To be fed up with an education system that ignores bright but quiet kids.

[ButterMints]

DD9 came home last night upset because once again her efforts in class had been ignored.

The teacher in the class had awarded class points to kids who had "worked hard in maths".

DD had got every question correct but didn't get a point. Points were awarded to children who didn't get 100%.

This seems to be a pattern with both my kids, where they are consistently ignored in favour of loud but less successful children.

My older child left primary school last year frustrated and disillusioned with school, having spent much of the time in class reading whilst others caught up with the work that they had already completed. And in their words, "I get 100% on my practice SATS papers every time and get nothing, but the kids who go from 50% to 60% get all the rewards."

I get it, I really do. Teachers have finite resources. But as a parent it's incredibly frustrating to once again find myself reassuring my child that their efforts do not go unnoticed.

It's a sad reflection of an education that is letting children down across the board. Schools desperately need more funding so that ALL children can reach their full potential.

I didn't blame the teachers, its hard to manage 30 kids, especially when some need more attention than others, I only intervened when DD was being used as behaviour management for "naughty boys" and got stabbed in the leg with a compass by one.
The only Secondary State option we had didn't set at the time (does now) and teacher friends advised us it was a VERY bad option for a child like DD.

I think there are a couple of things going on that are impacting here. One is that your child isn't being challenged - extremely frustating but sadly all too common as schools have an obligation to get as many children up to the minimum standard as they can, and they aren't rewarded or judged onw hether they can help higly able children do better. Unfortnately, this is one that I see no solution to in the short term as it's a case of resources as much as anything. the options for you are to challenge him privately - tutor, extra work at home, academic clubs or private school.

Re the reward thing, that IS an issue and one I would discuss with the teacher. I think it's quite easy for the teacher to slip into this - rewarding effort rather than achievement. If your school is a good school, and the teachers are good teachers, a quiet word should allow them to find a few opportunities to praise/reward your child. DD is easily achieving "above expectations" for everything and I've had to do this once before when she was just slipping under the radar but usually I don't as the school really does make an effort to recognise every child, at some point.

This year, she was starting to get upset as they have a weekly assembly at which children are identified for good work/effort/progress and she hadn't got one yet... but sure enough, home she came with her certificate last week as I think they aim for minimum one reward assmebly per child per term!

I certainly agree that a small child is going to find it incredibly hard to not want a 'well done" and shoukd get one.

Buy I think a c-b is good academics!

I saw this as lot when my daughter was in primary school. It's not good at all.

This. Quietly clever and waiting about for recognition gets you nowhere.

Whilst I empathise, the issue isn't that your DD isn't getting any rewards, it’s that rewards are used as a method to motivate less able or less compliant students. Giving rewards for what should be an everyday effort in the classroom is counter productive. The desire to learn / improve should be intrinsic, not motivated by external rewards.
That being said, it’s the system most schools believe will work best (even though it doesn’t). My DD was very much like your DD by the sounds of it. And I’m a teacher, so have had to implement ridiculous behaviour systems over the years. All based on external rewards. All a waste of time. Star of the Week, Headteacher Award, Dojo points, Traffic light systems, Golden Time - all pretty pointless.
Regarding your DD, I would explain to her that the rewards / points systems are used to try to get some children to improve, but as she can’t improve on perfection, she doesn’t need it. My DD would occasionally say it wasn’t fair, and I’m afraid to say that I’d point out the things that were really not fair such as a child having an SEN or physical disability, or parents who couldn't buy the nice things for their DC that we could buy for ours. We worked hard on self motivation, focussing on her rather than others.
I would, however, have a chat with her teacher to point out how the points system seems to bar anyone who always gets top marks! We used to have to read out the spelling marks at my last school (I know 😢) and I would circumnavigate this by saying if a child had improved, stayed the same or dropped marks from the previous week rather than reading the actual score. I didn't give Dojo points even though there was a tab on Class Dojo for 100% in spellings! I gave verbal comments - well done for maintaining / improving your scores, and discuss with the class how they could improve for the next spelling test. I would also engineer it so that those whom I knew would not be able to take the tests with any success had their spelling intervention group with the class TA out of class away from the others.
Can’t you tell I hate spelling tests!

