AIBU to think school giving out awards to exceptional children is unfair?

[Bigears6789]

Year 6 leavers assembly, some children were invited beforehand to a private invite only special awards ceremony for exceptional achievements. They then stood up and showed their awards at the general leavers assembly. Does this seem unfair? I felt for all the children who didn’t get a special award.

YABU - this is normal for a leavers assembly
YANBU - this is unfair

Yes let’s cancel the olympics too

A relative works with kids who have experienced early years trauma - it's heart-breaking - their lives are deeply affected by being let down and abused by the adults who should have been protecting them and despite these kids being most likely to end up in prison costing the country a fortune to imprison them and causing untold harm on their victims - there is very little money being spent early enough to right the wrong created by their feckless and abusive parents.

As a society we should be ashamed of how we let these kids down. And calling them little shits? Well at best it's ignorance - no one talks about this stuff - we just demonise and blame the kids.

Yes to this. I've always said I think over-valuing academic achievement messes everyone up. For the academic ones it is psychologically damaging (been there, got the t-shirt) and does the same thing as valuing a child's looks, ie it's something external that the child has no control over and isn't anything to do with who they are as a person. It makes you feel like a fraud and doesn't actually prepare you to deal with failure in life. I talk about this with my therapist a lot. And it's no fun for the other kids who have to sit there and watch the more naturally academic kids receive prizes they don't need. Of course we need rigorous educational standards, but other things need to be valued as well to promote real resilience in my opinion. It's about valuing genuine effort rather than something children have no control over.

You have control over academic achievement. How much you study and revise.

none of these justify ignoring all the others and only giving rewards to the "naughty" kids

Create special awards for "efforts" but acknowledge the ones who are achieving because they put the work and make extra effort to behave.

If someone is top of the class in Maths, or wrote the best poetry, or win the race, they deserve a gold medal or equivalent. Completely ridiculous and unfair to ignore them and give the gold medal to a special child because he has misbehaved less than ususal that week. Give the "effort" award to the trouble child and everybody is happy.

such a lazy vision of things.

It's ignoring the efforts and the work the kids put to achieve their academic excellence

Who are you to say that children haven't made genuine to be top of the class? They've ALL made an effort to attend school for a start.
They work harder or more intelligently, they must be celebrating for being top of the class.

Who do you think needs a gold medal at the Olympics if not the winner?

It's no hardship to work hard at something you're naturally good at - it's satisfying. What I'm saying is the teachers should know the kids and recognise when they have had to try really hard to get the marks they do. Simple grades and scores don't tell you this.

It was no effort to attend my school. Kids were driven there, a lot of them in fancy cars. Escaping would have required more ingenuity in fact. Most were then driven back home, to large quiet houses where there was space to work, by parents who valued education.

Add in some academic ability and it's really not hard to do well.

Hashtag not lazy 😅

Dear god 🙄

Care to explain?

For most people at school you have an inherently ability at something, but to truly achieve and succeed and to be the best you have to put the work in. My DC had to put the work in to get their good grades and to truly achieve their peak.

I disagree because intelligence only takes you so far - I mean, if you're basically Einstein who doesn't have to try then great. But I think most kids (and yes I was a so called gifted kid) with some talent do also have to work. I did.

As it happens, I never went to my awards ceremonies. Didn't care about the accolades. I won an 'adult' award last year and again, didn't care about the prize itself but act like I do because it matters for my career. Those prizes do instill confidence and tell you you're going in the right direction. But I think some posters have a point; you could try hard and still never hit the same mark as a more intelligent kid. Way of the world. And I'm not saying it's right.

Year 6 teacher here 👋🏼 as a Key Stage 2-based Assistant Headteacher, I can wholeheartedly say you are not being unreasonable. Over their whole time at primary school, some children will have achieved more than others in terms of behaviour points/certificates/whatever the school’s individual behaviour reward system looks like - that can’t be denied. However, this should be celebrated in a separate way, based on the school’s behaviour policy. At my school for example we have golden time or treat box. The Year 6 Leavers assembly should be inclusive of ALL children, saying goodbye and celebrating them all equally before they start their next chapter. As a Year 6 teacher I’d never dream of segregating it in that way, and if any of my staff suggested doing so, it’d be a firm no.

It's no hardship to work hard at something you're naturally good at - it's satisfying.
just because YOU find it satisfying doesn't mean others wouldn't prefer to be doing something else.

large quiet houses where there was space to work
which you translate as people having to make no effort?

Maybe you had nothing better to do than study, it doesn't mean all the others shouldn't be acknowledged and rewarded for reaching top marks.

It's a very strange mindset to dismiss the top students, it's usually people who look for excuse to justify failure who do that.

Not if you're a young carer, or you live in a chaotic house where there simply isn't a quiet space to do your homework, or if nobody else in your household speaks English as a first language and can help you with anything you don't understand, or if you have a chronic illness which means you are often exhausted after a day at school and miss weeks of lessons from being in and out of hospital, or if you have to go to work with your mum because she hasn't got anyone to look after you, or if you live in a hostel and have to share a room with your siblings, or if you can't concentrate because you're hungry/worried/scared/in pain.

Of course its not unfair!! In the real world you have to accept that others may be better at certain things than you are, school is no different though sadly everyone now takes offence over the slightest thing.

My DDs secondary school did an achievement awards assembly that parents were invited to every year. Roughly 200 in the year, was always the same 20 or so kids that got the subject awards and the sports awards. The only other type of achievement was charitable contributions which my dd won once when she raised several hundred pounds for charity. Other dd won French award once. But all200 had to sit there for around 2 hours watching the same kids gets multiple awards each.

Tough for them I guess. But doesn't and shouldn't detract from the achievements of others. Also many manage to achieve well in spite of adversity.

Its good and right to celebrate achievements, also good to celebrate other good things about children. For instance at my local primary school the two top grade average children from each 6th grade class get an award but also a boy and girl from each class are chosen for an award for being the kindest/most supportive classmates which is definitely something to be celebrated.

But that's normal, most teachers do this for their class. I very much doubt he was the only child who got this.

From what I remember the teacher hand wrote extra questions just for him. This was at the very start of KS3. Just him. Other parents were jealous.

It's all in your head. If other chiidren needed the other questions they would get them. They wouldn't be jealous because their children would also get what they needed. Your child isn't special

It was a while back so maybe I'm not exactly remembering it exactly. They didn't get the extra questions because DS was a lot better than them.

I remember clearly the teacher telling me DS was given extra questions to finish for hw because of his ability. Parents were jealous as to why my DS was constantly singled out as that teacher's favourite. He was just exceptionally bright and good at maths and science. Course my child is special. He's a very bright man and I'm proud of him. He was put into the G&T for a reason.

There are very bright students in every class. My child was one of them, I also know he wasn't the only child who received extra questions as every child received what they needed including 7 others who also got the difficult questions . I was also told he had questions due to his ability, this didn't mean he was the only person who had them. If my child was constantly treated as the favourite I would be having words with the teacher because there shouldn't be a favourite. Oh and G and T means nothing apart from overbearing mummy brags.

How did you know the other parents were jealous?

Because they said so. And asked why my son was getting special treatment and favouritism.

It just simply due to his intellect and mathematical skills.