To email school about DD never being recognised…

[Greyhop]

I’m very happy to be put in my place here! DD is pretty quiet, well behaved at school. She is very good academically - but never gets certificates, is never on school council, has never been to headteachers tea party throughout her time at school/happens termly with about 4 children from her class chosen to go along (some children in her class have been 4 or 5 times). This has been fine up til now.

This year she has started to say “I’m not popular”. I’ve supported her with this - saying she may not be sporty etc, but she does well in English. Everyone has different talents.

The school do reading awards. A new thing this year. DD got to her bronze award, and she was first to do so. Since then she has read avidly, in the hope of getting a mention in assembly as first to get to platinum. 2 weeks ago the school was told someone in year 6 is only a few reads away. It was her. She has followed the rules, written reams in her reading diary - worked it all out that she could get to platinum first. I was reluctant to go with this, but I could see how keen she was - and that she was set to get it.

Yesterday, 4 other children got the award before her - in a different year group - and the only way they could have got it was by their teacher allowing them extra reads to beat her.

She is absolutely devastated!!!

I’m too emotionally invested in this aren’t I? I shouldn’t have encouraged her. But I’ve never seen her sob her heart out like this!

I’ve told her we’ll do our own award/tea party at home. She’s now happy. AIBU to vent in an email to the school????

@Theunamedcat

The fastest way to demotivate a child is to not recognise them my ds had years of this his bully was recognised for "not beating anyone up all afternoon" "keeping kind hands in assembly" etc etc they fell over themselves to reward the little shit e en his punishment was to sit in another classroom on YouTube none of his victims were ever given recognition ds used to be an avid reader but years of being pitted against and losing out to a child who just had to stop hitting for a morning or an afternoon to get a certificate or sweets or praise meant he quit

Totally agree, I don't know whether teachers and educational professionals don't realise this or whether they just don't care.

The thing is, your dd can't really change her behaviour or effort. These things aren't necessarily awarded on pure merit. They are designed to encourage struggling pupils sometimes or to reward children who may previously have been struggling. If your DD has always done well and remained consistent she just won't get the recognition until you prompt the school it seems.

@Teenylittlefella that's terrible I would 100% be complaining about that to the head teacher.

@MsTSwift

Take a leaf out of my very posh friends book her son in a similar position she said to him loudly as she swept through the playground “we don’t need external validation in our family darling”

Or alternatively write 'punch me' on your daughters forehead. This wanky statement won't do anyone any favours.

I don't know if teachers actually like the nice children. All the awards are given to the shits who make their life a misery. As soon as they take a one-day break from being a shit the teacher gives them an award.

Please do speak to her teacher. Just put the facts forward, that she has been working so solidly and is so disappointed, and doesn’t understand how she missed out. It really doesn’t sound fair that she’s not being recognised for her hard work (I’m a teacher btw!)

This is why I loathed school. I never wanted to be there in the first place and all house competitions were based around sport.

I feel really sorry for you and of course your daughter. Both of my kids had their whole school lives (at least that’s how it felt) being overlooked because they were hard working, well behaved etc. Kids have such a strong sense of right and wrong.

It’s not a case of life’s unfair, as that suggests things out of your control. Yes life is unfair. But this is just wrong. I personally dislike most school rewards systems as kids always get left out. That could be hard working, quiet kids or kids whose parents aren’t bothered or anything in between, either way it’s wrong.

I hate to say this, but this kind of treatment seems to follow good people through their lives! Just seems to be the way. Good recent example, dd working hard at Uni, can’t believe the behaviour of some of the cohort. I mean literally throwing paper aeroplanes in lectures, chatting so you can’t hear anything, taking the mick out of a lecturer with a tick. The list is endless. She and a few others emailed the course leader during year 1. Nothing was done. Year 2 just as bad, total lack of respect from some students, bringing McDonalds into lectures, larking about. Dd stayed at home once to work on her assignment as she only had one lecture that day and it’s one of the worst lectures for behaviour so she doesn’t get anything out of it. She’s getting firsts and works her socks off. Cue email to lecture the absentees on that day (all six were the quiet hard working ones who’d had enough) about ‘professionalism’ Yes I agree she should have attended although I understood her reasons why she didn’t. My point is, two years of chaos and the one time she’s absent she gets reprimanded and spoken to about professionalism. This is typical of how life treats those who just get on quietly with things.