I agree for too long there has been no acknowledgement of effort. Prize giving was always awarded to the best in the class or the year, effort never got a look in.

Children who got 50-60% more than likely did work harder than someone who got 100%.

that's so untrue and summarise what is so wrong with the system!

I hate this ridiculous dismissive attitude, I realise that it's based on jealousy mainly, but it's so wrong when it's about kids.

one thing I have learned in the decades since school is that being quietly excellent doesn't get you far. If you want recognition and advancement you also need to make yourself visible, make yourself heard, and be willing to say pleasantly "I got all the questions right - am I getting any points? What should I be doing differently to get points then?"

100%. Make it an invaluable life lesson, they need to learn to be heard and seen. It's shouldn't be like that, but there you go.

Comfort your kids also by saying that at least their efforts pay off. Other kids with lower results very likely didn't put as much work and effort, and the very minuscule amount of kids who DID try as hard but achieved nothing are not to be envied.

Yep!! Really sad following parents evenings recently.
Have 2 bright, engaging children. Eldest's teacher clearly really hasn't got to know her. Youngest has an excellent teacher but individual needs aren't really being met. This then affects his behaviour and achievements in class.......

There are two issues - reward and challenge.

In terms of reward - being able is its own reward, which is hard to see in primary school but in secondary it will become more and more evident. You just need to ask your child to be patient.

In terms of challenge though there is little excuse - speak to your teacher about more opportunities, even if it's self-led, for you child to be challenged. My son gets extension work in maths from somebody who comes into school, i think it's a student from the local uni, who talks to them about advanced maths and does algebra with them. he finds it quite bamboozling which i think is good as it's not good for him to always find stuff easy.

Oh very much so. It is lazy teaching and it works to control the naughtiest kids, but it harms the quieter ones who always behave.

@Hoppinggreen
DS was sat next to a boy who was constantly disruptive and who had bullied him , we were told it was to encourage this boy to behave. We went private when the school wouldn’t separate them

The teachers are praising effort not achievement. Increasing your score from 50 % to 60 % will involve more work than being bright enough to get 100 % all the time. Tell your daughter that she is getting 100%, everyone knows that's good and that is its own reward, the others deserve praise as well. You just need to teach her the right attitude to this and not collude in her complaining. She might be bright but she doesn't have the emotional awareness to realise why the teacher is doing the right thing.

Get her doing an extracurricula activity that she finds hard and doesn't excell at to teach her hard work and resilence. Because when she gets older that will be more important to her success in life than getting high marks in a Y4 test.

I can see both sides. Our primary school was super focussed on academic success so the bright kids got all the awards and the less academic were made to feel like failures.

I had a super bright DS who was always top of the class and getting awards and house points with barely any effort but he ended up getting very underwhelming A level grades compared to the kids who had always been less academic but had worked harder.

I wish he had been given less praise for being naturally clever when he was younger and more emphasis put on working harder ( DH and I now recognise our part in this and would do things differently if we had the time again)

My DD has a learning difficulty and always worked so hard but just didn't have the ability to get good scores. She would get told off for not revising her spellings even though we had spent hours at the weekend trying to learn them. DS would get them all right without even looking at them once and then get praised for being so good at learning his spellings.

We now have a DS who underachieved in A levels due to laziness and a DD who did better in her GCSEs than we could ever have hoped due to her amazing determination to get the level 4/5s she needed.

It’s all well and good saying things like well they will do well and getting 100% is a reward in itself but at 8yo children won’t appreciate that. They just see it as unfair and it gives the message that achievement shouldn’t be rewarded. Why can’t they give rewards for effort AND achievement?

I think it would really help to separate out praise from comparison. The praise should be about how hard he works and how well he did, not how he compares to his classmates.

