Am I being too sensitive re school awards?

[Angels1111]

I work in a SEN school and when we give feedback to our children it's worded in the positive, ie we focus praising that they've learned xyz skill etc and their good qualities.
We of course focus on what they need to learn too but we very much highlight skills they already have.

My son goes to a mainstream (has SEN but not severe enough for a SEN school). He just had his school awards and I just found it...odd.

But here are some examples of awards:

• found school hard due to SEN but showed great resilience in turning up and trying every day
• not academic but any skill they do learn they share with their friends which encouraged peer to peer learning
• found it hard to concentrate all year, just wanted to play, but by the end would sit down to do the learning and had matured
• didn't like to do messy play but very diligent with reading

Is this normal in a mainstream setting? In our setting
...of course we would constantly be working on the bits that needed work, we wouldn't have mentioned them in a public award ceremony.
I am just getting a feel on MN as my view may have been skewed working in SEN.

YABU - this is fine to word awards in that way
YANBU - there was no need to list a childs weaknesses during an award ceremony, she could have just said "has resilience, plays well with friends, diligent with reading" etc

Definitely write to the school leadership. A politely worded letter pointing to the negative impact on vulnerable learners. The very pupils who need the most encouragement and support. Not to mention the GDPR aspects of publically announcing a child’s SEN.

The schools leadership ought to provide training and examples of appropriately worded awards. Better yet, no awards at all given the accumulated research and findings on the harm of them, but that’s unlikely.

Hi, I’m also an SEN teacher with a child in mainstream with additional needs. I consistently find the language used in her EHCP, my plan updates, reports, risk assessments etc is awful. I usually cross it out and return it, or pull them up on it. I wouldn’t dream of writing things to my families that they write to me. I think unfortunately it’s the mindset in mainstream that our children are an inconvenience rather than understood. I say this having taught mainstream as well and the general attitude I experienced there. Not all staff of course, some are incredible, but unfortunately many. It’s really poor, they have such a long way to go. The difference between SEN teachers and mainstream is worlds apart still.
Just know how hard your child will have worked to meet their demands and expectations daily and give him an extra squeeze x

It's not you. Our mainstream school can be similar, for ages they were doing star of the day which I passionately hate. My NT daughter gets it constantly, my nd son the absolute minimum. In my sons report this year (he has dyspraxia and autism) "x needs to improve his writing in maths, he's started getting the columns correct but much prefers doing sums in his head, because he is bright this is unfortunately often giving him the correct answer" It blows my minds how miserable you have to be to pick out so many negatives when there is actually so much lovely positive in there!!

These are really shitty (fellow SEN parent here). I’d ignore anyone saying you’re overreacting or Turing to justify it because having worked in schools for years this just isn’t nice at all. I’m sure it made your child feel shit rather than proud.

Completely agree with you OP. When my DS1 was in mainstream he won an award from the SEN department, and it was announced as such, but that was fine because he’s very visibly disabled and was delighted with his award. However DS2’s best friend also received an SEN award. He’s severely dyslexic but never talks about it, and works incredibly hard to achieve his best. However him being announced as an SEN department winner immediately had people wondering what his SEN is. It felt really wrong.

I’d stand up at the end of the awards ceremony and suggest a round of applause for the school for putting together a lovely awards ceremony despite the fact that they had clearly struggled to get the right balance between criticism and positivity.

Awards are ment to focus on the positives not the negatives. It's a bit nit picking and something you would expect to see in a school report.

I would be raging. There’s a professional way of saying this

It does sound very badly phrased. Quite unprofessional, not like a competent teacher. Should maybe have gotten AI to help them better phrase the awards.😂

This is appalling. Has the school been transported to 1950? All awards should be positive . What IS a an award if it is not?

if you feel able, you need to make an official complaint mad get the governors involved.
i’m so sorry your son and you have been subject to this.

Wow I’d be fuming, the wording is appalling . My daughter received an award for "improved attitude to learning" — yet every year, her school reports consistently praise her for having an excellent attitude to learning. Even she rolled her eyes at the award and asked what it was actually supposed to mean! Sometimes these awards do more harm than good.

Completely agree with you OP. Quite apart from the negative phraseology in public, what school worth its salt labels a child “not very academic” in reception?!

