Everyone given gold award except DD

[dancschmance]

DD (aged 8) has attended an after school dance club this term. I thought it was just a bit of fun and a good way to get some exercise etc. It’s certainly never been presented as competitive or serious.

She’s loved it and was very happy and enthusiastic to go every week.

She’s come home from the last session today in tears. Apparently at the end of the class they were all given attainment awards. According to DD, every single other child was given gold except her - she got silver.

I fully admit that DD probably isn’t the best dancer there (she has inherited my coordination skills!) but she’s tried really hard and been fully committed to the club. I had absolutely no idea that they were going to be “graded” at the end of term and had I known this would happen I would not have signed her up. It’s completely ruined the experience for her and feels like she’s been singled out as the “worst” dancer.

Am I being unreasonable or was this is a really mean and unnecessary approach from the dance teacher? It’s not the olympics - they’re 8 year olds at an extra curricular club!

This is brilliant advice.

Until you hear back from the leader about the criteria used to decide who got each award it is futile to speculate. I agree it is poor that you were not aware of the grading system when you signed up. I was the child who due to disabilities never got a single award at Athletics at school. I simply wasn't good enough at any activity. The teacher was sympathetic in her explanation but I accepted it as just one of those things. I was OK academically and did go on to Higher Education. (First in my family to do so). I just learned a bit earlier than some of my class mates that someone has to be the worst at something and it doesn't mean you are a lesser person.

If the OP’s daughter knew she was in a competitive situation it would be brilliant advice. But she thought she was having a bit of fun with friends after school and has been blindsided that treating something like fun was actually being in a judged situation. One where until proven otherwise, she was shown to be lesser than everyone else who was there. And it’s highly probably being taught by someone who didn’t have the slightest clue what being ‘gold’ or ‘silver’ worthy of dancing actually was since it was a school club, it would be different if this was an actual dance club run by a professional with certain expectations of attainment by the end of the term.

Considering this an after school fun activity on a Friday evening that your daughter has enjoyed immensely I think it’s absolutely nuts that gold/silver type awards of any type have been given.
Yes, if it’s a competitive dance school with recognised exams then you have to accept the results can be tough.
But for an extra activity for kids to enjoy at the end of a school week? It defeats the object of it being fun. And let’s face it not every child in there is going to be a prima ballerina are they? Imagine generic stars and little prizes for attendance, funky dance moves, being a kind student to others, the list is endless of things you can recognise.
A friend’s daughter is a teacher has a class exactly like this which she takes. At the end of each session she does a 5 minute free section, where kids can literally move in any way they like to the music. She says that’s when kids who struggle in other ways really go for it.
I know from her that the benefits to all of the kids are immense.
So whether there was one gold star, or a whole plethora of them, it’s not fair at this level.
School is tough enough, of course kids have to learn about not always winning, but they also have the right to do something fun without it being an Olympic style level of grading.
That is exactly what I’d want to feedback on. And I’m a former teacher who has run all sorts of extra curricular activities for fun and that’s exactly what they were.

How many in the class? If there are 30 pupils and 29 of them got a gold award, that seems wrong, because it's unlikely you'd have 29 dancing to exactly the same standard and one below it to the extent of meriting a lower award.

If fewer than 10 in the class, that would be more understandable.

Have the others been attending since the start of the school year, or Christmas?

Anyway, you say she has really enjoyed it. If she has enjoyed it each week, why on earth would you give her the option of stopping and starting something else?

I would be telling her she has done fantastically after only one term, emphasise that is about her enjoying it…and we learn by persisting and improving and getting better at things.

Talk to her about her disappointment, and the fact that she worked hard at a new skill, which is fantastic. Build her resilience, rather than flopping around with ‘it’s not faaaaiiir’

I’m with you here OP. I think it’s unkind and unnecessary to single out one child.
Giving everybody a gold award bar one begs the question why whoever it was in charge of the afterschool activity felt it necessary to hand out so many golds. This implies that all those that got them were of exactly the same standard. I find this very difficult to believe - some of them would have been better than others
If she was so intent on giving the participants a tangible reward it would have been kinder for her to award a gold silver and a bronze.
I don’t disagree with those that say we have to prepare our children for the fact that they can’t always be the best - of course we do -but to single out one child in front of all the others seems unnecessarily unkind and all the more so as this was at an afterschool club with no known competitive purpose.

You have to rethink this, maybe she didn’t reach gold this term but will next term.

