To be kept awake by class scoring system?

[PurpleRains]

I’ve been lying in bed crying, so I think I might be being ridiculous, but here goes…

I have a lovely DS, aged 7, Year 2. At parents evening a couple of weeks ago I was told there were no concerns academically, some of his maths is at mastery level, and he is a good role model to his classmates, he is calm, sensible and friendly to others. When he has play dates at other people’s houses I’m told he’s been a pleasure, and he’s invited back. In other words, I’m confident my child is a good kid.

Here’s my problem… 3 weeks ago, the school introduced a new points system. Previously it was some kind of chart at school, and when they reached so many points they were allowed to choose something from a range of stationery items. I don’t think my child got loads of points, it didn’t really rate high on my day to day life unless he wanted to tell me.

The new system is an app. I can log on at anytime and see throughout the day whether my child has been awarded any points. Points are awarded for “demonstrating excellent learning behaviours” in things like listening, curiosity, risk-taking, perseverance, independence, cooperation, and resilience. I can also see whether he’s been awarded them as an individual or if the whole class got the point.

So far my child is receiving 3 to 5 points per week, 2-3 points have been awarded to the whole class.

The child who scores the most points in each class each week, receives recognition in assembly and a certificate I think. So far the top scores in his class have been 18 and 24!

I’m taking this far harder than my child! (who doesn’t mention it unless I ask). I can’t decide whether to
a) feel upset that my child’s obvious brilliance is being overlooked 😉
b) feel I’m failing as a parent as clearly my child is not demonstrating sufficient excellence at any of these 7 key qualities
c) be annoyed that the teacher must be awarding around 150-200 points a week, which I take to be one every 10 minutes, when they could be focusing on other children.

I think mostly I’m taking it personally and feel my parenting is being scored every day, and it’s stressing me out more than anything!

AIBU to be upset and stressed by this scoring system?

You should be happy.

It sounds like he doesn't need a bunch of points to stay motivated and well behaved.

It's a system to motivate the children not for you stress about in the night.

Just get over it.

And their parents are likely engaged too, orchestrating how to win more points from behind the scenes - do this extra bit of work at home, ask for harder extension work, tell the teacher you've done x, y and z etc.

This is absolutely batshit. If there are genuinely any parents out there doing this, solely for the sake of their kid beating another’s merit point score, they need professional help.

These systems aren't ideal and lots of schools are moving away from them. For some children though they are really motivating.

Why would you worry if your child isn't bothered? I am sure they get recognition in other ways. Part of being at school is realising they aren't the only star in the sky. I would be downplaying it and not fixating on what other children get or don't. Being invested in your child's education is great but channel that into their reading or taking them to interesting museums.

I'm not sure why people think the pta have such sway when they basically fundraise but they could always join them. Schools are desperate for money!

OP take the app off your phone and ignore this stuff. If your DS does well at school and gets enough points for reward he'll tell you and you can celebrate and if he's doing badly or his behaviour is problematic the school will tell you and you can address it

Life really is too short for worrying about something that you will have completely forgotten about in five years time. I say this as a parent of teens/young adults who can barely remember the reward systems they had in place at primary school. You're likely to have far more complicated and significant parenting issues to think about in the future. Save your energy for those.

I would delete the app and explain to your teacher you're not keen on that kind of reward system by

I appreciate your point that it supports behaviour management.
But it's not always helpful for the confidence of the better behaved children. My oldest, generally quite well behaved, got very few, and got frustrated to see very disruptive children getting loads. It brings a sense of injustice, feelings that they are forgotten about and therefore not important. Teachers assume that the well behaved children are intrinsically motivated so don't need that external validation. However this isn't true, my daughter is well behaved partly due to a fear of getting in trouble, she is looking for positive feedback from her teacher and when she doesn't get it, it does dent her confidence. They are too young at 6/7 to understand that they are not getting points due to another child needing them more, they just see it as unfair and that they 'aren't good enough', which then fed into 'people pleaser' behaviour rather than standing up for herself.

Youngest is a bit more disruptive (? ADHD, youngest in the class) and she gets away with far more than my oldest, gets more praise and her behaviour actually deteriorated. This academic year i asked her teacher, please can she be evaluated on same basis as rest of class, no special treatment, same rules and boundaries. And her behaviour is better, her learning was better. Quite frankly, she had learned the year before that she could take the piss but if she put on a sad face she got away with it, but not anymore, and it's good for her, tough for the first few weeks but much better in the long run. The world won't let her get away with more due to being younger and ? mild SEN, an employer won't promote or praise her, people wont like her more. She needed to understand that she needs to earn rewards like anyone else.

But say you have no problem with it in class, you just don't have any interest in it in your own personal time with your child

I work in year 2 as a teaching assistant and our point system sounds the same - class dojo?

The system works really well in acknowledging positive behaviour such as helping a friend, good listening, persevering etc. The points are usually put on just before break and after lunch and take a minute at most to do. We display the points screen on the interactive whiteboard, under each child's name is an alien and the amount of points they have earned. When this is displayed I always look for who doesn't have as many points and then make sure I keep them on my radar for any opportunities to award them a point.

It would absolutely be reasonable for you to send a message or approach the teacher and mention that you've noticed his consistent low point score, and is there anything he needs to work on (it sounds like he's doing great though!). It's probably a case of him flying under the radar which shouldn't be happening to any child.

I’m guessing the points system is Class Dojo? This is the very reason I don’t add parents to my class’ Dojo page. I think you’re definitely overthinking it, but if you are really that concerned, mention it to the teacher.

