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?

Why not call it that then? A managing behaviour award or something similar. Why call it a HT award?

OP I did lots of long term supply (secondary) and as you can imagine when you first turn up at a school all the 'characters' play up because you are 'only supply'

I took to calling parents to say, "I know your DC didn't get the attention they deserved but I'm working on the behaviour of others, I do notice DC and I appreciate them working"

One college I worked at did a 'postcard home', anyone in the department could nominate a student and then the postcard was sent through the post.

It was a good system, it was up tot he student whether they told someone or not, unfortunately the cost of postage now probably means they have dropped it.

What a horrible post. Neurodivergent kids who find life harder are “little shites”. Nice.

It does seem unfair but I think generally awards are given to children that need motivating.

Yep - the poorly behaved kids get rewards for the one time they behave well and the kids that behave well all the time go unnoticed. It's terrible.

I agree. I’m a primary school teacher and cringe when colleagues give big awards to badly behaved children. Yes they might have worked hard on behaviour and/or got difficult home lives but to the quiet, steady children it looks like they’re getting rewarded for bad behaviour. One year a colleague became emotional during a speech about what an amazing year a child had had, despite causing so much disruption and upset, he’d ‘tried’. Meanwhile, the ones who got on got no such speech.
I try and pick those middle children for awards.

Its different at our school.

They have favourite families. The HT awards are listed in the regular letter home and there are a few families whose siblings come up time and time again. Its not all bright kids although a few are. My friends daughter has had one (or more!) every year for the past 4 years, DS has never had one. His teachers tell me he's kind, polite, hard working and well behaved, his reports are lovely. But they don't seem to notice him for recognition.

And this also annoys me, when badly behaved children who are clever get awards!

Many of them are.

There's a couple of kids in my DS's class like this. They always misbehave, one of them sometimes very badly with shouting and swearing, and when my DS raised with his teacher that they always got golden time/awards, he was told "they need the incentive."
Where's the incentive for my kid?!

DS twigged about this at the end of year R and said he was going to be naughty and then good to get a certificate like X and Y. Me "noooooo!" and we had a chat about it. I told his teacher and she said she didn't realise kids were that smart and realised it was happening.

Luckily he did not end up "being naughty and then good". An entire school education ended with reasonable could have worked a bit harder grades and without a single naughty incident and he wants go into the police.

Yes it’s wrong

perhaps the others like your dc should get the rewards and they should get nothing as they don’t deserve it

its not incentivising them to behave or stop swearing, won’t they just do it again as they get rewarded regardless

Every child gets to be star of the week in my DD’s school on a rotation basis. So they all get to feel like they are doing a good job at something. The problem is DD doesn’t understand sometimes why she didn’t get it when she’s had a great week at school but got it for a normal week. It’s not connected to anything. I actually think it’s all a bit pointless and they shouldn’t do it at all. I think it kicks off a process of comparison in small kids and I don’t think thats helpful. They should be measuring themselves against an objective standard not against their peers, it just causes resentment.

DD is quite far ahead and doing work from the end of the year above so if it was on academic achievement she’d get loads of awards but the reality is she just finds some stuff easy. It would be unfair to a child really putting the work in to hit an average to not be recognised at all. Equally there are some horribly behaved kids in her class, children getting rewarded for being slightly better than last week would just be confusing to the kids. The good kids will be wondering why they don’t get anything and the misbehaving ones will think they are doing fine.

Just scrap them, feedback should be personal and objective and between a child and their teacher. “You did great a great job at listening today” “your reading has important” etc.

I fully understand yours and your DD’s upset. As a former secondary school teacher, I would say it is par for the course that most attention goes to the most able children plus those sucking up attention and input through poor behaviour, and then any improvement in their behaviour tends to get recognised and rewarded, disproportionately. Most children fall somewhere in the middle, just getting on with things quietly whilst causing no problems, but not standing out in any particular respect. Sorry to say, they are often overlooked, to the extent that some teachers still won’t know their names after a year or longer!

If there are 6 HT awards per class every other month, that’s 30+ awards per year, so the school should make sure that most, if not all, children get at least one over the year. There must be something to celebrate about every child that would merit that. If multiple awards are being given to the same children regularly, that@ is unfair and demotivates others.

When I was teaching, we used ‘Good News’ postcards which we sent home at intervals to note someone working well in the subject, and we were liberal with them. Some students had NEVER received a recognition like that before in their school career and were thrilled to get one. It’s so important for their self-esteem and motivation to get recognition and praise.

As your DD has another year to go at primary school, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for you to let the class teacher know that she was very upset to not get an award all year and ask what she can do to try and secure one. Say that you are worried about her motivation and self-esteem. And then I would politely mention it again at the next Parents’ evening too.

Take her out for a treat to show her that YOU recognise her hard work and effort to put a positive spin on it.

I find teachers ridiculously naive about not realising what kids notice though.

My DS could tell you exactly who's had what awards all year, he knows whos won the class points certificate more than once and who's not won it at all.

What's more worrying though - and tells you that class points don't work - he can't tell you why that little girl has won the class points certificate 5 times. He isn't noticing, or school aren't drawing attention to, what aspects of her behaviour earn her more points than the others. He just thinks the teacher likes her more/notices her effort more than others, or that she gets given more opportunities to stand out (eg will be picked for something several people volunteer for, do it well, and be rewarded with points). He knows why a couple of the boys hardly ever win it - what he can't distinguish is what those one or two girls who seem to win it three times more than anyone else, do so much more than the 75% of the class who are generally hard working/polite/well behaved.

