Primary prize day - small number left out

[Resiliencerequired]

I’d like to gauge whether or not I’m being over sensitive over this topic or not, I’m generally fairly resilient about these things.

I attended my son’s leavers assembly prize giving on Thursday - he’s at a small prep school with a class size of 21. For background he’s had a brilliant time during his prep school years, he has lots of friends and brilliant teachers in years 3-5. This year has been more of a challenge - my ds is quite capable, but can be distracted and can be a bit of a clown - it wins him friends, but not marks in tests…… His teacher this year has been rather unpredictable, he encourages banter amongst the children and shares jokes, but then tells them off and gets cross without warning. My son has struggled to understand what’s a joke and what’s not. He has found the learning environment uncomfortable at times and this was reflected in his end of term report where his attainment/effort had slipped - it came as a surprise.

Anyway, when we arrived at prizegiving there was a table full of cups and trophies and I honestly thought there was enough for one each. As they awarded them (some children received two), I had this sinking realisation that a small number of children weren’t going to get anything and sure enough, ds was one of them. Of the class of 21, I think about 16 received either one, or two cups/shields and five got nothing.

My view is that either prize giving should be for the really deserving children, or everybody. It wouldn’t have taken much to get a few extra awards and made sure everybody’s talents were recognised (there were no sports awards, for example - even though I know the school has them from previous years).

My son was initially quite dejected as he too thought there was something for everybody. Ultimately he was really mature and said ‘I don’t mind not being good enough for a trophy, friends are better than trophies’. He hasn’t mentioned it since. I should add that the school gave each child a small gift and one of the mum’s had organised a fabulous year book which was also distributed, so he didn’t leave completely empty handed.

I however, I feel that being excluded in this way has tarnished the end of his time there. Regardless of how my son felt, I felt really rubbish - like my son had under achieved and was worthless (he’s quite sporty and is really thoughtful - it would’ve been easy to think of something for him). I have a few children, and therefore many, many years of primary school experience lol, so I’m not too precious, but it ranks as my lowest moment ! Am I overreacting ?!

YANBU: It’s sad to exclude a such a small number of children and prize giving should be either for a small number, or everybody.

YABU: Get over yourself - resilience is the greatest contributor to success !

Regardless of whether or not your son deserved a prize, you’re right that 5 out of 21 not receiving a trophy isn’t great. 5 out of 21 getting a trophy (maybe for maths, English, sport, art/drama and a general award) would seem much fairer, or a trophy for all of them recognising their individual talents. I worked in a small independent school previously (with a much smaller class than 21, admittedly) and all of the children received an prize.

It sounds like your son has dealt with it very maturely though, especially if he recognises why he might have been one of the ones who didn’t get an award. Best of luck to him for a fresh start in September!

And to add, I’m now considering the fact that maybe his behaviour was worse than I had realised - so not discounting that either. Useful feedback.

Ultimately, the teacher can't say to you that he's been a pain in the arse, they can simply imply it through which ever method they see fit - in this case, not giving him an award. I think you need to get over it and tell your son to stop dicking around in lessons. It won't be tolerated at secondary school and will begin to impact his future.

when we arrived at prizegiving there was a table full of cups and trophies and I honestly thought there was enough for one each

why? if they get one each it’s not prize giving is it? More of a goody bag.

YABU, maybe this will give your son the nudge he needs to behave a bit better

I was the class clown and missed out on prizes but can’t say I cared!

maybe there were 16 “really deserving children,”.

This. And, OP, stop blaming his teacher for such a large part of his low achievement this year. He’s not always going to have authority figures or colleagues who are 100% consistent or who gel with his own form of social self-presentation, and he needs to learn to adjust accordingly. It’s a timely lesson.

At the end of primary DDs headteacher posted out special awards to children in the class. All DDs friends got one and they were all posting pics of them all over the place. For a long while DD checked the post for her’s but it never came. She was a quiet child, did well academically, was good at sport and had just got confident enough to start putting herself forward for things. Like you, we think the school on the whole was great but it was a bit of a final sting she could have done without. Also, because it was the last thing they did (or didn’t!) do, it sticks in the memory.

Moving forward, she is also one of the very few children never to have won (even a token) prize at her dance school or at either secondary school she’s been to (4 years in). She has very positive reports, good friends, good grades etc so no rhyme or reason really. She is happy and doing well but it will be forever a mystery!

One thing I do think is she isn’t very adult like. She doesn’t build the rapport with teachers that some other children do eg she leaves dance while others stay and natter with the teacher. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but I think she does struggle to engage with them sometimes and that it might frustrate them a bit or mean she slips under the radar.

He’s already as privileged as hell, why does he need to get a prize too?

Can't vote since I'm on the app but YADNBU. That's really mean, leaving out a small group of children. Speak to the teachers about this. If they want to give prizes to the top few fine, if not everyone gets one. No child left behind.

He doesn't deserve a prize, assume the others didn't either, and this is a lesson for you about your own expectations and asking for a heads up and him too. I wouldn't go on about it and taint his memories but next time you find yourself talking about his effort in class slipping you can refer back to this. I'd call it natural consequences.

