They were always ridiculous. People get ill, especially children. To encourage them to come to school when ill, which is what this award essentially does, is irresponsible. It’s also extremely unfair to children with ongoing health problems as they aren’t even in the ‘race’. It’s even more inappropriate than ever now with covid.
The same few kids used to ‘win’, those were the poor kids who had parents that sent them in no matter what. One of my kids used to say they deserved the award for having to put up with horrible parents. 😬
I’ve seen kids be sick on the way to school and still be sent in. I actually went into the school office and told them once and they just shrugged. By the next week, lots of kids were ill with a sick bug including mine. Why do they bother sending emails out saying don’t come in for 24 hours after last sickness if they don’t even try to enforce it?
It would be lovely if they rewarded effort and kindness more.
Being fair to my childrens secondary school, one of my kids had a very bad year of illness, then what was diagnosed as post viral fatigue. There used to be a few criteria to be able to attend the end of term treat day, something like 95% + attendance, a maximum of 2 detentions all year, no isolations, a good effort report from teachers. They actually let the attendance one go for my son which was lovely as it really wasn’t his fault, he’d never had a detention or isolation over the 4 years at the school (year 10), and was a good student. The head didn’t want to let it go, but one of his teachers spoke up for him. I shall always be grateful to her for that, she was also a really lovely and good teacher, the sort of teacher that you remember when you’re 40, good at their job but also see the children as individuals.