why does dd's teacher award prizes to the best girl and the best boy - instead of to the two best children?

[hatwoman]

it niggles me. make distinctions between girls and boys when there are objective reasons to do so but not for the sake of it. doing it for the sake of it is unhealthy imo. but maybe someone can persuade me there's a good reason for this.

boys are good at more than being disruptive! and you can reward effort per se - and improvement - as many teachers do. you can organise your reward scheme in a way that rewards both boys and girls without organising it explicitly on gender lines.

"An arbitrary seperation of people into 2 camps on some irrelevant ground is unhealthy imo and niggles me."

Oh me too. I took DD1 - aged 5 - to a tennis workshop over the summer. It was 2 hours long and the course consisted of 4-6 year olds, all at a beginners level. The coach in charge split the group into boys and girls. What was worse was the coach dealt with the group of boys and left the girls to the young coaching assistants. I saw no reason for the boys and girls to be split up at that stage.

hatwoman - i would quietly suggest to dd's teacher perhaps rather than rewarding being the best they could reward effort/improvement so it is more motivational to those that know they are never going to be the best.

I'd not be happy with this - would ask the teacher her motives for doing so.

sorry the "best" thing was shorthand (and perhaps confusing). the actual system is a bit more nuanced than that. she has something a bit like a sticker chart - and awards stickers for lots of things - including effort, improvement, behaviour, etc, in all areas ie things that boys and girls can both do. but, if I have understood it correctly, at the end of the week there's some form of extra accolade for the boy and girl with the most stickers. (so, in theory, Jemima could get 10 stickers and no extra praise because Talullah, with 12 was the "best" girl and Wilfred, who got 8, was the "best" boy...) (I don't think she uses the word "best" btw). tbh I don't feel strongly enough to make a point of it, although I was quite genuinely taken aback when she explained this system at the beginning of year meeting and I nearly asked her there and then but didn't because I didn;t want to look like an arse and because I didn;t want to put her on the spot. but, having written it down like that it does seem pretty unfair. also we do have a big gender imbalance in the class - about 7 boys and 23 girls. It was the idea and the principle about seperating boys and girls that niggled me - not the possible detailed unfairness of this particular system. I think kids get this a lot and it seems very unnecessary - horsestory - that's a good example of the kid of unthinking thing that would annoy me too.

You know the thing about boys being rubbish at reading is rubbish in itself. My Y1 ds is pretty good but there are boys in his class who are phenomonal and I haven't spotted a girl who's such a good reader as these boys yet.

I'm sure no mother of a boy would have ever raised this issue. Oh to be the mum of such a perfect girl!!!! (but oddly enough, I wasn't a perfect girl at school).

hellywobs - I wasn't the one saying boys are rubbish - it was the mums of boys that mostly said that! and where did I say anything about my perfect girl? The post was about a much broader issue/principal about unthinking separation of boys and girls. and fwiw I do know people who think in a lot of detail about gender and society who defintely would raise this issue. and who happen to have sons.