Bloody Prize giving

[AllienOlliemum]

I have 3 DC in the same school, it's a grammar school and tends to achieve very good results. Every year they do prize giving. There are two award categories, Excellence and Effort.
Last year I queried what exactly excellence is in this case and was told "The excellence awards are decided by each department as a whole and considering attainment, attitude, progress and effort" the second award category is simply for effort.
In the upper school (Y10-13) 3 students are selected for each subject and ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd for excellence, and 3 students (if enough uptake of the subject) are given effort, not ranked). In Lower school (Y7-9) 5 students are selected for excellence, not ranked and 5 for effort not ranked.

Today the upper school prize giving awards list was sent out. The actual ceremony is at the end of June but I guess it's because some leavers will have to plan around it. My eldest DD is in Y11, sitting her GCSEs and for the 5th year running not a single award. She has fantastic predicted grades and we are frequently told how hardworking and diligent she is. As per usual though it's the same kids as always. In fact one girl has an award in every single subject she must have taken, 7 Excellence awards and 3 Effort! With 1st in 5 of those! She also seems to have won the award for an essay writing competition and the award given by the historical society!
My other two children (Y8 and Y9) have also never received an award to date but the lower school awards aren't announced until middle of June.
Last year I queried how it is possible one child wins all the awards and was told the departments select their own winners and can't know who the other departments have chosen.
There are also non academic awards such as Integrity, but typically it's always the same students who get these too.

AIBU to be massively pissed off with this bloody system which is centred around favouritism!
It's every good damn year!

Yeah they need to limit it to one award per pupil per year - maybe allowing one excellence and one effort.

Your child isn’t that great, deal with it.

I know all mummies of newborns think their baby is the greatest ever but 16 years later, some common sense should have seeped in by now.

I agree with you. The effort awards should certainly be given to kids who tried hard not those who simply achieved a lot - this girl obvs tried hard too, but couldn’t the teachers spread it out a little so it’s not massively dominated by one girl ? They must have known she’d get lots of awards in other subjects. Sounds very unfair - I’d take her out for a treat to make up for it.
I got lots of prizes at school - but they said for example you can’t get the debating AND the public speaking prize - we need to give one to someone else (even tho otherwise we would have given it to you)
now I’m in the same boat with kids with no prizes or awards. It’s tough.

Totally agree. OPs posts have stunned me!

But why?

Why penalise a child who deserves the awards for being the best in that area, just so other children (and their parents) don't feel "left out"?

Awards and competitions are important to teach kids about the real world. They aren't going to be just given jobs over higher achievers just because the other person got an offer elsewhere. They won't just get the house they want without working hard to earn the money.

They may as well get rid of them completely.

Awards should be on merit, not spread out to avoid hurty feelings.

I’m assuming this is sarcasm!

I really needed to read this comment.

ND parent with a high performing primary kid. Never wins any awards ever, despite being top in every test and working ahead several years in some subjects. Never gets certificates. Nothing. After a while they stopped sending her to assemblies because she would get so angry and frustrated with the system and now she has extra lessons instead.

Maybe the Student winning all the awards at secondary had a really crappy time at primary watching all the average kids like yours getting academic prizes whilst the sporty kids won those for achievement.

Maybe it's her TURN.

Also yes, my nephew got 12 Grade 9s at GCSE and so yes, some kids are just insanely bright across the board. Particularly GCSE which is less about subject and thought and more a memory test.

Sounds like this girl deserves it.

Maybe they simply are better academically. Good for them.
Don't be spiteful about a child just because she's doing well.

OP reminds me of the parent who - when I was teaching - kicked off about her child not receiving a Sportsmanship Award. I mean proper screaming down the phone at the school staff about how her child should have been given it, it was a total farce, the child who won was a talentless lump…

Said deserving Ultimate Sportsman then bonked the prize winner over the head with a rounders bat the next day and we had to endure more Mummy Screaming about her angel being discriminated against.

As for the ‘Effort’ awards, if your daughter describes this other girl as a ‘try hard’ I’d be willing to bet that she isn’t putting in anywhere near maximum effort herself!

It is really normal for clever children to be good at most subjects, and for outstandingly clever children to be the best in school at most subjects. Usually, I wouldn’t expect those to be the children putting in most effort as well, however.

This is so weird. It's like you're not main characters in your own lives. There's some bright, high achieving girl getting on with her life and a grown adult is sharing the prizes she's won on an online forum and bitching about her at home with her DD. Maybe focus on yourself and your own daughter, rather than some other kid from a different household?

😂

And talking about her lack of friends, like having the most teenagers like you is far more important than any silly grade or award...

The other girl may need to watch her back before OP or her DD turn on her even more.

Why, if a child is the highest achieving across a range of subjects? They deserve the prizes. It's a meritocracy, not picking favourites. Why do we need to have a stickers for everyone culture?

I used to. I'd be top of the class for pretty much all of my subjects and get the awards.

I would have been rather piqued if lower performing students were given awards because "it's only fair". Where is the incentive to try? Do you think swimmers should only be allowed to win one medal per meet so the other kids get medals too? Or is that ok because it's sport and someone dominating is clearly obvious?

Maybe this girl is just excellent. Maybe it is favouritism. Whatever - it's a chance to teach your DD that sometimes, life isn't fair, and resilience is a good thing.

One child can be great at everything. She is the child that will get 10 A*s and 4As at a-level.
(Former teacher).

My DC went to a small non-academic supportive indep school - they are not academic (SEN) but tried. (But Let me assure you that their level of effort - although lovely to see - is nothing like the effort that an academic child would need to put in to get good grades at 9 GCSEs.)

They were awarded an Effort prize for RE (Y10 or Y11 - cant remember). It was so funny - we are the least religious family in the world. We've joked for years that it's because they were polite and didnt disrupt the class, more than their classmates. But the point is the excellence awards were mostly given to the same few students, but the school tried to look more broadly at Effort to ensure that the students who tried were publicly acknowledged and that is important.

Your daughter sounds average-most of us-the clue is in the name and there is nothing wrong with it at all.

There will always be people better than her-and you-and unless you want to waste your life being bitter-then you have to learn to deal with it.

Even Michelle Obamba, The Pope, Bill Gates will have come across people better than them-everyone does. Your girl is average-she's not a prizewinner.

All cannot have prizes but you must surely win the prize for a bitter jealous woman who is doing a sterling job of passing those qualities on to her daughter.

Be nice-buy this outstanding student a well done card.

There was someone like that in ds1's year group. She's at college now doing about 4 or 5 a levels I think. My ds1 also won loads of awards. He has Aspergers syndrome and struggles with socialising so he throws himself into lessons and extra curricular stuff.

I never won any awards in secondary school. I was well behaved and always did my homework but I wasn't academic at all.

My DD didn't get a single award her whole student career until upper sixth, where she got 'Best EPQ' and 'Most Progress' in History. I have sat for years and years clapping the same group of students. It was nice (and very well deserved) for her to be finally recognised and all the more special as it was her first, and last possible, awards.