To think that primary schools are sending a really shitty message to well behaved kids

[CathyBlowsBubbles]

DD (10) is not as academic as either her older sister or her older brother (14&11). She’s a lovely child who isn’t struggling but is bang average. She’s never in trouble and tries her best.

All year, she’s been telling me how she was going to work really hard to get a HT’s award given every other month as she’s never got one. (Older sibs both got lots over the course of their primary school) She’s come home tonight in tears which is so rare for her. Naughty kid in her class got it for ‘making an improved effort to listen in class. Now I know that it’s about equity and that he should be rewarded for improving BUT, where’s her reward for calmly and quietly working her socks off all year? Why is that NEVER, EVER rewarded??? How come her older sibs were forever being rewarded for being super high achievers when it all came so easily to them yet she is never recognised.

She is in a class with a high proportion of kids with behavioural issues and right from Infants, any tiny weekly improvement has been seized on and rewarded. Doesn’t change anything. Behaviour is still poor. Kids are still hurting other kids and disrupting lessons. All TA attention and support is given to those kids too to enable the teacher to teach. How is that fair? How is it fair that the TA supports that group and the teacher ‘stretches’ the high achievers twice a week but the cohort in the middle (apart from one who’s disruptive) are just left to get on with it.

Why don’t they ever even say to us, ‘look, the class is too big, the teacher is frazzled, the TA is struggling too, your kid is no trouble so they just need to suck it up!’ They never say that. They never say, ‘we know this child has received rewards frequently over the part 6yrs without impact but we still need to try despite how demotivating it is to kids who try all year and get nothing in return.’ The system is completely broken when kids like my youngest child gets to the end of Y5 effectively unnoticed. My eldest was on their G&T register and somehow she didn’t go unnoticed! 🤨 I feel so angry on DD’s behalf. She’s never going to get the academic accolades that the older two get. AIBU to ask why can’t she be recognised for just being a good kid?

There are plenty out there for non-academic types. There aren't jobs out there for people that are violent, foul-mouthed, aggressive, slovenly, unwilling to listen to authority or focus on the job in hand. Blair and Thatcher are not to blame.

@Ladychatterly86, are you being deliberately obtuse? 🙄
Why are you ‘sorry my other child isn’t the same’? I’m not! I don’t compare my children nor do I have any issues with one being more academic than the other. Nor do my girls struggle with sibling rivalry any more than the usual teasing and occasional spats. They have never shown any rivalry relating to academic ability. That’s simply a non issue in our house.

My issue IS with school because SCHOOL rewarded my older daughter simply due to her ability and overlook my younger daughter simply because she does not reach those heights. That’s utterly unacceptable to me as their academic ability does not reflect their worth in any way.
So yes, it is the school’s issue.

Contact the school and say all this to them. Ask that they make sure the quieter children are rewarded too.

That’s just fucking depressing! 😔

But?! School is a place of academic learning. Of course they will reward academic success. You are lucky your dd1 got recognition for doing well when it sounds like it's mostly dc with behavioural challenges who get awarded (in state primary) It's not the job of school to give certificates for worth.

It's weird how you place such value on a silly fake award. This thread shows many of our quiet but hard working children got overlooked in classes with 30 dc of whom probably 10-20% have SEN or other challenges. It's school, they go there to learn, you say your dd2 is doing well although she has to work harder for it. It's up to you and her family to help with self worth, the reality is it's not going to happen in the class room. I suggest you find her a hobby she is passionate about and she will be able to excel and prove herself. Your fixation on the silly awards will be noted even if you think it isn't. Wait until secondary, she'll find her niche to shine in.

It’s not me who places the value on the reward, it’s my DD2. When a school markets an award as being something to aim for then well behaved kids will aim for it and be disappointed when they fail to ever achieve it.Why do schools make such a fuss of it and effectively pretend that ‘it could be you’ when realistically, they’re going to use it as a tool to try and improve poor behaviour? I don’t have a problem with them using rewards for this but at least be honest. Don’t have all these well behaved kids who try their best every day effectively excluded from the draw. Don’t have them come in to a whole school assembly feeling they have a chance when really they don’t. Schools need to be honest and say to kids like DD2 that it’s ever going to be them, that it’s used a a tool to manage behaviour. Stop making it a big exciting drum roll. Just be honest.

