Tapestry. Star of the week. Same old kids.

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My child's in reception. They have the tapestry app in her class. It gets updated weekly. They put separate things on of just my child sometimes. They also add group pictures to her tapestry. The thing 99% of the time my DD isn't visible as she's at the back. She's massively improved since starting. She's just not one of the always focused and confident kids. She's more reserved and can be a little bonkers lol. She has had a merit recently though. The first three months were a wobbly settling in period. But since Christmas we just get told great thing. She's talking more. Her readings really good. She's writing more. Her behaviour has gone from being silly and not listening to being a new person (the teachers words) I am so proud of her. She seems ok with friends too. It's parents evening on Tuesday so we will get an update.

I just feel abit meh about tapestry. Group photos and videos. She's never at the front. Never in the middle. Always at the back. Often you can barely see her. Then it's always the same 5 girls at the front of the class. Always performing really well in videos. Always for the best costumes. Always focused on the camera.

World book day. I made her a Mary Poppins hat. I was looking forward to seeing on tapestry what she had done on world book day. Group photo. My daughter isn't even on the class photo. She claims she was. But if she is she's well hidden! She could be completely behind another child. The usual five girls were at the front. Same at the Christmas party I noticed they were playing pass the parcel. My child wasn't in the circle until the very end of the album. Usual kids were ripping open the presents. Same for a pe special maths day. Same kids posing and. My child was a blur at the other end of the hall.

I know this is normal but sometimes I think she needs encouragement to be involved. I did try and tell them last year to put her in the middle. They listened in the Nativity play and she performed beautifully. I was so proud of her. I just feel that she needs encouragement to get stuck in and involved.

They did a mini performance last week from a book they had read. She was at the back on the end. She did parts of it. But then she was drifting off. Again same girls at the front.

Is this standard for all years? Do the teachers not have the time to encourage kids to stand in different places to give others a chance who are less confident? I don't want to bring it up at the parents evening and sound silly. If I ask her why she's always at the back and doesn't se involved is that ok. Or if I ask why she didn't have her photo taken with the rest of the class for world book day?

Or is this not an issue in your view.

Also she's upset about never getting the star of the week award. She tells me who gets it each week and it's always the confident kids. I just felt sorry for her Friday when she said I always hope they say my name but they never do. Again how does this help the less confident children.

I'm not sure if I should mention it?

Op...my son was the same!! He was quiet and just got on with it....it actually got to bring a bit of a running joke of "spot ds" like where's Wally!!!!
He went on a week long residential trip on yr 6 and they put daily photos on and he was in one, at the edge and not even looking in the camera. I ended up speaking to school and asking if they could ask if he was ok next time they spoke to the trip teachers.
They hadn't realised the lack of photos and promised to post a whole class photo....we saw his feet!!!!

It's definitely a rubbish system. The kids who get them in the last few weeks are just getting the leftovers, if everyone has to get one! The fact my child's one of the slowest to pick things up and has struggled to settle into routine for three months shows shes not going to get one until she has too. The kids that have got them already are the front row kids. It's just sending out the wrong message. I mean it's great if super confident Anabel is on a higher reading level and can draw good pictures and write a small sentance. It's great she wants to beam at the camera and show of her skills in every activity. But what about shy Lacey at the back who goes home and performs in her living room and tells her parents everything she's learned. She can count and write at home. But at school she can't concentrate enough yet to try. She doesn't understand she isn't trying hard enough and therefore she's in yellow group. Yellow group was not explained to us. I thought it was a random house. But it turns out my daughter and the 3 others in her group are the strugglers. They don't pick up stuff quickly so they are in the same house. Just seems abit unfair at 5 years old.

Spot the ds is brilliant lol. It's so true though isn't it. When you see your child in a daydream or face half chopped off you feel so bad for them. When my DD first started they put a picture on the website of her facing forward. The one they put in the paper she was the only kid not looking. I went out to grab the paper and I thought it's always My child. I wanted to buy her class photo so she could have it forever for a memory. But the photographer choose the rubbish one of her not looking to publish!