Don’t let it get you down op. I have always told my kids to continue working hard, regardless of rewards or unfair treatment as they will reap the rewards for themselves. Your dd sounds amazing, she should stay just as she is regardless of her disappointment, but I know it hurts.

You could mention it to school, but it won’t stop it happening again I suspect. It’s not intentional, it’s just that someone always ends up disappointed in these situations. Your dd will do well in life thanks to her determined hard working attitude and obviously has a supportive parent. Good luck to her x

@Soontobe60

I’m a teacher - I really sympathise with your DD. At the start of each school year I have a class list and make sure every child gets the Star of the Week 🤮 certificate - I tend to give those ‘invisible’ children the award first. I also have a ‘jobs’ list and every child has some sort of job. As for reading awards, I hate them. I encourage all children to read for readings sake, not to get a prize. If you’re the child whose parents don’t give a damn, you’re never going to get it! In the same vein, I loathe attendance awards. It’s hardly little Johnny’s fault if his dad can’t get him to school on time every day is it? Please email the Head - some Heads need a reminder how their choices can adversely affect some children.

100% this. What a brilliant post.

I’d be mildly disturbed if my child was so set on being recognised.

How can you label a child as set on being recogised when she's only started to struggle after several years of being passed over? That is gaslighting at its best!

Kids who are well behaved and studious often get ignored but actually all children need encouragement. And it is demotivating when they get no recognition at that age.

But she DID get the award, didn't she?

Her post reads like she got the award after the four kids who read more.

And before that she won a silver award and got praised by a teacher.

I think the tea party thing is the main issue because it seems random and like favouritism.

@monotype

I don't know if teachers actually like the nice children. All the awards are given to the shits who make their life a misery. As soon as they take a one-day break from being a shit the teacher gives them an award.

In the days when I was at school and when my children were it was always either the children of parents on the PTA, or children of Governors, or children of friends of the teacher, always, always a link like that. The be kind, reward badly behaved children came in towards the end of my childrens time at school and is painfully apparent in my grand childrens schools.

Do teachers and educational professionals not realise the resentment and alienation this causes?

@Xerac

I would say something . I think I would enquire as to the process they use to pick their award winners. I can see a lot of posters are saying that other children must have deserved it more , but I question that. I think other children may be better at self - promoting than others. I think it's important , because if a child is being ignored and looked over for awards there is a good chance they may be being overlooked in general.

This is my ds. The only times he has been recognised during his entire school career have been on the occasions when he has teachers who understand him. Funnily enough, every teacher he has ever had had sing his praises and said what a lovely, polite boy he is but clearly that’s not worthy of any sort of tangible recognition. Fortunately he’s pretty laid back but if I could go back I would speak up. It is very unfair that the quiet, well behaved kids go unnoticed.

This was DD1. I went to pick her up one day, got there early and they were giving out “awards of the week”. DD had never won one, to my knowledge, and told me that the same children got them every time. I spoke to the teacher, who sighed and rolled her eyes at me and said “To be Frank, I never notice if she is there or not.” She also never got an attendance award as she was severely asthmatic and in and out of hospital.

Secondary wasn’t much better. Because she was overlooked, being quiet and hard working, we were told she should have been on the school’s Highly Able programme about 18 months into the programme. There didn’t seem to be much point in joining the programme at that point, so DD just picked bits that interested her.

I think many people here are not sticking to the facts but mixing this with their own experiences as kids or their children's experiences which is making it hard to find a good solution. What happened to some of your kids is terrible, but:

Her daughter did get the award (just after the 4 kids who read more)

Her daughter won an award before that.

Her daughter was praised.

It is not an award where you can win by promoting yourself it is a book award so it is about books/pages/words read. And she did get it, just later and not first.

