Merit Awards

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If your bright, caring well behaved but not very popular child (not in the in crowd) and a bit opinionated wants to be sn actresd ir s politician had got all the way to Year 6 without ever being awarded the weekly class merit certificate yet your younger less well behaved, (called in to see the teacher a few times as messes sbout in class a lot, but cute and popular child had been awarded it twice up to Year 4, would you say something?

Probably not as it wouldn't bother me much. Is your dd upset about it or is she upset because you are upset? if she is bothered by it, then say something but then she will only get the certificate because you have said something!

I think the children in her class were discussing how many certificates they had all had.

She's been upset over a few things in the last year, not bring picked for a special choir event despite attending all rehearsals & not being given the chance to have a solo because the girl she was doing a duet with changed her mind & did one with someone else but I tell her not to let it bother her.

I think she's just unlucky perhaps.

If you think she is being overlooked in lots of ways, go and talk to the teacher. Tell her that your dd feels like this and then the teacher can find ways of boosting her confidence. I would present it as a general problem which it seems to be rather than just she hasn't had a certificate.

Her confidence has been boosted in other ways out of school (lead child part in a touring show picked from around 80 kids at open audition) so err not too fussed over the choir thing. The merit thing us more a behaviour issue. Dd says even the really badly behaved boys have had one once. Some of the other kids can be a bit catty over it but I don't want to be too pushy or pfb.

She didn't tell school about the role though until we had to get the heads permission got the time off (& the local paper did an article do now everyone knows)

I think lots of schools think about the merits as being ways to celebrate improvements in behaviour and boost children who usually get negative attention so perhaps this is why your dd has been overlooked? If you think she is receiving lots of positive attention and is Ok then I probably wouldn't make an issue out of it.

I hate this. I work in a school and last school year, the boy who ended up with the most merits was also the boy who was excluded the most (6 exclusions in 1 year) and received the most demerits.

Farcical!

It's a joke - if you are badly behaved you get a merit for simply not being bad!

Our school runs several different merit schemes.

the dinner ladies chose one KS1 and one KS2 child each week for helping out other children, especially helping new children. The end result is that half the school are rushing the poor new kid to help them at lunch.

the Head gives an award each week - for an outstanding achievement (one child got an 800m swimming certificate and he's only 5), for an exceptional piece of work (especially if they've been struggling earlier) or for good attitude at school.

The class teachers give out awards but it does circulate - 2 children a week get an award for something - usually to do with perseverance with difficult work or good class work, this is usually presented to the Head and discussed a bit in front of everybody.

So pretty much everybody gets about 3-5 award certificates a year.

Plus we have The Roll of Honour - into which any achievements outside of school are entered. This is great for children who do a lot of clubs, reading challenges over the summer, etc...

So lots of praise every Friday when they have an assembly for parents to go to.

The school also tries to text or slip a note into the school bag given advanced warning that your child will receive an award that week.