It's entirely up to you to minimise this and teach your dc about self motivation and that people pleasing gets you nowhere in life. Your dc is old enough to understand that life and society won't always be as they wish and to rise above and do what they know is the right thing for them. She is 10 for goodness sake, at that age most primary kids don't care about such awards, they get their sense of achievement from sporting success, achieving a music grade, doing park run or having hobbies that suit their personality. Does she have any interests or passions like that? Alternatively, does her school have an eco councillor for instance or. mentorship programme where older pupils support younger ones? Your dd could approach school and make proactive suggestion. Passively waiting for some sort of badge sounds pointless.

In fact at ten (year 5 ore 6?) many kids will find a head teacher's award babyish and embarrassing. If you are worried about her self worth, help you dd understand that expecting external validation is not healthy for self worth but making and effort and finding things that interest you and developing your skills in these areas matters a lot and is where most people find fulfilment. This is really easy to solve for you but it sounds like you just want to moan about the school.

Op write in kindly and ask if there is anything they can do ( which if course they can because running out a little certificate isn't hard

Of course I’ll solve it. We do lots at home that leads to a sense of achievement. She has many talents and enjoys a variety of hobbies.

None of that means that the school are not in the wrong. They market these are bring something to strive for when it’s not a level playing field. My problem is that schools, or at least ours, are being dishonest. Cut the bullshit. Write to parents early on to say the rewards are rigged, as used to incentivise challenging behaviours. My daughter will be fine as she has a loving, stable home life and many opportunities in life. I just hate the dishonesty. It’s bullshit! Schools make such a big thing of these and a Y5 kid who works hard every day and sees the awards continuously go to those who don’t is entitled to be upset. She has rarely cried about school but the other night she did. Of course I will explain that they’re a big conspiracy and that will aid her resilience but it’s still not nice that she felt this way and it’s still rubbish that schools are so dishonest about the whole thing.

This happened with my child too. I remember my child reaching about 10 after getting no recognition despite being just like your child and she said to me “what’s the point in being good? If I go in and be naughty then they will notice me and then when I’m good again I might get the reward”. It’s heartbreaking.

Unfortunately it’s what it’s like in modern society when you think about it. The average good people quietly doing good things go unnoticed, but the bad people who suddenly (often temporarily) reform their behaviour get treated like they deserve a saint hood for turning things around.

You sound very angry and if you foster this attitude with your dc, it might cause issues later down the line.

Schools make such a big thing of these and a Y5 kid who works hard every day and sees the awards continuously go to those who don’t is entitled to be upset.

The school don't owe your dd or anyone an award though. Your dd missed out, she'll get over it.

It's as if you think working hard must be rewarded. Working hard is a choice and if she continues, she'll do well, especially with SATS next year when she'll see that working diligently gets results and she can celebrate getting excellent marks in SATS with all the work she is putting in. It will be her time to shine.

Tell her you are proud of her brilliant work ethic.

My child’s school did what was called ‘Good News Week’. Every Friday in whole school assembly any child in good news week would receive a certificate. The difference is it wasn’t just for behaviour or accomplishments in school. We had ‘being kind at a sleepover’, ‘sharing the football at playtime’, ‘trying with his spellings’, ‘being patient with her newborn sister’, my kid got one for ‘walking Scafell pike at the weekend for charity’! Parents, kids and teachers could nominate a child for a Good News award and at some point the majority of the kids received one for some reason or another.

@MorningWisdom, we regularly tell her we are proud of her and it’s not just lip service, we genuinely are. As I’m also proud of her older brother and sister.
I’m angry at school for the dishonesty of the system especially when they parade honestly as one of their 4 pillars. 🤨 How can you expect children to be honest when school staff are not? Taking my DD out of the picture, schools are still peddling these as something to strive for when they’re administering them with an agenda. If they choose to do that, fine, but why not be honest from YR? Why not admit to parents that they use them that way? Why not also say they often sit well behaved, calm kids next to kids who are not to try and manage a class? If they need to do it fine but own it; be honest about it to prospective parents and kids. An earlier poster mentions her well behaved daughter being moved 3 times because she’d been sat next to a kids with challenging behaviours and they kept hitting her or screaming. Why should she have to move each time? If a school must use these strategies to make a class work then something fundamental is wrong but even so, all I’m asking is why aren’t they honest? Tell parents at parents evening that they do that. Nobody is answering as to why schools aren’t transparent with this.

As an ex teacher, I would have preferred that the awards/ certificates were given to the best behaved children and those who put in the most effort. However, it wasn't up to the teachers, it was the Head who declared who they were to reward.
I always explained this to my class and introduced mini day to day reward systems for the rest.