He definitely deserved a prize :-). He is kind and thoughtful, he loved the ‘buddy scheme’ his school set up, he had a little group of reception children who he shared his football with at playtime and let them shoot penalties against him all lunchtime. He’s a friend to everybody, he makes time for a child with less friends and makes sure they are included. He does his homework every night without being asked, he’s academically average but he does try. He loves maths, he loves nature and science and sport.

But yes, somewhere along the line this year he hasn’t done as well as in previous years - I wish I’d had this feedback earlier, mainly to manage my own expectations ! And as for the other excluded children, they are lovely too, and I know some are feeling a bit bruised.

What, so people think it's ok to leave it till a very public end of school 'prize-giving' to teach four primary school children a 'very valuable lesson'? What a crap and mean thing to do.

Unless absolutely measurable, such as highest score in a maths test, or fastest at the 100m, most of these prizes amount to nothing more than a thoughtless popularity contest and power trip by teachers.

Yanbu OP. This stuff hurts.

But the ‘prize’ is that he is popular and has lots of friends.

In my mind it's fine to give awards to children who do well but not to flaunt I infront of children who aren't getting anything
In Y6 both my DDs got awards at leavers assembly but every child (so 90 in total) got some award. One boy got an award for always being able to make his teacher laugh.
In secondary school they have award ceremonies for children who have done well but these are held after school and away from the school so it's not really flaunted infront of the children who don't win.
Your son has dealt with it really well and in a mature way (he is also right, friends are better than trophies) but YANBU to feel upset and annoyed.

It’s absolutely horrible to leave out 5 children. Horrible. I don’t see the need for awards either that age. We don’t have them where I live. I’m a nursery teacher, and I feel for your son and the other 4 children. I strongly question the ’xx is a nervy boy’. It would not be allowed to write something like that in a report here, extremely unprofessional.

Not quite the same, but our primary head used to throw a chocolate bar to the child who had gone the furthest on their hols first assembly back in Sept - he was a giant wanksplat in many ways to be fair - but awarding the generally wealthier kids for having wealthy parents was incredibly irritating!
Back to the OP, I think leavers assembies should celebrate every child, or very few, not nearly all but not quite!

I bet if the teacher had asked all the other children individually who they thought is a good friend to them and to everyone in the class, they would say it’s your son. Be proud of him!

Popularity and kindness are not the same thing??? And do you really not think that kindness is a trait to be valued and encouraged or are you just being a wind up merchant

With 16 prizes being given out, some of them were probably more spurious than that. The school could have taken the opportunity to celebrate every kid's contribution and they didn't

Also to whoever said that the school couldn't have told his parents that he was being a little shit - wtf, yes they can?? Giving feedback to parents is surely a fundamental part of job. What were they doing on parents evening?

Would it not be a much better model to give feedback during the year and give the child an opportunity to model growth and improvement, instead of waiting and then just saying "thems the breaks kid", without a clear message about what actually went wrong

I’d really like to thank people for their diverse opinions. I am sorry that others have felt this way at times and as @Tromtrom said, it does leave an enduring bad feeling as it’s the last event of the year.

I’m contemplating emailing the school at some point to ask whether it was deliberate and if so, to provide more specific feedback. Or if not, that perhaps they might reconsider their approach in the future to ensure that it is either a smaller number of trophies that are awarded, or something for all. Or at least perhaps they could’ve verbally acknowledged the achievements of all children individually as they distributed their yearbooks.

I do agree that some awards were somewhat spurious but most were deserving - I don’t begrudge the winners their awards, I only wish that it could’ve been more inclusive, it would’ve cost little, but helped confidence. It did feel a bit like a ‘goody bag’ event, but was painful, in that moment, to be left out.

As @GCHeretic noted, my son is really fortunate already and I do acknowledge that. For what it’s worth my older children had brilliant experiences (perhaps even more so) at their state schools and in the grand scheme of life it is only a small knock and gives me something to work on for secondary.

I don't think you should email the school to ask for "specific feedback". You've had this on your child's report.

In the nicest way possible, the teaching methods are not responsible for your child acting the clown in class. Also, ow do you know the teacher banters with your son and then abruptly tells him off?

Your child didn't get a prize and I'm sorry to read that only 5 children didn't. I personally think less prizes would have been better. However, you should tell your child to stop messing around in class, to not make jokes, that "friends are better than awards" doesn't even make sense - you can behave in class, get awards and still have friends without being the class clown - and next year, he might get an award.

Just a thought but it wasn't also in the yearbook was it? In one of my children's yearbooks, which was completed online by the child, there was an award section which the children had voted for - person most likely to be prime minister, person most likely to be in the olympics etc. In that award some children came out with a few awards and others none. It was just a couple of pages in a yearbook and as parents we knew it was just computer generated based on the prepopulated questions that the children had completed. The computer didn't know that it would be fairer to just give one award to Jamie so that Suzy who was second in the person with the biggest smile and friendliest but not voted first in any category can get an award. I wasn't involved in compiling the yearbook so I don't know how easy it would have been to over ride it and award something to everyone. There also wasn't an award ceremony so it wasn't so obvious.