I guess I don’t see it as competitive: it’s achieving a standard, or a goal. You achieve it or you don’t. Like a swimming badge. Not a race, where there is only one winner. The focus on effort rather than attainment applies to both kinds of clubs, and I find it really helpful advice.

YABU how about using this as an opportunity to talk about everyone having their own strengths and weaknesses and the importance of taking part instead going off in a strop to the teacher because your child didn’t reach the standard required for gold?

Has she been given any criteria to work towards, any way to understand why she only got silver rather than gold, what she could work on to earn that gold?

If not this really seems very unkind and not remotely constructive!

Exactly this.

Your DD enjoyed the dance classes and as a bonus she got a silver medal. If the other girls danced better than your DD then they deserved a higher medal. She's not in a nursery anymore where everyone has to get the same reward regardless of effort put in or ability. Nothing to say if she keeps practicing she won't improve further and get the gold medal.

My sympathies. I got really fed up when mine were younger with there being no sporting or dance activities/ clubs that were just for fun after about age 10.
It doesn't matter how hard you practice, some people are uncoordinated or have eyesight issues etc that mean they're never going to excel in these fields and even more have no interest in pursuing them professionally so why not have some just for fun/ not competitive! There's enough competition for grades/ exam results etc in school as it is.

It’s not gleeful - I was the kid who gave stuff up because I wasn’t always great at it. I won the ‘most improved player’ award, which everyone else at netball knew meant the whitest person on the team. But as an adult I wish I had been taught to chill and have fun and ignore that stuff because I quit things I loved/enjoyed all because I thought I had to be better, to impress others. If OP can I still that into her daughter and her daughter can continue to enjoy a hobby without letting this sort of shitty stuff get to her, then she will be all the happier for it. All the competitive stuff is utter bollocks, if OPs DD can move past it she will be so much happier.

My ds would have been devastated if this had happened to him. He wasn’t great at dance or sport and this would have hammered home how useless he felt. I didn’t give a shit about resilience when he was 8. If it turns out to be correct that ds really was the only one, I’d definitely be having a chat with the teacher.

I would be annoyed too OP, the school should have been more transparent about their approach and made it clear the children would be graded. They shouldn't assume that all parents would want that type of extra curricular for their child.

This is what happens when kids “graduate” nursery

I actually think making her the only child to get silver sounds a bit like bullying tbh. That said she probably wasn’t really the only one. As pp said it probably felt that way to her cos her friends all got gold.

After a bad experience with a dance class I wouldn't go anywhere near another one. They take it far too seriously and are in no way inclusive

It's not really a "bonus" to get a piece of paper, presumably in front of all the other kids, that says "you're the worst in the class". I'm sure the child will have picked up on that not being a good thing!

When I was a child I did gymnastics and we all worked towards the BAGA awards. They had 4,3,2 and 1. Quite a lot of girls in my group got grade 1. I couldn't get grade 1 because I couldn't do the splits. I tried and tried but could never do them. All of my friends got grade 1. Younger DC joined our group and many got ahead of me and got grade 1. My Mum just told me she was proud of me for not giving up and gaining grade 2. I started at 6 and went on until 10 and still never achieved grade 1. My younger sister got grade 1 at about 8. She was better at gymnastics than me. Your DD will find something she is really good at in time.

It’s a (supposedly) fun extra curricular activity which she’s done for 30 minutes every Friday for a few weeks after school.

By age 8 it gets where most children enjoy there being a badge/certificate to earn. I can't think of any extra curriculars my kids do that doesn't involve working hard for the end of term rosette, grade or badge.

What would annoy me was the lack of communication. I'd have expected the dance teacher to mention at pick up a few weeks before if she's struggling and offer you a video of the choreography or something so you can practise at home rather than just letting her go in poorly prepared.

This is what happens when kids “graduate” nursery

Eh? There have been ballet exams & medals etc since I was a child.

Its worth checking its not an age thing OP. My DD once missed out on an exam because she's a couple of months younger than the others in the class and you had to be over a certain age to take it.

I wasn't able to get a gymnastics certificate at a similar age because there was one (quite simple, but I'm ridiculously inflexible) move I couldn't do. Everyone else got a certificate.

Disappointing, but not surprising because there was a chart showing the things you needed to do for each level and I was well aware of where I was on the chart. I'd done my best but it wasn't for me.

If they'd given out certificates at the end without telling us the criteria, and I'd not got one when everyone else did then I'd have been devastated.

Hopefully that's not what happened here because that's shit, poor coaching, and delivers no learning to the students.