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?

This may change, with time.

Dd was near the top of her class in everything, but not the very top. She worked hard, was never in any sort of trouble, very good attendance, kind helpful etc.

I still feel a bit tearful when I remember her saying, in about yr1 or 2, 'However hard I try, it's just never good enough " when she got to the end of the year with no "star of the week award"
(remember there were 30 children in her class and 39 weeks of school, so there's no reason the teacher could not have arranged it for her to get one, just once)

However, she is just about to complete her teacher training now, and will be a primary teacher next year.
She still remembers how she felt, so this is one thing she will make sure she never makes anyone else feel.

Well that is and always has been the problem with a rewards based system. They don't give awards for being average.

I agree. Mine has gone seven years without once having his name on the board (for bad behaviour) but has never once had an award.

He is desperately shy and struggles with speaking in front of anyone but this year he has achieved it in their special assemblies etc. I really thought given how hard he's tried and that everyone knew what a massive effort it was for him to do so that this time he'd get something.

Nope, all the kids who are the biggest pains in the arse were rewarded.

I'm just hoping that never having been a big fish will help him when he is just a number at secondary. Those who have been the primary stars have seemed to struggle more going from a very small rural school to a large secondary.

Edited to say these are general awards and not for academic achievement. I don't expect those but the 'being a good role model ' type.

It’s how it’s always been sadly. Just as it is in the workplace.

My very quiet, well behaved, average performing 10 year old never gets a thing, never gets noticed. Yet the child who behaves badly gets an award for not hitting anyone this week (yet then goes on to hit someone after being given the award). It’s really knocked my DD’s confidence as it happens time and time again.

And yet schools give awards for being much worse than average.

As I've said above, my experience is in the secondary sector. I recall the anger among staff when we found out that the school Behaviour Support Base had installed a Wii, solely for the use of children referred to Behaviour Support.

Yes, staff protested to no avail.

As I said in a pp, we had an older pupil advising juniors on how to misbehave in order to maximise their rewards.

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not talking about children who were on the spectrum or who had other specific difficulties.

The school was in a catchment where there were "mass indicators of deprivation". In fact, when the pupils who had figured out how to play the system kicked off the children who suffered were those who came from "bad backgrounds" but used school as a safe place.

I've seen a lot on MN about children with ASD having meltdowns, etc. Yes, that happens - but I've known even more children with ASD who need calm and safe boundaries. What happens to them when the needs of the noisy few are the focus?

Thankfully, when the the Principal Teacher of B.S. retired and was replaced the first thing that the new PT did was to lock up the Wii.

Children aren't stupid. They could all see what had been going on. I've no doubt that the original PT sold the Wii idea to the HT as "It'll give the children time to decompress." What it actually did was give children an incentive to cause mayhem elsewhere so that they could access the Wii instead of doing their schoolwork.

Ditto all the other rewards that they were given.

As I mentioned above, one of my pupils confronted the PT of B.S. about this, dismissing the PT's protest that rewards were for being "good" with "Aye, but ye've got to be bad first!"

Sounds like my experience 30years ago. I even went direct to the head myself to pleade my case which fell on deafs ears. It just taught me to be more resilient and another lesson on why life isn't fair. Learn, accept and move on.

The point is schools are giving rewards for being far worse than average and then occasionally behaving less badly