Demoralising reward system?

[mel71]

Help, I need perspective
I have son in yr 6. Dyslexic/dyspraxic.
Past few weeks all the children had to collect 30 pizza points in order to attend a pizza party. This was not behaviour related but work quality related. My child had collected ten as of Monday and a teacher gave him ten for free on Tuesday.
I was told on weds that all children would be attending regardless and even though the system infuriated me I thought leave it.
Yesterday class were told only those who had enough points would be attending and it was a fair system.
I rang the school, his teacher told me she knows him well enough to know he is not trying hard enough. I told her he would not be attending today and put the phone down on her. Not good I know.
She emailed me later and said he had evaluated on handwriting, consistency of work, proof reading his work and participation.
All dyslexic traits?!
I kept him off. They plan to continue this system. It breaks my heart that a handful of children were made to work this afternoon whilst the others had pizza and watched a movie. In one class only one child had not earned enough points and was excluded.
Am I being precious?

I don't think you are. I've come to the conclusion that most school reward systems don't work at all.

I've had a conversation with my 14 year old Ds tonight. He is currently being assessed for asd and has very low self esteem. He told me that he has hardly any achievement points compared to others and he can't understand why. He behaves in class, always does his homework and in some subjects is one of the highest performers in his year.

Unfortunately his difficulties with communication means that he often goes completely unnoticed and forgotten. Some of the teachers have no idea the effort it takes some days to be at school and just how overwhelming things can be for him. It's difficult because I would like to tell the school exactly how it makes him feel but we have been fighting so many battles with them it just seems a bit petty moaning about achievement points. It is frustrating and I just wish teachers knew how it made children, especially those with additional needs feel when they are constantly overlooked.

Hope that your Ds wasn't too upset about the party. Maybe they should set individual targets that reflect the childrens abilities, so then they can include everyone.