Why do primary schools never recognise the well behaved average achievers?

[CathyBlowsBubbles]

Originally put this in AIBU because I was cross but I could actually do with answers from an educational perspective.
DD (10) is not as academic as either her older sister or her older brother (14&11). She’s a lovely child who isn’t struggling but is bang average. She’s never in trouble and tries her best.

All year, she’s been telling me how she was going to work really hard to get a HT’s award given every other month as she’s never got one. (Older sibs both got lots over the course of their primary school) She’s come home tonight in tears which is so rare for her. Naughty kid in her class got it for ‘making an improved effort to listen in class. Now I know that it’s about equity and that he should be rewarded for improving BUT, where’s her reward for calmly and quietly working her socks off all year? Why is that NEVER, EVER rewarded??? How come her older sibs were forever being rewarded for being super high achievers when it all came so easily to them yet she is never recognised.

She is in a class with a high proportion of kids with behavioural issues and right from Infants, any tiny weekly improvement has been seized on and rewarded. Doesn’t change anything. Behaviour is still poor. Kids are still hurting other kids and disrupting lessons. All TA attention and support is given to those kids too to enable the teacher to teach. How is that fair? How is it fair that the TA supports that group and the teacher ‘stretches’ the high achievers twice a week but the cohort in the middle (apart from one who’s disruptive) are just left to get on with it.

Why don’t they ever even say to us, ‘look, the class is too big, the teacher is frazzled, the TA is struggling too, your kid is no trouble so they just need to suck it up!’ They never say that. They never say, ‘we know this child has received rewards frequently over the part 6yrs without impact but we still need to try despite how demotivating it is to kids who try all year and get nothing in return.’ The system is completely broken when kids like my youngest child gets to the end of Y5 effectively unnoticed. My eldest was on their G&T register and somehow she didn’t go unnoticed! 🤨 I feel so angry on DD’s behalf. She’s never going to get the academic accolades that the older two get. why can’t she be recognised for just being a good kid?

Lots of schools do recognise these kids, but some are really shit at it.

DD’s primary would have a tea party with the headteacher every Friday morning for 5 kids in each class. It was just squash and a little cake in the hall. It meant each child had quite a few times where they were picked, and the teachers kept a record of which children had attended so that they could make it even.

Because the school isn't doing their job properly! The school where I work has a strict policy of celebrating every child. Sometimes it's hard to find something (see your 'effort to listen in class' exemplem) but every child should be celebrated and praised.

At DD’s old primary they did a star of the week thing and 3 years running she was the last to get it and one year they gave the most ridiculous reason for rewarding it- think having a cool costume for a dress up day. Like the whole academic year and that was the best that they could come up with in terms of achievement. Meanwhile there’s loads of recognition for the kids thar struggle with their behaviour and show the slightest improvement. And plenty for the academic high flyers. That was one of many reasons we weren’t happy with the school and she now goes to an all girls prep where they’re big on the whole child ethos and the difference is night and day- she’s recognised left right and centre for effort, kind behaviour, performance in non key subjects etc. So schools don’t have to be like that. But such a shame that so many are.

Sigh. I was that kid once, and now DS is. Unremarkable in all ways, and yet on one level you could argue that those kids are the saving grace of every teacher's sanity. Without them, everybody else's experience in that classroom would be completely different. They are the steady, reliable people that employers will want to have on their workforce in 15 years. They deserve a bloody medal!

Thanks everyone, I’m calmer now. DD is happier too. I just find is all so frustrating.

My dd’s primary school was like this! All the same kids kept getting things like star of the week, big parts in school assemblies, headteachers awards! It was always either the “ naughty kids” or the teachers/ support staffs kids! It was awful to see her constantly disheartened.

I do. I tell them every day how amazing they are and give them tonnes of stickers.

You know its the right thing to do for its own sake, right? Not for cookies or stickers or being made a fuss of. The world is run by people who just get on with doing their work well.

People generally get on with doing their job well not because ‘it’s the right thing to do for its own sake’ but because they get paid to do it. Cookies and stickers are to small children what money is to adults!