Ask the teacher to avoid using words like "best," or "most," but to ensure it's just recognising someone who has done well - it shouldn't feel like it's taking anything away from your DS, he should be able to be happy for his classmates.

There's a different poster calling this hell and a mental breakdown, which is more worrying. The best thing you can do as a parent is give him a sense of perspective and show you are really proud, even if he isn't bringing scraps of paper home with "star of the week," on it.

100% this I still remember being pissed off in secondary school that so many kids got "extra time" in the exams like what the fuck is the point in a test if it's not the same situation for everyone. I had a friend that even had a teacher sit next to him and basically explain the answers. No he did not have autism or any disability that warranted that level of hand holding.

This thread ain't going to be popular with people who's kids get extra time etc btw

My son is 6 and he's noticing this shit now he came home the other day and said "Billy got told well done for doing your maths work quickly even though the teacher helped him do it"

I think you should talk to the teacher, tell.that your child is becoming demotivated. I was a teacher in a past life and found a sense of satisfaction when a poor student did well, as I felt it was down to my teaching, while very bright kids didn't need my support. I did however make sure to praise and encourage and stretch the excellent kids, even though I didn't need get the safe warm sense of achievement from it.

I think teachers need to make the effort, it's not good enough for them to say they're too busy with the more difficult kids to notice the very bright ones, and give them positive feedback.

My kids primary did both. Awarded kids who improved and the kids who got full marks - both got points.
Readers got recognised by number words they read and recognised. So more able kids got a million or two million reward by end of school etc but still rewards for less able readers.
Those good at Maths and English had extension workbooks to do if they finished their work.
Northern ireland still has the grammar school system so perhaps more able kids are recognised

Schools have large class sizes, low funding levels and a wide range of abilities - you need to be realistic about what service you/your child is going to receive.

Your child is going to have a much easier time at school and in life than the child with learning difficulties or behavioural issues, so I'd just get them a sticker or a treat yourself.

I think you're probably still viewing this through the eyes of a child!

You have no idea what was actually going on.

DS will most likely get extra time for GCSEs. He did get extra time for SATS. This is becuase he has sensory processing issues and is borderline dyspraxic. So while he can and does answer questions at the same pace as anyone else, his writing takes significantly more effort to make readable, slowing him down and it takes him longer to absorb and understand the questions because of visual acuity issues. Some of this may well be managed if we can get him using a tablet or computer, in which case, he most likely wouldn't need extra time, but that's a whole separate challenge in itself!

This has often frustrated me op, but like you I can see the other side too. I did teach my DC that points/star of the week etc have to be spread around and they were a behaviour tool first and foremost. DC1 was fairly quiet like you describe. We made sure there was plenty else going on outside of school - music lessons/puzzle books/books in general/chatted about trickier maths/other extracurriculars etc and it helped the mild frustration of doing the same old same old in class. I say mild because she is a total bookworm so was happy enough to read or daydream when she'd finished her work. She got to secondary school and just flew 😊

DC2... Still in primary, probably smarter but definitely more focussed on preferred subjects, definitely less laid back, doesn't suffer fools gladly, and more outraged at the unfairness of school rewards. We're working on it...!!

I do think schools could manage to reward children of all abilities a bit more fairly, and help the class understand how these things are allocated.

Have you spoken to her teacher, OP? I think I would. My kid's school is very good at finding a way to recognise all of the kids in each class over the year so that none of them feel unseen.

Well it doesn’t recognise all abilities. That’s the OP’s point. I think things have shifted too much in the opposite direction. Children who can’t cope or have behavioural issues are given extra support and encouragement (rightly so), but the academic ones are left to fend for themselves which leads to disillusionment and frustration.

I agree with the PP who said that this somewhat reflects life, it’s not about how hard you work or ability, it’s about how loud you are and how much you stand out. OP, you have to encourage your child to speak up. You could also discuss this with the teacher. I would.

I mean fair enough if there's an actual need for it but my other half (we met in school) was given extra time in exams and there's literally nothing wrong with him