I’ve had enough of the class dojo

[Myleftfoot39]

Every week one or two children win the dojo and get a prize. Some children have won it twice or three times. Today a child who defaced another child’s clothing (had written all over it in class) won it (they are in Year 2).

My ds is quiet, well behaved and works really hard. Does all his homework, is reading and writing and working hard. It’s awful but today he came out of school crying his eyes out because he thought he might win the dojo.

Even at bedtime he was upset about it.He doesn’t understand why the naughty kids get rewards but he feels ‘invisible’. He said there’s something wrong with him and is very upset.

I have reassured him and told him the dojo doesn’t matter but it really does matter to him. The teacher makes a big deal out of giving the dojo out as theres a photo of the child on the dojo for all to see.

I’m really fed up of it!!

I hate how the same kids always win it, there’s one kid who must have won at least one third of all of them. It’s really nothing personal she’s a nice girl and I like her mum but it’s like yeah ok so she’s good at schoolwork.....WE KNOW, we got that now can we move on and just see some different faces every week please 🥺

Maybe schools need to have systems that don't inform parents who has won this week

Our school doesn’t have a system which informs parents. What they have is children who go home and tell their parents.

it’s like yeah ok so she’s good at schoolwork.....WE KNOW, we got that now can we move on and just see some different faces every week please

This is why schools can’t win. If they give it out to the bright kids, they lose. If they give it out to kids who struggle in class, they lose.

These things are always set up to reward children with naughty behaviour I’ve seen it several times in my DCs classes. Several parents complained, one listed all green children who won it over and over again, that stopped the children’s names bring out on the weekly newsletter. But another parent in my oldest DCs class wrote a very good email to the teacher and ccd the HT. She noted all the children who won not only class dojo but HT awards and that the well behaved, quiet, hard working children who kept their heads down and got on with their work were missed every single week. The next week ALL the children won the award but no parents were invited into school to witness this as with other weeks. I was stood next to her when the HT approached her afterwards to say all the children got an away. The parent pointed out that wasn’t the point, the point was the school were not acknowledging children at the appropriate times throughout the year.

I also wrote directly to the HT as I had no interest in dealing with the teacher, when my next child was in the same class for similar, it wasn’t class dojo it was recognition for homework and children whose parents had quite clearly done the work as well as the wrong work all won awards when the children who actually put the effort in themselves were ignored. I made it clear there was zero transparency of how the work was marked. I also pointed out the same as the other parent that there was clear favouritism from this teacher to particular children, one boy did 1 drawing out of a whole half terms worth of homework and won a certificate when other children had filled a whole text book & made models. This same child regularly won class dojo and the HT award, I was there one morning when his mum told the teacher he’d not wet the bed or punched her once the night before the teacher was all praise and unsurprisingly he won the HT award that week....

The awards have nothing to do with how hard a child has worked it’s a teachers way of trying to control bad behaviour in class.

I would bypass the teacher and email the head with as much facts as you can and pointing out the well behaved hard working children who keep their heads down like your DS are missing out. Ask what is it your DS has to do to be acknowledged for his hard work. Also ask what the criteria is for achieving these rewards as it seems the children who don’t display good behaviour as a rule seem to get rewarded in front of everyone, dose your DS need to be some a problem child to be acknowledged...

I’d also state clearly why you do not want to deal with the teacher direct and give examples of her behaviour.

Putting it in writing is better than talking direct to them as this way it’s on record and they have to address it.

Lockdown was a blessing for me when it came to this, I was about to kick off about it all again for my dd who was in your DSs position, so polite, always eager to please, would always go of if her way to be helpful and worked very hard, every week shed talk about how it must be her turn to win but never did. It was starting to effect her confidence. When lockdown happened I was able to fix this. I ordered a medal online and wrote a fake letter saying because we were able to finish the school year she never got their special star behaviour award for always working so hard and helping her classmates. My favourite part was when she took it into school in September to show off in “virtual” assembly, i made a point of pulling the ht to the side that morning telling her what I did and why. She couldn’t really do anything about it and had to let my DD gush about receiving it in the post during lockdown.

Two children in my DD’s Year (5) hacked into the teacher’s
laptop and gave themselves loads of dojo’s. Teacher was apoplectic. I thought it showed initiative.

God i remember these days. Even my kids worked out the system and whilst initially it hurt them to not get the star award, they soon got bored off the whole thing. So it was counter productive as a motivational tool. I always told my kids that you're not at school to impress your teachers or your classmates. Its up to you to compete with yourself as thats the only measurement of improvement.
In a side note, it's depressing the early introduction to one of the rules of life. Hard working quiet people rarely get the rewards as it often goes to the gobshites, backstabbing egotistical parasitical members of a company/ community/ society. Too much?