I've got a younger child and i hope he is more involved than his sister. I hate the way they are judged these days if they are less ready.

Would you be happier if you simply didn’t look at this stuff? I would ignore it and get in with helping your DC learn to read and do a bit of maths etc. Usually DC who need a bit of extra help are grouped together but there are lots of times when DC don’t work in any group at all. The groups are never rigid either. So don’t take all this early grouping to heart and ignore the silly pictures. Overall it’s unimportant.

Why is there a sense that every child is entitled to an award? We only have a Star assembly once a term so only three children in each class receive it.

Op you sound very disappointed that your dd isn't one of the more confident, able pupils?
I wonder if your views on tapestry, ability groups etc would be very different if she was?

I took a photo of my class dressed up for sports relief on Friday, I tried several times to get a photo in which you could see everyone but as always, a few children gravitated to the back or deliberately hid from the camera.
That is who they are, I'm not going to force them to be at the front just to appease their parents, neither am I going to scrap the photo just to avoid one or two parents being disappointed that their child isn't behaving how they would like them to.

May step away from Tapestry? Many of my parents rarely check it.

OP I echo the poster that suggests you seem disappointed that your child is one of the confident ones. Is that part of your upset? I get it, we all want ours to be the star but it’s just not the nature of many, many children. She’s also got another 6 more years to come out of her shell during her primary years and children can be quite different by the time they’re in Year 6 and have grown into themselves.

Also, parental perception of why children are given certain roles or rewards isn’t always right. I’ve had a parents upset that their child wasn’t given the main role in a performance, yet their child didn’t want to be and would have hated being given that role. I’ve also had a parent complain that their academically able child hadn’t been given star if the week yet (it was October) but the that the ‘thick child with needs had’ as clearly her sons work was better. I was absolutely disgusted and was able to list a series of opportunities that her child had already had to shine.

If you’re concerned, mention it to the teacher. They won’t be deliberately over looking your child.

I think I would lean towards no stars of the week at all! Never had them at DDs school. It’s nothing but angst for teachers and parents and doesn’t seem to motive DC either if they don’t understand the rationale. Discrete individual encouragement and praise matters far more I feel.

Both of our kids found star of the week demotivating. Dd1 was in year 1 when she confided in me that star of the week was on a rota. Children are smarter than adults think.
For DS1 he's been totally demotivating by it. He knows he's top of the class for maths and reading and yet star of the week goes to someone else for being kind when when my son says he runs around hitting people. Parents evening the teacher said our son is exemption ally kind to all the other kids and yet he's never had star of the week for bring kind! My son asked me to explain this so I said star of the week was to encourage everyone especially those who find behaviour etc tricky. DS's friend in yr 1 said he didn't care about star of the week. I think it's more pain than its worth.

@MrPickles73 not all schools, my class star of the week is definitely not on a rota.
In fact the girl who had it on Friday has already had it. She got it for being exceptionally kind to other children on many occasions last week and we felt it absolutely needed to be celebrated.

Nope our school was definitely a rota.. DD1 knew when it was her week because she worked out went the week before . What a pile of BS.

But that's lovely velocitygirl7 if children are rewarded for being kind

This doesn't sound like the school's fault at all. She's just not as confident as some of the other children yet. Perhaps you could work on that with her?

There is an advantage to being the last star of the week - my DS was and he got to keep the star of the week board that the teacher had put the photos on.

I agree this isn't the school's fault. The teacher is taking individual photos of her and you've already said that she is progressing academically and has transformed since she first arrived. Its unreasonable to expect the school to not only progress her, take individual pictures of her but also change her underlying character / nature.

Our school tend to keep to individual or small (3/4 children) group photos of the children engaged in classroom activities for Tapestry. They only upload and publish when all children in the class have a similar number of observations to share, so all parents receive a consistent amount of feedback. Feels fair and more interesting to see the work they are doing with them than lots of posed group shots.