I don’t like star of the week at all! When my DDs were at primary school, a note from the head was put in the book bag to celebrate an achievement. It was private and not published. All this publicity about being a dubious star is damaging in my view if it’s not fair. Quite often it’s not.

I understand your annoyance, frustration and even anger about this but your comments are very generalised. As others have said, it isn't that all schools are like this at all. It's your daughter's school that are sadly very poor at it.

There should always be ways to reward all. The school needs a fairer system rather than just rewarding academic success and improved behaviour (as opposed to consistently good behaviour and consistently good effort, regardless of attainment).

I was thinking about this in the shower yesterday. My DD was this kid, even described as ‘average’ in more than one parent’s evening, whilst the struggling or talented kids got all the praise and attention. She was a couple of marks off passing the Kent test in maths and English (over performed in the reasoning part) but the school advised they wouldn’t support a headteacher’s appeal as she’d be better suited to high school (despite supporting appeals for many other kids who were involved in sports etc)
She’s doing well at high school, top set for everything and predicted 6/7/8s for GCSEs next year. I often wonder if she’d have done even better at a grammar or with support or pushing to achieve more at school, as her high school only has 22% who achieve grade 5 or above in English and maths. We’ll never know, maybe the pressure would have been detrimental to her.

But it does annoy me that she was seemingly ignored through much of primary - the formative education years - except one NQ teacher in year 5 who recognised potential and put in place additional maths to push her. Then Covid happened, so that stopped.
I recognise that schools don’t have the resources needed, but it’s frustrating as a family.

DD didn't get a single award, praise postcard, housepoint or basically any nice comments for the whole of her school career - because she didn't have to try to do well. She often got into trouble for sitting doing nothing - having done all her work and the teacher having nothing left to give her...

She got the best GCSEs then A Levels in the school/college though but this is very much down to her personality, the way she was treated could have easily put her off bothering.

My DC have been to 2 schools in different parts of the country, and both have had similar things where they celebrate “values” as well as achievements and have come home with certificates for things like holding the door open, improving their writing and playing nicely. Our current school also has a kindness award. Quite a few teachers also ran a thing where they’d give out eg pom-poms for good behaviour which would go in a jar to get a class reward when it was full. And stickers/notes given out for things like doing good listening. So it’s definitely happening, but I guess is quite school/teacher dependent.

I remember going into my year 1 son’s classroom and seeing the ‘Rocket’ sticker charts on the wall - my son had a couple of stickers but the boy, known for being the naughtiest in the class, had a full one. I asked my son how you go about getting these stickers and why naughty boy’s was full - he said, “oh, that’s because he didn’t punch anyone on those days” 😂

I posted on the other thread, but my background is that I taught early years education, and now work in a university, and specialize in education research.

To be simple - the phenomenon you are describing is 100% normal. That doesn't mean it is right or good, but it is very challenging to fix.

The simple fact is that generally speaking class sizes are too big for the number of teachers that they have. That means that the teacher has less bandwidth of time and attention than they would ideally need, if every student was getting what they deserve/need. Imagine a teacher has 100 "points" of time/energy, and 25 children, that each need 6 points of time and energy. 150 are needed, and the teacher only has 100. What do they do?

They prioritize those 100 points towards the places that are going to have the biggest impact. This tends to be attention on the most problematic children, because those have the potential to cause massive disruption. And attention on the best/loudest children, because A. if not serviced, those children (and their parents) often cause trouble. and B. those children are useful for examples/guiding/helping other children.

The quite child in the middle? They are a teacher's dream, because they don't require too many "points". They save teachers because they get on with their work, and allow teachers to put their overstretched attention on the children who are screaming for it.

