Pupil of the week upset

[Cactus5]

My year 5 child still hasn't been picked to be pupil of the week and is feeling upset about it. He was also not given any parts in school plays or church readings this year, which he used to enjoy. He loves praise and responsibility.
He is working at greater depth, is quite confident and has lots of friends. Last year, he was part of the school council and he's always had parts in Christmas plays.
His teacher pulled me up a few weeks ago for the first time to say he had been moved twice due to chatting in lessons. My son explained that he had done this because he was excited about his friends' sleepover (he was sitting next to his best friend) and was finished with all his work. I feel like he's given up working hard and seems less confident. What is the best way to address it?

When you go to Year 6 parents evening early on you could explain to the next teacher that he felt a bit invisible in year 5 and why to make them aware.

My son is 15, and has never once been selected for a reward or award at school. He's a bright, A student who never gets in trouble (that I know of). I believe some children just coast and get overlooked. It makes me feel really sad/angry for them.

I actually emailed school this year to explain the impact it was having - all his friends going on reward trip and he has yet again been left off with no explanation as to why. I didn't get a reply. He's starting to say things like 'why bother trying'. It becomes obvious some children just don't matter, they fly so far under the radar 😔.

My DD is a really well behaved, smart and diligent student, she is in the top 25% of the class but is not at the very top. She never gets any recognition or wins any prizes.

There she is, never being any trouble, doing what is supposed to do and is just completely overlooked. So I know how you feel.

I would mention it to the Teacher next year

Yep this happened to all my kids. Well behaved, top sets but never any recognition. Only the difficult kids, sporty kids or uber-nerds got the awards. Integrity, consistency, honesty, resilience, character all counted for nothing.

School for them was just one big lesson in institutionalised injustice.

I agree about having a quiet word about him feeling overlooked.

I know some schools are trying to address the issue of the quiet pupil who just gets on. Better examples I’ve seen are where all pupils start with say 100 points and they loose them for poorer behaviour, lateness etc It’s a better way of making sure good kids keep their points just by doing what they should be doing rather than relying on overworked teachers to have to remember to award them. It also stops the worst kids getting the most points as they get rewarded for doing what the good kids are already doing.

There are 36 weeks in the school term and 30 children in a class, so usually every child is star of the week at least once.
You could mention to the teacher that DS is a bit anxious and maybe ask her to reiterate to the kids that everyone will get their turn, but unless your school is very unusual he'll get it before the end of the year.

The easy children usually get the weekly award either right at the beginning of the year or right at the end. A good teacher knows they don't need encouragement to follow the rules, but a good teacher shouldn't miss them out.
Do they get a certificate with a specific reason written on it asto why they've been chosen this week?
A complaint and swift certificate next week renders them a bit meaningless.
DS usually got 1 a year, while the more tricky children got multiple certificates. With a class of 21 this wasn't too hard.
In yr 6 he had a very good teacher, who recognised some of the other children. My friend's daughter, who'd always been a teacher's pet, actually felt bullied because she was treated like everyone else. 🤷‍♀️.
At the end of the year DS got the English prize. He'd worked really hard and got brilliant SATs results in his English and the creative writing element.

Hopefully, your DS still has time for recognition.

If it helps I got 12 A* at GCSE (back in the day) and got no recognition either. Someone else with the same results got an award in the presentation evening and I got…nothing! Schools are weird places.

My dd has been like this. She works to greater depth, is by all accounts pretty easy in class. Tried every year to get some kind of recognised role in school council or prefect type positions, they always vote on them as a class so they end up going to the loud popular kids. It's been upsetting to see her slowly crushed by this over the years. She remains resilient, bounces back and tries again but is always knocked back again. Our only solution has been to put more eggs in more baskets. So she does a lot of clubs and occasionally gets a small bit of praise in those. Tbh shes often overlooked in those too. I do wonder if she was rude and misbehaved she would be better off.

If the other children vote for those things it's pretty brutal. Even if the teachers choose, I've seen them go to the 'golden ' children. DS knew better than going for the popular vote.
It's horrible for the ones who never get recognised.

