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?

Well, my daughter is neither one if the "brainy ones" (unfortunately far from it) nor do I give any extra money to the school (we're probably the poorest ones there) and last year I was totally shocked that she received a trophy at the prize giving ceremony for Performance Text (Trinity Guildhall) as apparently she got the highest mark in the whole school. Was a total shock to both of us. Otherwise the prizes go to the most academic/sporty/musical kids (and some kids are all three so get ALL the awards).

Most academic is frequently debatable though. As are subject prizes. They are often subjective. I’m not a huge fan of speech days and I’ve sat through a lot of them. My friend’s DC went to a well known boarding school and only prize winners families were invited to prize giving sparing everyone else. I think that’s not a bad way forward. In our school everyone went amid lots of grumbles. It was also noticeable that some subjects had loads of prizes but others had next to nothing. In a girls school, dance had one prize and nearly half the school did dance! One of the reasons parents were ambivalent about it was the obvious favouritism. If DD has taken an external exam and got the highest marks, that is demonstrably measurable. Other prizes were way more open to debate and who judges which dance discipline is worth more than another one? Or a music exam in piano worth more than the same grade at violin? I was never convinced of fairness at all. When you get to senior school you may well find the big donors DC get the prizes and you might scratch your head too!

I'm not sure top performance academically or in sport is subjective at all. Music and other performance subjects is perhaps somewhat objective. The idea the secondary school age children need to be shielded from the acknowledged success of others seems a bit strange. Some people are better at certain activities than others and learning to celebrate others' successes without feeling diminished by them is an important life skill. It will be an awfully rude awakening in the real world otherwise.

That should have read performance subjects are somewhat subjective not objective. However success (professional or otherwise) in these areas is always based on a similar level of subjectivity.

This is a primary thread so academic performance is often not examined or accurate. Assessment is not wholly accurate either in many schools. At secondary it’s different.

Yes bubblesbuddy and no one has suggested those prizes be given at primary. I was responding to the discussion of this happening at secondary school level which I made clear in my post though I don't agree that academic performance isn't accurately measured in primary.

Star of the week seems to be administered in any number of ways. None of these seem terribly damaging as long as parents are able to instil in their children the idea its a good thing to celebrate other people's accomplishments

After reading that opening about group photos I’m a bit worried about your schools GDPR policies. You shouldn’t be allowed to see photos of any child but your own.

Tapestry is to log children’s development and you should have only access to that of your own child. Posts containing photos of other children should be viewable as word only to you

Many schools use photos of DC on their web sites and in prospectuses. It’s ok to see photos of other DC just not ones who are not allowed to be photographed. No child should be named. Have you ever seen a school web site with no pupils on it?

That's not entirely true. Parents have to give express consent for an image of their child to be shared; however, its likely this was asked for as part of signing up to the app / at the start of the school year.

I work in an inner London school. All parents have the option of declining or allowing permission to have their child’s image shared at the time of joining the school. However at ours this doesn’t include sharing of photos on tapestry as a record of learning. Tapestry invites parents to look at what their children are learning, but that’s not it’s actual purpose.

I wasn’t suggesting parents had not agreed to their child being photographed. I know that they do have to agree or decline. However the general principle is that children can appear in photos if permission is given. As I said earlier, I wouldn’t want my DC filmed in the classroom and would be inclined to ignore it. I cannot see it serves any real advantage regarding teaching and learning.