemes is that the purpose of them is not made clear to the parents at the outset? With my first DC I genuinely thought they were awarded on merit and can understand the OP getting upset that her DC is not being awarded a gold star as my DC have also been fairly quiet and tend to be overlooked. After a while though the penny dropped and I realised the gold star schemes etc were a behaviour management tool.

I find it wierd the amount of parent that think their children are hard done by angels and that put so much stock into these things.

I dont know who wins personal awards at school unless its my child bringing it home - how do people 'know' these things and why are you obsessing on it?.

There is a class award given weekly for best overall attendence thats published at DS school but thats it and thats technically 'not fair' as my DS class had a severally ill child who was virtually always off (for legit medical reasons) and a child that had a horrible accident and was in hospital for ages but it was counted as non attendance so they didnt win for years.

It didnt ruin the other childrens lives though and the kids that was off had much bigger issue to deal with.

The children in the class I know where more worried about their friends and when they could play again than winning a worthless award.

It feels wierd to know (after seeing several threads like this) that there could be other parents so naracsistically self involved that they would get mad at children who have it worse than them for 'disadvantaging' their child.

My whole point is about an unfair system

If you think any system in schools is so skewed that it benefits children with disabilities to the exclusion of non disabled kids you are sorely mistaken.

Your poor little one might be asked to reflect on how many things these kids lose out on every single day rather than focusing on his apparent loss. Teach your kid that hard work and good behaviour are their own reward rather than have him only do it because he wants a gold star.

Even though my child is SN I don't actually agree with reward based systems. They foster a love of rewards and not of learning or inquisitiveness. They grow dependency on external praise instead of internal satisfaction
They should all be scrapped imo

You complained bout a gold award system for four year olds?
You scrutinise the awards given?

You need to get a life. You are going to create a snowflake.

Threads like these make me feel sorry for teachers.

@Lochmorlich I disagree that you have to wait until a 4yo is older.
As a 3yo at nursery, I remember all the kids being well aware and perfectly accepting that “Alex” had different treatment, because of his different needs.

I don’t mean me as a 3yo 🤣 don’t remember that... I mean one of mine at 3, and their classmates, all understanding about “Alex”.

[quote IUsedToBeAsSmugAsYou]@SayHelloToMe Wow, your lack of empathy and social skills is astounding. Your written expression is also rather poor, do you have a learning disability? Apologies if you do, perhaps everyone is not taking that into account when judging you for coming across as so unkind and self absorbed.[/quote]
I’m sure that you’re just trying to make a point but this is actually an exceptionally nasty post. When did it become acceptable to say this to someone?

Your written expression is also rather poor, do you have a learning disability?

Im a teacher and agree these systems are BS.

I try to keep it fair by alternating what I choose to give awards for (results, behaviour, effort) but if I meant a lot to one kid I want parents to email and tell me. I want the kids to enjoy school, and feel like they are succeeding. I want them to be proud of themselves. I can tell the kid, "this is great, keep it up and you'll be winning awards".

The kind of 'those' parents who are annoying are the ones that endlessly complain, getting an email saying Bob is desperate for Gold, can I tell him how to get that would never be classed as one of those parents in my book.

NT children need motivation too. It's not unreasonable to expect school to do something to motivate all children depending on their needs.

I don't think those reward system is BS if they use it properly.

NT children need motivation too. It's not unreasonable to expect school to do something to motivate all children depending on their needs.

Its not unreasonable for schools to expect parents to do their job and encourage their kids to understand the needs of others may be different. Or to not jump up and down because their 4 yr old isn't on some page nobody except the parents care about.

This thread is eye opening! My DS with ASD got nine stars in school on Friday, for things such as choosing a game to play, and walking into the music room. Did he deserve them? Absolutely! He works incredibly hard and puts up with so much discomfort to be able to do things which might not sound impressive to you, but are huge milestones for him.

By all means ask the teacher what your child can do to get gold, but don't begrudge the poor SEN kids their rewards!

Do it.

My son was in a system where points were added up all year. He was a few short of the top towards the end of term and mentioned it, so I suggested he may want to try to aim
for them. He sighed heavily and said, mummy I think I won't. You have to be naughty then good again, and I just can't be bothered! 😄😄😄

There is an increasingly popular school of thought that reward systems like that should not be used in schools for many of the reasons mentioned here. Our school is one of many across the country where they are no longer used in this form. "Marbles in a jar" type systems where all the class work to earn sufficient tokens to gain a whole class treat have been going for years. It doesn't matter who earns them, the whole class benefits. Recognition boards are a bit newer and more appropriate at KS2, whereby a particular aspect is chosen as a focus (could be behavioural, could be academic) and stars or whatever are added to a display board - but without any particular child's name attached. Gold tickets are another popular system - teachers give these out as deserved, for whatever behaviours. They are all put in a hat at the end of the week (children write name on the back) and one pulled out at random for a reward of some type. More tickets = more chance. Personally I don't like that one as it's too easy for the middle of the road/quiet children to be overlooked.

But my point is that there ARE other, less divisive systems. If there are some children who need a star type system, they can have individual reward charts in drawers and stars be added discretely. In one school there was a boy obsessed with trains. We had a train blutack to the board with the aim being for it to move the length of the board by hometime, according to behaviour. If it did, he could take it home. ALL the children loved it, even though it was aimed at just one child, and it wasn't uncommon to hear the others encouraging him to make a good choice when he was on the edge, as they wanted it to move too!

discreetly