A moan about reward systems at school - I know IABU really

[Howmuchdoyousleep]

School has a merit system where for every 10 merits you get a certificate bronze, silver, gold, ruby etc that sort of thing.

DD was upset last night as most in the class are way ahead of her. Including DC who are not well behaved and in fact have been quite mean to DD this year. DD is quiet, well behaved, able and works hard and honestly I think gets overlooked. I've said all the right things to her that doing well is for her alone really and that merits are given to people who try to improve their behaviour etc. Having another child with additional needs, I know that DD is lucky to be able to work hard and do well.

But in all honesty I think it rubbish to not acknowledge the ones who work hard day in day out - it is very demotivating for them. DD has had a difficult year with a lot of medical problems this year and could do without this comparison as she really values school and wants to do well. Surely if you have a reward system it should be done to motivate all not just those at the top and bottom.

sense of bitterness towards authority figures this definitely describes Sam now, but it will all be fixed when Sam is prime minister 🤣. Sam has also been very intrinsically motivated from then on, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

What year is she in? She sounds young still.
Unfortunately it always seems to be naughty DC who do something good or behave well once at circle time who get rewarded.

My DC is year 6 now and has started saying "well Mrs x doesn't care" "whats the point Mrs y only cares about bully" and "mean girl is Mrs X's favourite so what's the point"

She can't wait to get to secondary.

Yes, it sucks and it's the same in secondary (and work!) IME; the quiet ones who just get on with things get overlooked. Though, I remember going for a promotion once along with a colleague who was exceptionally loud and was hell-bent on finding a new hugh earning partner through work (whether her intended victim was married or not 🙄). I actually got it which she was shocked about 🤭. So maybe people do notice. Very hard for little ones though.

What you and your daughter will come to realise as she gets older is yes it seems unfair but whilst all children like to have these rewards some children need them others just want them. They don't matter - play it down and make her realise that self satisfaction is the greatest reward.

We have a list in our class (I work in a school) to keep track of who has got what awards, so the same people don't get them all the time and everyone has a chance to shine. There is a certain amount of "x hasn't screamed at anyone this week so he should have this" but also a healthy dose of "y did brilliantly in maths this afternoon" and "z is always just so good, definitely their turn".
It's really the fairest way.

Merit awards ds never seems to get, he does say that it's the children's that need them that do get them in school. It's a bit rubbish according to him but the way it is. There is two academic awards which are only given out for outstanding work in his class and may not be given for months on end, he does receive these and values them. I think merits need to spread out more. It'll be weeks without one then he'll receive a couple for random things
At his activity they have two tiers of awards, one for sheer effort and improvement that is given out weekly to make sure that everything is noticed and everyone gets a turn. Then we have the outstanding one which is given out to the person who does shine and frequently this will go to the same couple of people as you do always have people who stand out.

This thread has taken me back to secondary school in the 1970s. I was fabulous at history and absolutely loved it. I came top in the assignment scores for the year, top in the weekly tests, top in the summer exam. The history prize went to the girl who bullied me and stole my books just before the exam. She had presumably been given it to encourage better behaviour and greater engagement in the lesson rather than the usual beating up of the people who turned up, engaged and worked hard. I still see her. Her life has not gone well. The pain in the backside children may win the awards in school but that may be the only award life actually ever gives them. That's still rubbish when you are 14 and working really hard. But the thing is that, if you are working really hard, life will generally bring you far greater rewards ,in the long term, than any silly certificate or plastic trophy some naughty child might get at Friday assembly.

I thought the same about my children and the awards at their school. Why were the hard working underdogs not valued? Then I started working at their school and can totally see why they weren’t earning the awards! They are polite and generally hard working but nothing like as perfect as I thought they were. I wish every parent could be a fly on the wall sometimes!

When I was a teenager, I moaned to my mum about why the naughty kids got more good behaviour rewards than the good kids once. My mum told me 'fair' isn't everyone getting the same, or even everyone getting what they have earned. 'fair' is everyone getting what they need. Some kids had higher needs for behaviour rewards, maybe not getting praise at home, maybe not self-awarw of the value of good behaviour, maybe impulsive behaviourscaused by SEND, past trauma or learned habits that I didn't have to overcome. She told me I had no right to be jealous because the fact my behaviour was already ok meant I had a huge headstart for an easy happy life, in the scheme of life, let them keep the gold stars and good luck to them. It really stuck with me.

It has been going on decades. I recall complaining to my mum about the very same thing when I was in Yr 5. She was a teacher in the same school and was very open with me about the utter ridiculousness of the whole thing and how it means diddlysquat in the long run. I'd say be honest with your child - she probably already "gets" the system and just wants you to acknowledge it is silly and she is not less deserving than her peers.

This is the reality and it sounds like your mum put your mind at ease, but I think with primary aged kids parents might be reticent to tell their kids the truth about the awards in case they blab to the recipients, telling them the award doesn't really count and is just because they're usually rubbish. As a result, the well behaved kids often go years not realising that and thinking their teachers genuinely like those kids best and think they have done the best.

This exactly.

Based on this thread, I’m going to tell my dc that actually I’d be worried if they started coming home with awards.

So reward systems become another way of stigmatising and othering children who need extra support. So they create a situation where either -

The quiet, well behaved, more resilient children (who actually may also be neurodivergent, disabled, have shit home lives), are told to quietly look on at the "special" children who "NEED" the recognition more than they do.

Or

They are just lead to believe throughout their whole school experience that nothing they did was good enough to be recognised.

