DS says other child is put on pedestal by teachers and cries about it most days

[Santosi]

I only have DS's account but here it goes.

He is in y5, did always well in school and still does... anyhow, this year is is in class with a DS if friends. Let's call him Sam. Sam is also bright and his parents are wealthy. As a result, Sam gets tution several times a week from a private tutor to prepare him for the entrance exam for a independent secondary school. So Sam is bright, works hard and gets a lot of tutoring outside school which puts him ahead of the class. Fair enough.

However, DS is coming home daily telling me how teachers fuzz all day about Sam. How well he does. He gets class awards for amazing learning most week (documented in the schools newsletter so defo not made up), got the main part in the class' Xmas performance (filmed, not live), gets to help the teacher in marking other students work. Last week Sam marked DS's work and DS perceived it as the ultimate humiliation. DS says if the teacher has a tricky question it is always put to Sam first... I could go on and on. He says Sam also boasts in school about private tution, that his parents will put him into an expensive indy school...

As I said, I only have DS's account but I have friends who have kids in the same class and they report the same stuff at home so I think there must be some truth in it.

I keep telling DS that he is amazing. That I don't care what Sam does it does not and the he should just focus on himself... but he is 9 and feels that school is extremely unfair and decided there is not point in working hard as noone cares as he is not Sam.

Not sure what I am actually asking....

@Santosi

agree, the crying is too much and I te DS it's not worth it etc.

Do you think there’s underlying issues here? Is he being picked on or teased by the boy?

Not teased but the other boy tells DS that he is brighter than him and that he can learn so much more because he gets tutors. Also, they are in the same taekwondo club and DS is a higher belt. But Sam keeps telling him that actually he (i.e. Sam) is better even though that is not true. But that has nothing to do with school as such. Sam certainly has a lot of confidence (and DS is lacking some). I think I need to work on that with DS more than anything. He is what he is, and not what Sam says he is. But he doesn't get that for some reason. It's tedious.

This changes it. If Sam were a bright boy who DS was jealous of then I’d advise just getting him to brush over it as part of life.

Sam sounds like a little snot who loves being number one and rubbing it in other’s faces. Keep an eye on this and perhaps mention his one upmanship to the teacher should the opportunity arise.

I find him being allowed to mark the class’ work odd.

I had already worked out from pps that this child was a little shit with his bragging

I still stand by the Ds saying what I said in my previous post

More than likely there are a few more children who feel exactly the same way as your Ds

It does sound like the teacher is over the moon with this child. I am sure other children in your ds’s class are also getting tutoring. It is just that they don’t mention it

It might be worth explaining to your child about the boys self esteem being low and that is why he is putting others down. To make himself feel better