Is that fair? No. I was a quiet child, many people are, we get a bit ignored. But please try and look on the bright side:

1 - Your teacher probably loves your daughter, and is very thankful and impressed that she can get on and do things by herself, even if she doesn't have the resources/time to show it always.
2 - Quiet, hard working, disciplined children do well. You say your daughter is average in ability - but she is clearly great in attitude, and that should give you a lot of confidence in her future
3 - She will find places where she will be recognized. External, smaller groups are great for quiet hard working children, clubs, activities etc. Or she will just find teachers who are better at managing their "points" or have less troubled students, where she will be recognized
4 - you can recognize her, and make up for her teacher's missing praise. Get her a nice gift when the year ends, and say how proud you are of her etc. (I'm sure you already do these, but if she is craving recognition at the moment, perhaps she could use more)

You can complain to the school/teacher, and that will likely solve it a bit. Because then your daughter becomes a higher priority demand for the teacher's "points" - the teacher knows that the daughter has a 'demanding' parent, (not saying you are, but that is what they will think) and as such, if they don't pay attention to her, they will face hassle.

But you can't do that for every teacher throughout your daughters life, so my personal opinion is to follow another path.

This is heartbreaking op, I have been in your position and the mistake I made was ‘opening my mouth’… a lot at school, it made absolutely no difference other than to make me unhappy.
my kids are in their 20’s now and as they progressed through high school, again they had very similar experiences as your daughter has but, it became obvious which subjects they were particularly interested in and by the time they were in year 10 the teachers recognised their effort. They were bang average but they went to all the after school lessons and achieved above their predicted grades. Most importantly they are both happy. I regularly meet up with the ‘school mums’ and several of the chosen G&T kids haven’t faired any better than the ‘average’ kids. I was in the same position myself with much cleverer siblings and my only hindrance was my low self esteem, that I wasn’t as ‘good’ as them whereas I have achieved by working hard whereas they had a core belief that they deserved success as they were the clever ( but lazy as every thing was handed to them on a plate)
I taught my kids that they need to believe in themselves and that hard work is never wasted.

Because teachers are human and in a class of 30 the 'ordinary' quiet, well behaved, unexceptional pupils just do not stand out and get noticed, unlike the gifted, extrovert, show offs, and the badly behaved. This has always been an issue in primary schools and sadly it is unlikely to change as the pressure on teachers to do so many things is so great. Nevertheless it is worth pointing out to the class teacher and asking the question why your DC is never recognised. It may well lead to her being rewarded in the near future....

But on the flip side, and I know this makes no difference to how a child feels, but, the entire curriculum is geared towards the middle achievers. Every lesson of every day. All the way up to GCSEs is too easy for the academic kids unless they’re given extra work, and too hard for the non-academic without extra help. So yes, she’s getting frustrated cos she doesn’t win stuff, but top table are frustrated because they’re bored and bottom table are frustrated because they can’t do it.

It carries on into secondary school
too. My son never went on a school trip as the places went to those who were academically good and those whose behaviour demanded a reward at the end if the year.
He’s done really well as an adult though but still bears the scars and has an innate hatred of the education system that did literally nothing for him as clever, practical, well behaved but dyslexic pupil

Don’t assume some of this will hold dc back though. When working, school becomes a memory. My DD had one girl of average intelligence win 7 prizes at y13 prize giving at secondary school. Obviously seen by everyone as a ludicrous joke but the culmination of favouritism and bias.

DD became determined to be successful in attaining the career she wanted but is not easy to get. Two years ago, the school came crawling back to her asking her to be an 6th form ambassador and be interviewed for their website to show prospective parents what their great education could lead to. She informed them she was successful in spite of them, not because of them. Your dc will be the same!

Same in my DD’s school. Finally in the last term of her 3rd year of school she got the ‘star award’ at the same time as her friend who also got it for the first time. Incidentally they are both in the top set, and friend is a very high achiever. I cannot understand why they don’t give to everyone once before giving to a pupil twice, surely that is easy to monitor.
Her younger brother has had it twice, but people seem to warm to him more, and he also struggles more academically.

Same at our school! Star of week with special treat is Jimothy! 🤩🤩
Jimothy didnt punch or bite anyone after lunch today! Yay!!

All these excuses, how hard is it to have a list and make sure every child has a go at getting an award over the course of a year.

I’d try and avoid schools with star systems. They put the stars in the newsletters so check who gets them! Seriously though, of course teachers should be even handed with handing them out but schools are odd places in many respects. People who would be sacked at work get all the accolades at school.