reward system at school

[mummag]

at my ds sons school they have a reward table where kids that have behaved well get to sit for a week at lunchtimes. It has been in place for 2 years now and my son has never been on it, some people have been on it over and over again. Now i couldnt care less really but my son is soooooooo upset about it he refused to walk home one day so i had a chat with headmistress who assured ds that he was a good boy and would be on it soon...........in the meantime one kid who is a challenging child has been on it twice. What would you do? I know in the great big scheme of things it doesnt matter but he feels like he is being ignored for his efforts and is really upset about it. I think the fact that the badly behaved kids seem to be on it as some kind of reflection of good behaviour makes ds feel really hard done by. I dont want to be a nagging mum but i hate the fact that he is so upset about it. How would you handle this.... by the way there is no reasoning with child.

I totally agree. had same issues with my DD1 until I went to see teacher. DD was inundated with stars for the following few weeks. It is not fair that consistent good behaviour isn't rewarded. the whole system offers no incentive for regular respect and good behaviour

can you clarify what you mean by 'sit for a week at lunchtimes'

Trouble with reward systems / star charts, the ones who get the rewards are the badly behaved ones who try to behave, not the ones who are already well behaved.
The children work this out pretty soon and the stars become meaningless.

A fairer system is needed. Any ideas?

its called the golden table and they get to sit at it at lunchtime for a week and drink out of pretend goblets. I think i might have to have another word with someone about it, cos its quite annoying. God knows re fair rewards. One of my friends has a similar issue in that the violent naughty boy gets praise lavished on him to his mum at the end of the school day and her daughter who has been hit but not retaliated gets nothing.

Dear god that sounds appalling!

what the feck is wrong with some schools. a golden table.

i am very

"One of my friends has a similar issue in that the violent naughty boy gets praise lavished on him to his mum at the end of the school day and her daughter who has been hit but not retaliated gets nothing"

but hows the mum to know what hes been doing in school?

I ask because im the mother of a "violent naughty boy" who is being currently assessed for ASD and school say yes hes lovely etc etc, but when i look throuh the class window i can see him hitting other kids or hiding their luchboxes or whatever.

there are about 4 in his class (incl him) who have reward charts and if they fill them with smiley faces they get a few extra minutes of playtime- if they get dots(for naughty behaviour) they get less playtime.

I would hope if my ds was being badly behaved at school then his teacher would tell me! If his teacher didn't tell me and instead lied to me I'd want to know why and expect the head to be involved. What on earth is the point in lying about bad behaviour? I view school as a partnership between parents and teachers. If we as parents don't know what is really going on at school then how can we do our bit and support?

Equally I would expect continuous good behaviour to be rewarded too. Again if I discovered it wasn't then I'd be having words about that too.

This sounds a lot like the "birthday table". If you search on here you will find plenty of views on how awful these things can be for exclusion etc. (1 poster had the schools birthday table ended after it caused upset for loads of children!)

In your case it is even worse because it rewards good behaviour, not consistant, low level, plain old good behaviour but the kind of good behaviour that stands out because it rewards either above average IQ or a change following bad behaviour.

IMO, these things promote bad behaviour because children do work out that, if they want their good behaviour recognised, they have to behave badly first!

I would do research on things like the birthday table and go to the school explaining how you feel about it. Talk to other parents and find out if other children are left out like yours has been. You may find more people share your views than you think!

Oh dear - this is why the school that I teach at has no rewards or sanctions system at all. Works absolutely fine and avoids just these sort of scenarios. Children behave because they understand it's the right thing to do not so that they get something or avoid something bad happening.

If they do have something like this, then the teacher should keep a list and make sure that everyone in the class has a turn. It is the only way to make something like this fair. Our school has a 'star of the week' and I just keep a check on a class list to make sure everyone is 'star of the week'. I have always hated the fact that they really badly behaved child gets all the rewards and the other children get nothing. A good teacher/school should ensure that there are rewards for everyone.

Exactly what Hathor said.

Our school has a top table once a week where 1 child from each year group is chosen and gets juice and treats. The school try to give each child a turn on top table. My dd got in terrible trouble, because she was chosen, but declined the treat, saying she would prefer to eat lunch with her friends.