To not agree with this school reward system?

[Danceswithduck]

Dd is headed to secondary school in September and they’ve done the big sell on their reward system of merits or whatever that are calling them.
If they get enough over the course of each term they can opt into trips. More points equals better and more exciting trips 🙄
Now I appreciate some kids might need this but dd is very intrinsically motivated and doesn’t need this stupid system. All it does is take away any natural motivation to strive to do well. No wonder the education system struggles. We have to bribe children and then they lose their natural curiosity and intrinsic motivation.
DD has been brought up to be very motivated but that will be knocked out of her by these types or reward systems, although no doubt some in her class need to be bribed to behave or make any effort.
DD likes to learn for the sake of learning. These systems take that away.
AIBU?

It works for some kids though

If your DD is intrinsically motivated rewards won’t take that away.

I hate these kind of rewards. In my son's classes in primary he's never got the 'good award' or end of year treasure or whatever it is. All the prizes go to the naughty kids because they are constantly bribed throughout the year and collect most points. Most of the good kids just get overlooked.

All the kids going on those great trips will not be your dd and her friends. They will be the nightmare kids who the teachers have been bribing all year.

I'm in two minds, because obviously the naughty kids must have a whole load of bad stuff happening at home, so it's nice they get some treats. But giving them via reward systems just seems unfair to the kids who are actually behaving and getting on with it. My son is pretty average at school. Keeps his head down, does his work etc.. I expect he'd not be going on any trips or getting any rewards

They did this when my daughter was at secondary, but I think it was only for years 7-8. They got merit stickers and a card sheet. When the card was full they could exchange it for vouchers to be spent in a shop.

My daughter was like yours, very self motivated so wasn't really bothered whether she got the stickers or not, but there were other children who the scheme worked for. It didn't make my daughter any less motivated.

I think so - yes.

What you will find is that a naturally well motivated child will very quickly “top out” of any reward systems (either that or the school will have to offer a trip to the space station!) so it will no longer impact her.

Dd won the “merit lead” badge in week 1. You can only win it once per year. She still got lots of (completely meaningless) merits for the rest of the year.

What these things do do though, is (hopefully!) reduce the low level disruption that your dd will have to put up with in lessons. If your dd is unlucky with her class this will be a constant annoyance and is far more likely to threaten her natural motivation than a trip to Alton Towers.

They can, though. Applying extrinsic motivation can damage intrinsic motivation.

Yes because out of the 100s of kids in the school, they should gear all their systems up to suit your individual child 🙄

YABU - most kids at school never get into significant trouble. They do what is asked and try reasonably hard without necessarily being very academic, sporty or brilliant at anything. Reward trips make sure that those kids are not missed as they have a tendency to be overshadowed by the highly disruptive, amazingly clever or supremely confident kids.

But it isn’t just for academic achievement. It’s also for recognising kids who are just decent and nice, and also a way of recognising effort even if the actual achievements aren’t brilliant.

I'm not seeing why this would take away motivation from your daughter if she is already motivated.

However, I do agree with others about all the rewards going to the naughty kids, this is a bug bear of mine and not how I think it should be. So if that's what's happening then YANBU, as yes the injustice of that does demotivate hard working students.

We should be pushing all kids towards intrinsic motivation and away from extrinsic. So much harm in it - see peer pressure and teenage risk taking. I don’t pay DD to do chores for the same reason.

Prof Steve Peters has done a lot of work around this including a mumsnet masterclass.

It works for some children. It won't make any difference to yours. It is not all about your child.

YABU.

You're DD doesn't need these systems, good for her, lucky for you.
My DS needed these - he's bright, and did well at school, but he was very unmotivated. These systems worked for him. They won't demotivate your DD (why would they, if she already understands the benefits of working hard), but they can work for some kids.

I disagree. Most of these awards are for the children doing better than expected - top of the class have to show willing in different ways to those who struggle.

Plus she may be motivate to work, and her reward will be a better career and being paid well.

Being recognized for trying is all most people want isn’t it?

I'm not seeing why this would take away motivation from your daughter if she is already motivated.

It's a fairly well-established psychological principle. Lots of research been done on it, the upshot being that if you have, say, a kid who loves drawing for fun, then you start promising and giving them a sweetie for each drawing, they often then become unwilling to draw for the fun of it if a sweetie is not forthcoming.

Oh should we now?

I disagree.

My ds’s school does these but put no thought into them - for example, all children with a certain number of points were taken to Alton Towers in July of Y7, but my ds was too tiny and spent the day watching his friends going on rollercoasters. Really not fair!

Dd has just finished sixth form in a school that has merits and behaviour points. It didn't affect her motivation/love of learning etc and it didn't other kids either. Don't worry

I’m interested to hear why. Bonus points for evidence.

I do get that but Op has put a lot of emphasis on how naturally motivated her DD is and hasn't given any evidence that there actually has been a negative affect on that from these rewards. I'm not disputing that it CAN happen but that doesn't mean it will for all children.

But as I said before, I do very much get it when it comes to perceived injustice in who gets these rewards and who doesn't.

I agree. Too many rewards take away the intrinsic satisfaction to be gained from doing something for pleasure.

For example, children who are not bribed to eat vegetables are more likely to say they like eating vegetables.

Those who are rewarded with a sweet, see the vegetables a necessary evil to overcome in order to get the sweet.

OP just wants to boast about her kid and encourage comments about 'naughty' kids.

Schools need behaviour systems. If they don't your dds learning will be affected far worse by other kids disrupting lessons. If you aren't happy you'd need to find a school that doesn't need this as all the intake are well behaved and will continue to be throughout the teenage years.

You realise that the school isn’t set up to revolve entirely around your DD and her needs and that there are other children in the school that might benefit from this way of doing things?

Love these posts about intrinsic motivation in children…the majority of adults work for money and to achieve and get reward from compliments from others, being able to buy better houses or cars etc. Without the ‘rewards’ we wouldnt do it