If you've got parents evening coming up you could mention it, but I would be more inclined to go down the route of "what can she do to achieve this?" because if you have the meeting and then the next day she gets a certificate it won't be because she has earned it, it would be because you've asked for her to have it.

@Poppinjay

I’d be mildly disturbed if my child was so set on being recognised.

How can you label a child as set on being recogised when she's only started to struggle after several years of being passed over? That is gaslighting at its best!

All kids need and deserve recognition. Do you know any parent that didn’t help their kids along with encouragement when they were learning to walk or speak? School is no different. If a child feels ignored or overlooked, the chances are they will just stop trying.

Some schools ARE hives of favouritism to a point way beyond ridiculousness. Was like it in our old school - DD2 is one of those kids who is a massive massive trier - always smiles and is polite and helpful (not bias - anxiety about being "good" and following all the rules is one of her huge ASD traits) - and in the year she was there and stuck with a class teacher who openly didn't like me or our family - she did not get a single "good work" award sticker. It was vile and it was definitely targeted bullying aimed at a child and the staff member in question I later found out had a bit of a history of taking her own strops out on kids (thankfully no longer teaching).

It absolutely shredded DD's confidence every single week seeing the same kids getting these awards, and her sister (who is NOT beautifully behaved but had a teacher who wasn't a total arsehole) getting them as well - and it was ridiculous - the names of the award winners went in the newsletter every week and eventually people got so sick of the same names appearing that the head's found an excuse not to publish them anymore.

They're no longer at this school but the damage it did to DD was quite marked, despite her being the most stoic and outwardly resilient little girl you'd meet - she KNEW this wasn't fair, and she KNEW she was trying harder than hard - and that she couldn't win at it, and it took its toll on her.

As for "chance to learn resilience" - these are kids, kids who've been through a couple of really crappy years where school hasn't been the nicest atmosphere for them - they're not bloody Apprentice contestants.

My DD has sn and is very well behaved, compliant and quiet at school...she is also very creative. There was an art project one-year. Some of the other kids projects were so much better than hers...they had clearly had a lot of parental help. But the teacher gave her the award. I was so grateful to the teacher for recognising her talent and it meant so much to my DD. Some of these comments suggesting the child is wrong for wanting recognition are awful. It means a lot to some kids

Are you teaching your daughter to learn to stand up for herself, op? I'm not saying you shouldn't find out what's going on too but I grew up thinking being nice and putting my head down will mean I get recognised in time. It didn't turn out like that, in fact many managers took advantage until I learned to speak up.

I would also say the teacher in the other class is more competitive than your daughter's teacher hence why a few kids were rewarded before her.

It's normal to want recognition.

But her daughter was recognised. She did get the award. She was praised. She won another award before that.

The OP is upset that 4 kids got it before her.

Our primary school does a real mix of rewards and I think it works. Kids are recognised for genuine achievements (big fuss made when the sports teams do well), but there's also Star of the Week which does indeed go to everyone in the class over the year (yes the most on the ball kids realise that quite early on but those kids can be told 'everyone needs rewarding for their own achievements even if they aren't as impressive as yours'), the Dinnerladies Award which is chosen by the dinnerladies and given to children who are very polite in the dinner hall, the Head Teacher's Award which is a termly award for working hard. I'm shocked that there are still primary schools that don't recognise that everyone feels good about themselves when they receive some external recognition.

The teacher even said to me "she's not the kind of child I need to motivate to I hadn't thought about it."

Ask them how they would feel if their boss never acknowledged when they did something well. What a daft thing to say.

I would definitely say something - there is nothing worse than being the 'invisible child' - I was one throughout school - never top of the class but clever, quiet and well behaved. To have someone speak out for you and have your back, no matter how minor the issue seems to others, is worth everything.

I think we need to figure out whether the daughter is actually being overlooked in general or whether she is really unhappy about something else (her mentioning that she is not popular could point towards something else).

From what I understood she has won two awards for reading, has been praised. I don't know how many awards this school has but two could be quite a lot? At least it would be at my former school.

The student council has hardly any members so most students aren't picked.

The odd thing to me is the favouritism-tea-party but that is a head teacher thing? So I would talk to that person about the tea parties.