That's absolutely appalling!!! I work in Early Years and never have I heard such negativity. It shouldn't even be used in everyday feedback, never mind an awards ceremony. The fact that it hasn't been picked up by senior leadership must mean that they all need to go back to school and do some serious re- training. The example that the poster dontcomeatme above gives is the perfect way to do it.

Surely for an award, you award the positive. Who gives an award saying “not academic”? Very odd and I’d be angry too.

For reports, they should concentrate on progress. It’s fair to say where more progress is needed and how this might be achieved. Also most schools use report writing software which isn’t overly negative!

It just occurs to me that if this is a teacher, I would ask them why this wording was considered necessary and then I’d complain to the head. The ethos is not what I would expect and they really do need to revise what they do. It’s not acceptable.

I DESPISE awards at school. Specifically, attendance awards. My son is autistic and while he seems to cope relatively well at school itself, sometimes getting him up and dressed and out the door can be a 2+ hour session. Sometimes, he feels too anxious to go and therefore I keep him off of school for the day. And he gets ill, and last year had a pain in his hip which meant he couldn't walk (everything was fine, luckily!). He had chickenpox for 2 weeks earlier this year and they weren't all scabbed over until the 3rd week, so he was off school for 2 weeks.

Obviously then there are kids with higher needs than my son has, or those with chronic illnesses. I don't think it's fair to present awards for 100% attendance, because this just isn't achievable for some children, and will make those who can't achieve that feel like they're doing something wrong.

It absolutely grinds my gears in a way that I can't even explain because I don't have the vocabulary or the time to go on a long enough rant about it.

Oh yeah, I hate attendance awards.

My son has constant appointments and will never get 100%. I even hate that on his report, his attendance is ''cause for concern'' despite the fact that the only times he's missed school is when he was in hospital or when he had appointments.

OP this is appalling and weird and I would actually go so far as to say emotionally/psychologically abusive. I’d genuinely be very worried about what those kids are hearing in the classroom every day from this teacher if this is her idea of awards.

If you’re going to give awards they should only be positive. There is a time and a place for negative feedback balanced with the positive which is in school reports/parent teacher meetings.

As a pp said we all know what “he has come a long way in being able to sit nicely on the carpet” means 🤣 but that’s different from saying “he started out being terrible at sitting nicely on the carpet”. I also agree publically disclosing a child’s SEN is potentially a serious data breach. And who writes a child off at reception age for “not being academic” in 2025 for goodness sake?!

I definitely think you should complain to the school’s leadership, they really need to know this has happened even if that particular teacher has left now.

Is this mainstream private? Or state?

Odd
Backhanded compliment comes to mind.
They do want kids to want awards do they ?!?👀😳

These are big skills for EYFS... they might seem lame to you but they should be celebrated. Well maybe not 'can sit down' but something like 'sits beautifully to listen in lessons'.

OP YANBU - the negatives felt almost like markers for the other parents to use to label your DS.

This is far too detailed to be shared in a public awards ceremony. Fine (and expected) for the teacher to put that on the child’s own school report.

Also the second one on your list is not actually a positive in my view! It reminds me of one of my colleagues, who shares everything she learns despite the fact that the rest of us are more experienced than her and already know what she is sharing!

Yes that’s weird

my daughter is a Sen child in a mainstream school and for the head teachers award - her award was for
“ always working hard when in school or at home and amazing says results “

now despite getting the head teachers award for her sats results she didn’t have anywhere near the scores of others but for her it was a great achievement.

the school will the some moans about it though because they will assume their kids scored higher and they probably did so will be miffed she got it.

the school still don’t air her difficulties or needs.

Yeah, so not cool to point out deficits in awards. Couldn't they just say, hard working and resilient, or Great at reading etc.

It would upset me and I'd be saying something to the school otherwise it's not an "award" it's break them build feedback which should be on a school report or discussed in a parent teacher interview, not done in a public setting. Praise in public, feedback in private. This applies to workplaces too.

These are close to the sort of things that would have been written about children in the 1980s. I thought schools had improved since then.

I find the wording of those awards very odd. Why mention the negative at all?!…
Why not just say that he encourages & supports his friends to learn rather than
‘he can’t do this but does to xyz well…. Very odd.