No one is served well in that system. True empathy is not about rewarding children with difficulties for coping better in a challenging environment. True empathy is about recognising what makes the environment challenging for the child and changing it.

Also it just doesn’t seem to work. It’s why it’s not continued into secondary school.

It sets some children up to failure. I was involved in the permanent exclusion of a year 7 boy, early in the term. They had been told in class numerous times, in assemblies, about not doing something. He did it anyway. He didn’t understand there was a consequence to his actions and kept asking about going on a trip the next week. One of the schools I was in used to be extra hard on year 7 as they were so entitled and not used to getting in trouble for anything.

The worst behaved child in DDs class (lovely parents, lovely home life) just ran wild as there was no consequences (including from his mum to be honest who spoiled him). He was very violent to my friends child and they were going to do nothing until my friend said she would go to the police/governors. He was then picked to go to a special event out of school a week only a few children were going to, got sent home after a few hours because of his behaviour. It does them no favours.

I can still remember the Effort Cup awarded at my primary and the upset it caused when I tried my hardest every week/month/term and it went to someone else. I did win it once though!!

My advice is explain to your daughter that merit points will be given out for all sorts of reasons. Some children have more of a struggle to attain results or sit still and some of those points will be awarded for behaviour that your daughter finds easy. Then go on to say how proud you are of her and maybe even set up your own reward system at home where you can control her stars and make sure great behaviour or academic successes get rewarded.

My children understand a lot of the house points are given as carrots for good behaviour and sometimes the more unruly children have the most points. I think this stuff is accepted more readily by my older child than my younger child as a sense of injustice is felt more strongly by the little ones.

Having said ALL of that I will say of you genuinely feel your child is being overlooked and it’s really making her feel terrible please talk to the teacher. No teacher/school is setting out to upset children and I’m sure a quiet word would see the situation resolved.

Reward systems are used in secondary schools. And they are just as arbitrary, demotivating and nonsensical as the primary school equivalents.

Merits and demerits are common in high schools. The problem being that only some teachers (usually the ones who struggle with classroom control) use them more frequently than others. There is no consistency to their allocation. So at the end of the year when the whole year is measured against each other, children who have teachers who throw them about like confetti are rewarded but the children who have teachers who don't buy in to it don't.

High schools often have less rewards but more punitive scoring systems. Things like lateness, or having the wrong p.e. kit can result in not being allowed on a school trip or not being allowed access to the school prom. So children and young people who have poorer organisational skills (sometimes as a result of undiagnosed neurodivergence) are punished in a way that children who have poorer language or mathetic skills are not.

If we start to see ALL behaviour through the lens of ability, skill and learning you start to see how ridiculous behaviour rewards and punishment systems are.

Things like this are really difficult and I sometimes wonder if schools should just do away with these things. No matter what they do someone will always be left out of it. Completely understand where you’re coming from. DH is a teacher and has said being a “middle of the road kid” is almost the worst position to be as they get the lease attention. I’m not saying your DD js middle of the road!

Yeah these kind of systems are designed to incentivise the kids who are normally troublesome. What it leads to is the average kids feeling disenfranchised. I get it.

I am the Mum of that kid that gets all the house points. He has adhd and struggles to focus. He lives for house points and they have turned him around he is top of the league and he now works hard studies hard to get full marks in tests, focuses and looks for things he can do to be helpful and be kind to others which helps him and the rest of the class. For some kids they do really work however I am under no illusion that he is the best in the class because of the house points. However we also do have to accept he isn’t picked for the big part in the play, when only a few kids are picked for something it is never him etc which is hard on him and us.

On the positive side, it prepares the children excellently for the world of work, where systems of reward vs performance are even more arbitrary.

@Florin but what is the longer effect of this kind of motivation? What happens when the points and weekly certificates stop? They are not helping with his underlying inability to focus. Many children with ADHD/ASD become very focussed because of reward charts but sometimes (and you know your child better than anyone) what we see as success in terms of improved behaviour, better focus is actually coming at a cost to the child in terms of their mental health and underlying stress levels. What is it about the environment of the classroom, or the subject matter or how it is being taught that makes it more or less difficult for a child to cope with? Making learning as easy and enjoyable and safe for all children should be the priority.

I don't think this true at all. It's not preparing the children who struggle. I would not hire someone or keep someone in employment because they tried hard for a couple of weeks. I need people who are excellent, focussed and able and consistent. So the child who got lots of praise and rewards at school despite poor behaviour or ability are just not going to see that continue in the real world.

The punitive stuff is also not carried through to real life. Children who are punished for things like lateness, wrong uniform, disorganised belongings often thrive outside the school system because they can access employment in creative industries or can work for themselves. They can still also go to whatever parties or outings they like. So showing children what the natural consequences of their behaviour are is probably much more effective.

It's so tough for the quiet, we'll-behaved kids. My DD was overlooked throughout primary school while we watched really badly behaved kids racking up merit points for award certificates.

It was obvious to all that the badly behaved kids were being given merit points just to sit down and be quiet. Anyway... it's clearly never changed. Just keep boosting your DD and definitely say something to the teacher.

The house points motivated him but that has quickly moved over to the reward being his result so it has worked. For example they do times table tests every week, 60 questions every week he was getting in the 20’s so they motivated him with house points to do better. He worked on them to get better now every single week he get 60 out of 60, and it’s the score and his running streak that motivates him just last night he was telling me how proud he was of the number he has got full marks in a row while he studied hard for his science test next week which he is also determined to do well in. They were just a kick start.