Speaking as a parent whose child has received NOTHING in 7 years I think that in P1 or 2 they absolutely should receive something at least once. 38 weeks of school, 25 in the class, it's not hard to find a reason to give 'star of the week'. "You made me smile" would be enough.
P3 and 4 should be worked for, but could literally still be awarded at least once.
My DS realised at age 6 how unfair it was when the kid with the anger issues who played up in class made it to the top of the dojo ladder to get a prize out of the teachers prize tat tray. I asked why he never got to the top. He said whenever he got close his table wouldn't clean up quick enough and they all lost points so even when he tried really hard, other people affected his score......he was also a chatterbox so TBF he probably deserved to lose a few points.
By 8 he's lost all drive to even try.
The school also does a term winner. One per class. 4 terms x 7 years = 28 potential winners out of a current class of 24. Nope never won that either.
By 9 he was so negative about it all that he simply stopped trying because 'what's the point'. This then started crossing over into his school work (in particular Maths). After he sat crying one night doing maths homework we decided this was enough. School said his maths was fine but the tutor we hired totally disagreed. It's now 2 years later and his confidence has improved tenfold and he doesn't care about school awards now.
I wish I'd been the parent who fought for him instead of making excuses. I will challenge the teachers with DD(4) if it looks like it's going to turn out the same. All children need a little positivity.

@MintyMabel

it’s like yeah ok so she’s good at schoolwork.....WE KNOW, we got that now can we move on and just see some different faces every week please

This is why schools can’t win. If they give it out to the bright kids, they lose. If they give it out to kids who struggle in class, they lose.

They really can't when it's just one reward .

Some schools have various things going on house points , classroom /dojo points, head teacher award/hot chocolate, weekly achievements including a PHSE one ,presentation,postcards sent home etc.Throughout the year every child does get something and it is achievable. However , that involves quite a bit of funding and quite a lot of extra work to make sure every child feels valued and seen.

I get it. Another thing that really annoys me is when kids are rewarded for cheating on sports day. When my son was in year 5, they had the boys skipping race, the kid who came 1st attempted to jump the rope, got tangled in it and then just held it up and ran. My son who skipped the entire way gets 2nd place. How will they actually learn if they're rewarded for cheating or bad behaviour.

This same child regularly won class dojo and the HT award, I was there one morning when his mum told the teacher he’d not wet the bed or punched her once the night before the teacher was all praise and unsurprisingly he won the HT award that week....

Okay, given the way this thread has gone I’m probably going to get my arse handed to me for asking this, but how did you feel when you overheard this? And did the certificate still really matter? Because I’d be thinking “Holy shit, there’s clearly some awful stuff going down in that household; there but for the grace of god etc.” and I’d honestly find it hard to begrudge that child a certificate. Because bed times in our house don’t involve punch ups and bed wetting linked to disturbed behaviour, and in that respect my children have already had good fortune that this poor little bugger clearly hasn’t.

This shit was happening to my children over 20 years ago. Can’t believe it’s still going on. It was very damaging for them never to receive a reward. Don’t know what the answer is though. Also every year of sitting the naughtiest child next to DD1 as a good influence who would then cry allll night every night till I had to go in and ask them to literally stop torturing her.

@Cantstopeatingchocolate

Speaking as a parent whose child has received NOTHING in 7 years I think that in P1 or 2 they absolutely should receive something at least once. 38 weeks of school, 25 in the class, it's not hard to find a reason to give 'star of the week'. "You made me smile" would be enough. P3 and 4 should be worked for, but could literally still be awarded at least once. My DS realised at age 6 how unfair it was when the kid with the anger issues who played up in class made it to the top of the dojo ladder to get a prize out of the teachers prize tat tray. I asked why he never got to the top. He said whenever he got close his table wouldn't clean up quick enough and they all lost points so even when he tried really hard, other people affected his score......he was also a chatterbox so TBF he probably deserved to lose a few points. By 8 he's lost all drive to even try. The school also does a term winner. One per class. 4 terms x 7 years = 28 potential winners out of a current class of 24. Nope never won that either. By 9 he was so negative about it all that he simply stopped trying because 'what's the point'. This then started crossing over into his school work (in particular Maths). After he sat crying one night doing maths homework we decided this was enough. School said his maths was fine but the tutor we hired totally disagreed. It's now 2 years later and his confidence has improved tenfold and he doesn't care about school awards now. I wish I'd been the parent who fought for him instead of making excuses. I will challenge the teachers with DD(4) if it looks like it's going to turn out the same. All children need a little positivity.

Yes totally agree with all you have said. Think both mine did junior and senior totally overlooked. They realise really quickly sadly.

@Mrsfrumble

This same child regularly won class dojo and the HT award, I was there one morning when his mum told the teacher he’d not wet the bed or punched her once the night before the teacher was all praise and unsurprisingly he won the HT award that week....