Sometimes our class would post photos on Dojo. My son never seemed to be in them. Our joke was had the teacher put him in the stock cupboard that day. 😬😁

The system doesn't reward the quiet, hard working children.

It's about rewarding naughty children when they have a spell of good behaviour.

Not even that, it’s when they have a brief spell of not being violent or destructive!!

I have to say as an ex-teacher, the reason well-behaved kids get the Star of the Week last is because I can give it to them any week. Some children I would be looking for any excuse to give it to them - and the moment I found one, I grabbed it. Child was then ticked off for the year!

But your child is clearly chatting too much - there’s no way a teacher would be talking to you if it’s a once off.

And it’s also possible that the teacher was trying to give parts in school plays to children who haven’t always had a role.

That said, I would mention to the teacher the fact that your dc hasn’t had Star of the Week - if it bothers him, not you. I have to say that many children by Year 5 have worked out every child gets it, and really don’t care about it. I certainly never minded a parent flagging it to me - even if I then pointed out to them that actually their child got it 3 weeks ago… and the parent then finds a dog-eared certificate at the bottom of the child’s bag.

He’s not ‘a bit anxious’ he’s upset for a valid reason that he hasn’t been pupil of the week and it’s June.

I agree that the OP should speak to the teacher, hopefully it’s an oversight. Sometimes hardworking well behaved children do get overlooked but it shouldn’t happen.

If you speak to the teacher and your child gets Pupil of the Week the next week, you know it's only because you've spoken to the teacher and not to reward something the child has done. I've definitely seen this happen.

Seriously, the nicest ones are when your child gets it in the last weeks and teacher has written something like 'Well done for being a hard working and helpful member of the class all this year'.

I wouldn't care though. It's fairly arbitrary and a child can be overlooked. My son got it straight after I'd said he wasn't happy at school (not specifically POTW related) and it mattered not a jot, he was so happy.

I have a very grand friend and her lovely ds came out of school sad he was once again over looked. She said brightly “ooh we don’t need external validation in our family darling”
as they swept off. Loved that!

Doesn't the child work that out though? In our school, if you'd spoken to the teacher about a child being unhappy, the teacher would then ask the child about how they're feeling at school.

You don’t tell your child you’re going to talk to the teacher - so child doesn’t know that they’ve only got the certificate because mum intervened. Teachers get it wrong (I’ put a tick against the wrong child sometimes - I actually stopped ticking, and wrote what I’d given it to the child for which stopped that happening). Or your child is simply one of the last to get it. Either way, it’s fine to mention it to a teacher.

Yes, but I’m sure the child did need external validation.

You son (not you) needs to go to the teacher and ask for a quiet word. Then ask ‘excuse me Mr/Mrs X, I would like to work towards getting LOTW or a part in the play. What do I need to do to stand a good chance?’

Teachers will appreciate this maturity and him taking responsibility.

If mummy writes in the teacher will roll their eyes for sure!

My son was the same, hard working, quiet and did as he was told. He left at the end of year 6 having never been nominated for Star of the Month, not once. He was quite sad about it and mentioned it several times.

His brother however, who was in all honesty a little shit at school, got star of the month several times.

Obviously pays to be a trouble maker and you get rewarded for it.

Yes, this is brilliant.

I know a mum who said something like this very loudly at nursery pick-up: "Oh it's ok. It's because I haven't complained to the teacher and you aren't naughty." Or words to that effect.

I don't really agree with these sorts of reward systems. IME they tend to get used rather passive aggressively by the teachers, if they don't get high-jacked by pushy parenting.

We didn't have this sort of "you are IT" reward system. We had badges you could earn if you got enough merit points and everyone could get one if they got enough. There was no missing out because of someone else. It was a good system designed by my brilliant headmistress who believed we pace ourselves against our own private achievements and not relative to others.

ETA oh and she later changed this to a bookmark (they were lovely) as she felt the badge was too much of a public manifestation. The bookmark design changed every term and they were lovely to collect. I still remember the warm glow of seeing it when I opened my library book. Just a quiet pride.

But wasn't getting it - which is the problem.