YANBU.
It is well known that reward systems do more harm than good. They devalue the tasks set (as the tasks becomes only worth doing for the reward), they don’t promote growth mindset, they decrease self esteem and increase anxiety and shame and dependence on external validation and they also decrease generosity (as they promote a ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality). And finally a big one, they decrease intrinsic motivation! (This is all from studies done on reward systems and I can concur as I am an ex primary teacher.

It’s hard being a teacher though, you have to control a class of 30 somehow and this is the unfortunately for you part and parcel of sending your child to school. So whilst I sympathise with you I think it’s best not to get too attached to the ridiculous system.

I’d love to know what parents want us to do.
I use dojo in my class, the low level disruption is so high (children talk over me, ignore the clap, constantly call out, get out of their seats while I’m teaching) I have to give dojos at the end of each lesson to each child who has managed to quietly listen to my input. For your information my input is never longer than 10 minutes followed by a practical activity as my year 3 class cannot listen for longer than 10 minutes nor can they focus on a written task after listening for 10 minutes.
So if you don’t want me to use positive reinforcement and we know that punishment doesn’t work, what do you want me to do?
I cannot teach a class of children who cannot listen.
I literally have 3 classroom rules.

1. listen to the person talking.
2. put up your hand if you want to speak.
3. Stay in your seat.

I would wager most teachers have a similar simple set of rules- Dojos are the only thing I have to try and reinforce these rules. Do you suggest we scrap these perfectly reasonable expectations? I would love to be able to teach a lesson with everyone listening without resorting to bribery but the attitude of children now doesn’t allow for that. There is me and 31 7 and 8 year olds in that classroom day in day out. Just me. Honestly I’ve been in schools since 2003, behaviour is unbearable. I’ve said to DH I’m giving the government this academic year to show they are willing to help us but if come May half term there is no sign of anything changing I’m handing in my notice. I am pretty sure that will be the case as parents clearly think we are worthless scum just out to upset their children. I miss the days when saying”I’m going to speak to your mum at the end of the day” was the beginning of two adults working together to help a child be the best version of themselves. Now it’s ’I’m going to tell my mum xyz” and it being 10 minutes of being shouted at by an adult who cannot possibly understand that a child’s perspective of an incident might not be the whole truth however truthful the child believes they are being. Anyway sorry to derail your thread, but after yet another week of only being able to deliver 2/3 of the lessons I spent last weekend planning due to disruption. To read parents complaining about what is the last thing I have to improve behaviour has tipped me over the edge.

One of our DC gets a lot of points, a lot are for volunteering to help by handing out books and equipment, and bringing pe equipment in.
If she didn't do that I doubt she'd be getting the most as regularly, and she primarily offers because she doesn't like sitting still for long so it's a chance to be moving around rather than sitting waiting.

If it's anything like most schools by the end of the year every single child in the class will have won the most number of points in a week at least once.

Do you use this supportive trait of yours in everyday life?

DD was in Y1 when she realised she didn't get points or stickers or star of the week because she was well behaved. So when dS went to school and got a lot of certificates and "good listening" awards, we all knew he must have been a horror in class.
It's a very poor behaviour management tool.

These bullshit externalised reward systems are not a good measure of how well your child is doing in school.

What you (and the school) should be focussed on is his intrinsic reward system; does he take pleasure at learning new things, is he curious about the world around him, is he proud of his achievements, does he feel good when he does good?

It is irritating to read that op sees this as measurement of her personal parenting. How do you stretch a school system designed to help improve the behaviour of disruptive children into being all about you?!

Op you are ‘that’ mother and too invested and competitive.

DS' school has class dojo which sounds similar, I can access it on my phone but I don't, he tells me if he's given points sometimes and they all go into a class pot anyway.
It's not used for any other communication so it's of no value to me. You need to get rid of the app

Kids are very quick to realise that the points get given to the naughty kids to motivate them and the "below the radar" good kids don't get as many. Our school does dojos and values awards, and my poorly behaved, likely SEN child has achieved significantly more recognition than my highly academic compliant child. Kids aren't stupid and they see this too- it probably devalues the points for the ones who are bright and well behaved as well because they'll see the points system as being for the "naughty" kids, which may well be why your son doesn't seem that fussed.

I totally agree. The alternative to rewards systems is punishment. If we were focused more heavily on sanctions and punishment rather than rewards, classrooms would be very negative environments and people would still be complaining. We can’t win.

He did get given a biscuit at after school club the other day on the way out because the teacher said he'd volunteered to help her dry up (she washed he dried) with no prompting and it's not something the children usually do. He told me he didn't think it was fair for her to do it all by herself. I was proud of him for that.

It sounds to me like your child doesn’t really care that much about it (given he didn’t seem to talk about it much before). That means it’s probably not a very useful tool for the teacher to use with him specifically, she s/he probably doesn’t. Other kids will respond incredibly well to it so s/he probably uses it more. There are lots of other tools s/he’ll be employing for behaviour management and emotional development. I wouldn’t worry – sounds like he’s a lovely boy.

Having said that, if you are worried it’s perfectly valid to raise it with his teacher – just do it in a non-confrontational “I’m wondering how this tool is used / how my son responds to it / if there’s any issue” etc etc kind of way.

I think you should delete the app as clearly you’re not able to deal with it in a measured way

Respectfully I do think you need to get a grip. That said this is the problem with all those positive behaviour management in schools. All these points systems are designed to manage poor behaviour, not really to reward good. I have 2 quiet, impeccably behaved, clever DC who very rarely get rewarded at school for anything or any 'points' (slightly different system but the premise is the same). Because your son is all of the above already he doesn't need any encouragement and therefore will be overlooked. It's just an unfortunate quirk of the state system = over worked teachers, large classes, poor behaviour. It's your job to build up their confidence at home. You can't rely on state schools to notice them much I'm afraid.

None of this matters a toss, provided that your child is happy at school and is being educated.