Okay, given the way this thread has gone I’m probably going to get my arse handed to me for asking this, but how did you feel when you overheard this? And did the certificate still really matter? Because I’d be thinking “Holy shit, there’s clearly some awful stuff going down in that household; there but for the grace of god etc.” and I’d honestly find it hard to begrudge that child a certificate. Because bed times in our house don’t involve punch ups and bed wetting linked to disturbed behaviour, and in that respect my children have already had good fortune that this poor little bugger clearly hasn’t.

This with bells on.

I just can't get my head around how people here are frothing at the 'unfairness' of the 'naughty' children being given (meaningless) awards. Given their children are described as well behaved and doing their best academically with clearly devoted and dedicated parent(s), it seems to me like they've already won. So I personally think in this scenario spending time explaining to my kids (if they really are finding this upsetting) why they may have not won an award and how that's absolutely ok, because a) we can't win everything and b) they won x,y,z sport/academic/home star chart etc so life is grand and to teach them to be happy for others is probably a better use of my time than harassing their teachers. Excellent life lessons there.

Both my kids have been through this rubbish. Perfectly behaved and high achievers. No recognition at all like many other posters.

New head came in 19 and changed the behaviour policy completely. Dd1 was suddenly drowning in awards and it really boosted her confidence. I can't thank the new head enough.

Why the bypass of the teacher? Complaint Policies refer to the teacher AHEAD of the Headteacher. If you have an issue with the teacher’s actions then at least have the respect and decency to give him or her chance to respond directly to you (regardless of whether you hold respect or think deserves this). Additionally, it should be more private than an email circulating the playground. Think how you’d wish to be treated in your workplace. This is too often forgotten - especially to a professional who invests a lot of time and effort in their class (whether you think this or not). Hurt and bad feeling is not the best basis for a parent teacher relationship.

Taking themes of PP responses and feeling, if a particular child has needs warranting recognition for breathing once in the right direction, I’d take this recognition outside of a class or whole school based reward system.

I hate these prizes that are given out singularly like this. It just demotivates whole groups of kids. Yes give certificates, but genuinely give them for everyone who has worked hard, not pupil of the week

What is a class dojo ?

Hmm sounds like a load of nonsense

YANBU,

I'm 52 with 30 years in the NHS behind me and it still hurts that I've never won a patronising "star of the month" or a compassion award.
Maybe they are holding out for an MBE

Your son sounds lovely OP.

I'll bet the parents of the "naughty" or "SEN" children would trade a few stickers and stars for their children to be like the high achieving, sporty, popular etc children that so many on MN are apparently blessed with. Children who struggle work as hard as those who don't, they just make less progress. The fairest way is probably to have either no awards or alternatively rewards for absolute attainment and also effort or improvement so there is a chance for everyone.
DS1 was very literal in infants and saw no value whatsoever in stickers. His teacher once asked him did he not want a sticker (he hated getting his hands dirty and they struggled to get him to do handprints, clay modelling, gardening etc). He said no not really it's just a piece of paper. So he never cared about these things. He was subsequently diagnosed with autism. DS2 (also autistic) quite likes them though and DS3 (NT AFAIK) loves stickers at the minute. His school do small stickers that anyone can get at the time they do whatever it is, there is no one award or anything like that.

I hated Class dojo. Constantly rewarding the kids that misbehave all the time and ignoring the quiet, well behaved and hardworking kids really p*** me off. It was the same when my child was in Primary School and unfortunately doesn't improve once they're in Secondary. I've lost count of the amount of times my child came to me to tell which little brat won it each week.

The one boy who made vice captain in primary school, was also voted school captain in high school, is the same boy who had bullied my daughter since year two.
Why did he make captain? His father was on the school board.
I was livid.

My son’s School doesn’t do class dojo but similarly reward naughty children and it drives me up the wall. There is one boy in his class that has always misbehaved and my son is the quiet hard working one. If I complain about the naughty one they always back him up and turn a blind eye to his behaviour. They are now all going to Secondary school and I’ve deliberately rejected my closest school to keep my son away from this boy. I’ve told the school if they had clamped down on this boy more we wouldn’t have had to do this. I think this type of school policy is going to make more problems for the naughty kids in the future because they have no boundaries at home or at school.

And don’t get me started on trying to complain about the school. The complaints system is setup to protect the school. Even the governors are seemingly corrupt and local councils have their hands tied. Head teachers have too much power aren’t accountable to anyone. If they were then maybe parents concerns would be taken on board.

This happens in our school too. My ds is a good, quiet kid that just gets in with things. During lockdown I made sure the school knew about something he worked really hard on for weeks (charity fundraiser) and he ‘won’ the award. He hasn’t won it before or since.