Naughty children rewarded for being good

[UnquietDad]

DD and I were discussing a boy in her class (Y3) who lives round the corner, and she said that he sometimes gets chocolate from Mrs S (classroom assistant).

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, it's because he is a naughty boy and if he's good for a week Mrs S gives him chocolate."

"So what do you get for being good all the time, DD?"

"Nothing."

"DO you think that's right?"

"No!"

Over to you lot. I'm sure you have views on this...

firstly - do you feel that a child who is not quite as socially aware (better behaved) should not be placed in a classroom then? your child should only mix with "nice" children.

as for teh maths homework. if you feel he could be better challenged by some more difficult maths get him some letts work books and do them with him at home. im sure you would be capable of marking some yr2 work surely?

im sorry, i understand we all want what is best for our children but i find this sort of attitude really difficult.

Ot - Slalomsuki Why don't you give him extra maths homework if you think he would benefit from it? It doesn't have to come from the school. You could set it and mark it yourself. Maybe ask the teacher the best scheme to follow but do the rest yourself. Let him do his brother's homework if he can. Does he enjoy doing the extra?
I always wonder why parents complain to the school about not giving enough homework when it would be possible to give work at home to the children themselves.
Having said all that, I don't agree with homework anyway

I think your opinion on this depends on what type of kids you have. If you have a well behaved bright child it is very easy to judge when the 'naughty' kids get rewards.

My ds is in year 1, and had a terrible year in reception. He did not get school, could not concentrate, would not sit still and would not listen. His school tried many many different techniques, and with kids like this, reinforcing the positive and praising the little things ofter works wonders

For some kids, sitting for 5 minutes is a real acomplishment, even if your dd can do it very easily.

If we begrudge these kids praise and rewards, tehn what? What happens to them then?

My dd is a clever kid. She read effortlessly from the word go. She is now 11 and reads at an adult level. Reading for her is pure pleasure.

Ds struggles at hte old reading thing. Everything in reading is hard for him. He puts in 4 times the effort of dd and only makes tiny progress.

Which of my two children deserves praise for their reading efforts most? My lazy and clever dd, or my hard working son?

Just in case you think I'm being a bitch the roles are reversed for maths

DD's Reception teachers give out stickers sporadically for a variety of accomplishments. But there is one boy, C, who gets a sticker if he manages to behave himself and get all smiley faces on the board that day.

DD talks alot about how C behaves and I saw it as an opportunity to talk about how everyone needs to help C because he doesn't yet understand or know how to act the way that everyone else in the class does. If it suddenly clicks with her that C gets stickers merely for doing what everyone else does all the time, I think she will be fine with it.

I wouldn't be happy with any of the children being given chocolate as a treat though but maybe this is something that is worked out between the boy's parent and the teacher.

another excellent post MB.

I never said that children who are not as socially aware as you put it Mamazon should not be in the class room, all I said was that there needed to be equality

I do give him extra homework but I asked the school for guidance but was told they don't do recommend parents give extra work. I asked if the sort of books that were available in waterstones or wh smoths were OK and was told that they wouldn't recommend a particular type over any others.

I am now at a bit of a loss but all I asked for was some guidance to motivate Ds2

Are you quite sure the boy doesn't have SN? DS1 was at a mainstream school for a while and after a fight did reward specific tasks (not something vague like good behaviour for a week) with chocolate- usually it would be something like make a PECS exchange- crumb of chocolate. It had to be chocolate as it was the only reinforcer he had at the time - there was nothing else he desired. It is sooo difficult to get chocolate etc in a mainstream school setting these days - it does make me wonder whether there are SN involved. (Although if so perhaps the school should be doing more to educate than 'naughty boy')

fight -from me by the way- they wanted to reward with stickers or something totally meaningless to ds1- which wouldn't have worked because ds1 doesn't even know what they are let alone desire one, and if someone puts one on him he just wants it off - now.

ds2 btw is doing pretty well academically at school and is very well behaved - his last 2 head teachers awards have been for 1) helping the younger children on the computers and 2) making his teacher laugh. His school also hand out stickers for things like helping tidy up. It's quite possible for all the children to get a chance to be rewarded for being generally well behaved and helpful- and still give the extra encouragement to those that need it.

Slalomsuki - There is a lot of information on the internet about the National curriculum. For examplethis is from the Standards Site. It might help.
Mathematics year 1 unit plans
You can select the subject, year group and term.

yurt1 - those are the sorts of things DD gets stickers for. Helping to tidy up. Getting dressed after PE. Doing her writing (which she's not so good at) I get the impression the teachers can find a way to reward everyone for something.

and in most schools I would expect that all the children are rewarded, at some point in the term, for something.

But the something will vary from child to child. Good reader dd (who is a bit of a klutz) got one for 'Working hard on her gymnastic routine. Which I translate as 'Didn't fall over as much as usual' But that doesn't matter, she was praised for hard work in something that she doesn't find easy. She doesn't need to be praised for her reading.

IME kids are generally quite good at accepting that 'X gets praise for reading half a paragraph, because Y isn't very good at reading'

As regards the OP, do you know whether this 'naughty boy' has, in fact, some type of SEN?

so slalomsuki, how exactly does one teacher with one TA (if they're lucky) deliver equality in everything to a class of 30 children all of varying abilities? Especially when different children need different approaches to encourage and nurture them, as others have said on here.

I think another downside of this type of rewarding is when your child gets a reward for something and asks you whether they got it because they are normally the worst in the class at doing whatever it is.

I don't really think that most children see it like that. I think it is human nature to need most encoragement to do things that we are not naturally good at.

I'm not so sure. Some of my dc have asked me and I've listened to conversations of my secondary aged children and their friends laughing at each other over who got what, with the others saying they only got it because they're rubbish at whatever. Sometimes, some have been relieved to find they didn't get a particular award. Granted some of it is the usual leg-pulling.
But they can tell the difference between awards that are generally accepted as having merit and the ones that they feel they are being fobbed off with or given to make them behave in a certain way.

Agree (slavishly, again, sorry ): kids are pretty sharp. DD1 is another one who doesn't need praise for reading, but does need praise for physical stuff.

(Although I did take issue with the report which said she sang in tune, which I felt was taking praise to mendacious heights .)

I sort of agree juulie, but I think that whenever there are two or three teenagers gathered together, there is also some bravado that may mask other feelings

You should see year 10s compeating for my 'Mrs Martianbishop says well done stamper' And I'm not kidding.

I also deeply believe that children who may not get much by way of helpful praise in the home really enjoy praise in the classroom, however gruff they may be.

it doesn't matter whether other children recognise that the child recieve praise because he struggles. the praise will mean a lot to the child that recieved it.

I make a real fuss of Ds when he manages to get a sticker for something and histeacher will try and find cause to give him one most days.

it is a double merit as he gets 50p for every sticker he gets.

(its a way of teaching him about money but also helps his counting skills as he is saving for a new game.)

So what do you all think of this reward system...
Head gives stickers at Fri assembly to exceptional whatever ..(can be anything I think from good reading to good helping)
but school also has minutes / golden time system. Just before Xmas any child who had lost less than 5 minutes in the whole term got a treat, a film and popcorn. All the others had to do work. Now I didn't mind as both my ds's got the treat but I think a few parents were disgruntled. What do you think?

Maybe MB. I'm just going off the things my children have said.
The stamper idea sounds fun and I'm sure that mine would have enjoyed that.