No star of the week at school, thank goodness! Weekend drama club does this, which is traumatic enough; there is weekly disappointment even though he realises that really it's just a rota system (very small class so obvious to see). Would hate to have it at school.

So kind child just keeps being kind and gets rewarded? So none of the others are measurably kind? Honestly!? Poor things!

I'm done here, there are some ridiculous comments on this thread.
If almost 30 years of education has taught me one thing about parents, it's that some of them seem poorly equipped to accept the fact, that their child may not be the 'best' in the class.
They simply cannot cope with others being 'better' academically or being more popular/talented/confident etc

Yes, the exceptionally kind child was rewarded, especially as she has a particularly hard home life at the moment and needs every little bit of positivity we can give her at school.
Other children have or will be rewarded for a beautiful painting, fantastic balancing in pe, wonderful name writing, the list goes on.

That’s just ridiculous. Praise. Don’t give umpteen public rewards! No wonder some parents don’t like it. You’ve made school into a competition. It’s not. It’s a learning environment. Praise can be individual and shared with parents. Like in the old days when everyone was happier!

Yes I think we are all better off without star of the week. If you have a class of 30 and 2 are star of the week then 28 are not star of the week. Better to scrap the whole thing. The worst I saw was at our school a child getting star of the week for doing a forward roll and he was 8 (and no developmental reason why he wouldnt be able to do a forward roll). DD1 pointed out that DS1 could do a forward roll and he was only 3.. Its just embarassing - better have no stars of the week..

'In the old days when everyone was happier'
Thats it I'm out.
*promptly hides thread

You can of course hide away from common sense but my DDs are 25 and 27. No stars of the week at any stage of their education. It was better as there was nothing to disagree about. Teachers didn’t have to make decisions which were guaranteed to upset some parents. They then didn’t have to deal with the parents. It’s ridiculous to think star of the week is a great motivator or anything but trouble. You can hide from the thread but an evaluation of what star of the week actually achieves would be more valuable. It would reduce your workload!

See I do think its crap - my DS teachers though do seem to have struck a great balance - rewarding DC for attainment that is personal to them, never mind if some other kid can already do it easily.

Having said that, they do the godawful 100% attendance rewards which is just crap on so many different levels.

I don't know if it makes a difference that my daughter is at a prep, as I have mo experience of a state primary. But as I have already mentioned, awards are certainly not on a "rota". Star of the week isn't that important, as it only gets mentioned in a weekly newsletter and it's up to the parents if they mention it to theit kids or not. It's basically parents emailing the school about anything "special" that their kids have achieved that week and it gets included in the weekly school newsletter under "Stars of the Week" with photos (if parents send any in). There can be any number of stars and it's usually either for sports/music/drama achievements or for taking part in charity events.

What is a big deal are the prizes handed iut at the Prize Giving Ceremony at the end of each academic year for academic/sports/music/effort achievements. Those are handed out in front of all the year groups and their parents at a church ceremony. And they are not given on any rota for sure. The same kids get numerous awards and some get none. It's not nice, but at least there is real meaning to the awards rather than just giving one to everyone.

Very few state schools do this any more. Speech days? God no. Star of the week has replaced them. My DDs eventually went to independent senior schools and speech day was the biggest load of biased shit ever! The girls knew it was. One year, a girl got 7 prizes! We did wade through it every year though.

We only went to one prize giving at DD2s prep. As she left in y6 as opposed to y8, it was not a big deal but the brainy ones got prizes and the rich ones that gave ££££ to the school got prizes. The state schools were just a lot better by quietly recognising individual achievement and progress. Most parents find speech days a total yawn unless they have an annointed DC.

The prizes have meaning for the few who get them and there is guarantee they are awarded fairly. Any awards given for parental one-upmanship should be banned!