Teachers will claim that the point of the points is to highlight the behaviour they want. But if the children don't understand why Jessica wins the points more than anyone else - what is it achieving?

What an ignorant assumption

Plenty of well behaved children who don't make trouble at school also have neurodisabilities, trauma experiences, mental health problems, or just generally not great parents.

Plenty of well behaved children have pretty shit overall life experiences.

I think this kind of silly assumption is the basis of indulging naughty children but it overlooks all the things well behaved children will be quietly struggling with

Now that my DD is well into high school
i’d forgotten about this bullshit, I bet my DD hasn’t though. Her school introduced ‘hot chocolate Fridays’ where selected kids would get to have a hot chocolate with the HT, this was awarded based on merit points earned through the week for good work/behaviour etc etc. My DD had top points at least 3 times and was overlooked, it completely flattened her. I spoke to the school about it and they actually tried to gaslight me that she’d already ‘had her turn’. She hadn’t and if it was about turns how come the same faces turned up 3/4 times a year (it was regularly announced on SM who attended these things)
We just picked up the pieces at home with lots and lots of praise and reassurance.

Schools should scrap these daft awards. Whatever they do it will not be fair to some. As you rightly say it is the pupils like OP's DD who beaver away unnoticed. And who are puzzled that "naughty" children get rewarded.

What the hell are these awards for anyway? Just ditch the darned things....

I get how you feel OP. I think primary schools should fine the opportunity to recognise more kids than they do, tbh, and yes keep an eye out for the well behaved, “average” ability ones.

It could be that the improvement made by the child you’ve labelled as “naughty” represents an enormous effort and achievement for that child - you can’t say that they’ve worked less hard than your DD. I realise it feels very unfair - but in the same way as you recognise it takes her more work to be the standard of her brothers (or even not to manage that), the same is true of the kids less able than she is.

I think there ought to be more of a record kept of which kids have never had any sort of award though.

My DS has ADHD and dyslexia but despite that, is pretty well behaved- he does very well for the hand he’s been given. He’s never had an award of any kind throughout the whole school, despite always trying his best, and dusting himself off after each disappointment. He’s now just leaving primary and unlikely to ever get one.

Whereas you could paper the walls with the ones my naturally very academic and well behaved DD got both at primary and secondary. She does work very hard, and yes she deserves it, but it’s hard for those who really struggle too.

I think you’re right - or at least keep some sort of record of who has and hasn’t had one, so that they can recognise everyone at some point for something.

The awards are wholly unnecessary. Good behaviour or progress can be rewarded on the spot with praise and encouragement or a responsible task.

Kerping a record and trying to make sure that every child gets one totally negates the point of them. If they are all going to finish up with one they become totally devalued.

They are pointless and divisive. Just value every child with praise when due.

This thread wasn't about schools pushing students to achieve or praising or recognising those that do. It was about children ( primary aged) being upset that they didn't get a certificate when others do.

I mean it is what the thread is about, because children perceive those certificates to be for recognising achievement whether that's hard work or good behaviour or whatever else.

I really like all the posts about how others can 'nominate' and think it's great for people like the dinner ladies who interact with the children every day however this has also been part of the problem in my daughter's school as nominations, while nice for the children, are also highly subjective and it didn't address the issue - it was still the same children, over and over and over. It was like a little rotation. Having 'favourites' is probably normal to an extent but at that point quite a few parents ended up contacting the school and asking what the fuck. Then there was the regular day that was supposed to be about encouraging all the children to have fun and focus on their wellbeing, which started off for the entire school and slowly started being whittled down to those who had 'earned' it - those same children who were already always 'earning' certificates. So not only were they being rewarded regularly, now the message was that only their wellbeing was important. Several children ended up trying to avoid school on those days because they were never chosen - young children, primary 3/4 age. Instead of the school fixing it, even just be renaming it, they just stopped the whole thing. I do think there's an element of absolute hopelessness sometimes. The idea that there's somehow no 'time' to be fair, even when you're taking the time to implement a reward system and bothering to recognise other children, can only be true if most of the other children are invisible to you. If you know the children and are writing report cards for them twice a year, and they're in your class every single day, are they just invisible?

Again, you really have no idea how hard the quiet children find school, I found behaving well very very difficult but because I did it I never got rewarded but the kids who just behaved how they wanted (sometimes just for the hell of it, not because they were incapable of behaving) got all the awards. It's a shit situation and shouldn't be happening.

Just to add, I don't want my daughter rewarded because it's just her turn that week. I agree with meeting children where they are and if a child who has been struggling with their behaviour has a great week in whatever way, I wholeheartedly support recognising that and I support positive reinforcement. It just doesn't mean that other children haven't made a big effort for where they are. They should also be recognised. There's no justifiable argument against that. You can't implement a reward system based on achievement and then exclude children who are achieving every day in more subtle ways.

She wasn’t overlooked. She didn’t meet the criteria, which was most improved. If the award was for fastest runner over 50m and she came second, would she have expected to win? She’s a well behaved child and it comes easy to her, why would she expect to be rewarded for something that takes no effort from her at all?