I can hear your frustration. My youngest sounds similar to your dd2, junior school was a long slog. Awards and all, and I mean all special opportunities from year 4 went to the same 2-3 girls in her class, it was ridiculous as they weren't even the sporty or talented, they really weren't but they were outwardly confident and extroverted, admittedly they were also well behaved but so was my dc2.

It is so much better in secondary. I don't know what has changed but she is getting plenty of opportunities to shine now, I just think there are more opportunities for everyone, more clubs and activities and children find what they enjoy and are good at.

Time at junior school can be boring and annoying in that respect and kind of tribal. It also often matter who the parents are, how vocal or how much they are involved with school.

However I refused to let this unfairness define my dc2 and tried to use her experience as a way to keep doing her personal best despite a lack of external validation, and it really worked.

Once they tried out for a one off athletics competition in year 5, my dd beat the girl who used to get chosen for everything (sport, music, drama, art, eco councillor, class rep..........) in all the activities and the teacher still chose the other girl for the occasion. The rigged team subsequently lost in the actual competition against other schools, which I must admit amused me. I always encouraged my dc to do their personal best.

Help your dd to do the best she can at SATS, if she is good at doing her homework and a bit extra, she'll ace them. And work towards things outside of school. I highly recommend brownies and guides. It's amazing.

It's staggeringly odd that some (I assume) teachers are responding to this by saying "yes we know it rewards the wrong behaviours but it's down to parents to counterbalance our poor reward schemes)

Of course I made it clear to my children that hard work provides its own rewards, that I am proud of how they behave. And they do heaps of extra curriculars where they are valued.

But the point is that in having those conversations and noticing these things they (and I) lose a bit of respect for their teachers .

Furthermore, this is about how they feel during the day, when they are part of the school community. They should be made to feel they matter then too. School should understand that this is their world for 6 hours a day.

And of course, many lovely well behaved children have horrible home environments. Behaving badly is just one response to a difficult life. My children have both been through a lot both with their health and with a dad (my ex) who is either absent or abusive. Yet they behaved impeccably at school, were kind to friends, worked hard. The idea that the well behaved child doesn't need praise because they will get it at home is monstrously flawed.

Schools are letting good kids down by rewarding bad kids.

The best system that I saw was one where juniors could gain a end-of-year certificate for effort.

Our then HT couldn't believe the difference that it made to the kids: one certificate where all the subjects where the teacher was praising them for effort were listed.

Hardly cost the school anything and made such an impact.

Unfortunately, when that HT retired, the next one couldn't see the value in it.

I work in a school. I’d love to spend more time supporting and praising the middle kids but the reality is TAs have to support the disruptive and violent kids so that the teacher can actually get on with teaching!

We have a number of pupils across the school who would benefit from being at another school or placement but either there isn’t a suitable place for them elsewhere or the parents want them to come to us as they came here 🤷🏼‍♀️ utterly batshit parenting

All staff at our school are trying their best to support every child and their varying needs but there’s only so many hours in the day and money in the budget.

i was very clear to my lucky, privileged, clever, well behaved children that some children had it much harder than they did, and were much more in need of the certificates and so on. Our children got rewards from us, but understood that usually, school rewards should go to children who had much harder lives than they did. And in some cases didn’t get recognition from home.

Once again you show a complete inability to understand that badly behaved children can have lovely home lives and well behaved children can have really really tough lives outside school. Not all well behaved children have loving and attentive parents. Some children respond to trauma by being quiet and good.

It's illuminating how poorly understood this is

I do understand this. I was talking about how I managed those situation with my own children. I am assuming that the school will usually understand about the background of the children and take it into consideration when dishing out gongs.

I am not sure they do.

School knew my son was dealing with horrendously difficult stuff with his dad but because he was one of the good quiet children he was very much left to get on with things.

And school know my daughter has really severe dyslexia but again because she works very hard to compensate and because she is always well behaved again they never recognise her effort. It's apparently very common for girls with dyslexia to work incredibly hard and be "extra good". But these aren't girls who are breezing through school.

School aware their dad has been abusive and also goes away for months at a time.

I do everything I can for them at home but the idea they have it easy and that is why they are well behaved is frankly unfair and over simplistic.

I’m sorry about that- sounds like the school handled it incredibly badly. But to repeat, I was saying how I handled it with my own children when they questioned why a peer got an award and they didn’t. It was a good message for them to learn that they were luckier and more privileged than many others.