<p>I know it seems silly, but I wondered if other middle schools recognized kids for certain achievements.</p>
<p>He goes to a public school and when my older son was in middle school, they had an awards ceremony at the end of the year – all kinds of awards, from straight A students to best science lab partner. </p>
<p>My younger son completed his last day of 7th grade today – 4.0, perfect attendance and 1st place in regional history day for the second year. Not a word from anyone – the principal doesn’t even know who he is.</p>
<p>is this normal? I know that the teachers and administration are overwhelmed with work – but it seems like those kids who really put forth 100% should at least get a pat on the back. Not just for my son, but for all those hard-working kids.</p>
<p>D’s school has an award cermony for which they send a printed invitation in the mail to the families of all the award winners. Awards are given for perfect A’s, orchestra, band, electives etc. etc. The district board also invites students to their board meeting and recognises the outstanding students. All very nicely done; D has looked forward to it the last 2 years as she saw her older brother get recognition 4 yrs. ago.</p>
<p>I work in a middle school. We give out awards after every quarter - honor roll, BUG (Bringing Up Grades) and special awards given out by each teacher at the grade level.</p>
<p>our m/s has a separate awards ceremony for graduating 8th graders, both gpa and departmental awards, i.e., curriculum. Three kids earn the “top” award which is a combination of academic and school/community service. Those three are asked to make a two minute speech at graduation. Other academic awards are recognized during graduation – recognition consists of calling off their names while they stand. Awards are listed in the graduation program.</p>
<p>Not many awards at our middle school. Some sports teams do a dinner and hand out certificates. There is a tea every year for kids who have all A’s. There is honor roll. There are some awards (4 or 5) given out to band/orchestra students at the last concert of the year. I think some of the 8th graders wear some sort of academic braids at graduation. I think that’s about it.</p>
<p>Our district is slowly but surely doing away with honor rolls and any other kind of academic awards. We are going to “standards based education.” That is, according to their educational philosophy, there is no bell curve. Yes, you heard right. Success for all. There is no success which is considered superior. </p>
<p>Certainly we will be one of the districts that will have 40 vals in the years to come (anyone with straight-A’s, if we have vals at all).</p>
<p>So in 2000 our high school had an honor roll and even published it in the local paper, as well as posting it in the hallway. They slowly (not to arouse parental suspicion) did away with any public posting of it. In fact, by now I’m sure the entire concept of “honor roll” in our district is a thing of the past.</p>
<p>Our elementary school has standards-based reporting, and our middle school will soon. Our superintendent believes that eventually even our high school will go standards-based, and that colleges will also be “aligned” with the standards.</p>
<p>So, to answer your question, I am not surprised that your middle school has done away with academic awards. You are probably lucky enough (or unlucky enough, depending on your point of view) to live in a progressive district.</p>
<p>Our middle school had some kind of awards ceremony for “graduating” 8th graders (they don’t really call it graduation, though). It was during the school day and for the kids only; no parents. Separate from the evening “graduation” ceremony.</p>
<p>DS got an award for having been Honor Roll every single quarter from 5th-8th grade. There weren’t actually all that many kids who got that. His gf (that he’d had for about 2 weeks at that point and had for another few months) got that kind of Best All Around Award (student/citizen/contributor to the school). Do you think my son peaked in middle school ;)?</p>
<p>Our middle school had a breakfast for students nominated as “student of the month” by teachers or guidance counselors. This was a non-academic award, for good citizenship. There was also honor roll. There were no other school awards, at least that we know of. </p>
<p>Since we have one middle school and one high school, there was also no graduation. The 8th graders had a “field day” as their last day, and that was it.</p>
<p>For my daugther there were some regional writing awards along with teacher recognitions for outstanding work and some state science awards. The writing awards were a big deal competition between kids nationally that she did alright with. Even had stuff signed by ole GW himself “the education pres” that was awarded by her principal. The science awards were for statewide competitions.</p>
<p>All these outside competitions were spurred on by teachers who took the time to get kids into these programs. Pretty neat stuff actually.</p>
<p>everyone’s answers made me feel better – it seems like it is all over the board, from nothing to elaborate ceremonies with invitations.</p>
<p>He wasn’t expecting anything – nor does he really care about awards, but he attends a school where 1/3 of the kids will probably fail and be held back and he is constantly teased because he actually does his school work. He takes the teasing with a grain of salt – academics are important to him – but he does get tired of it. </p>
<p>To me, it seems like if you want to increase school attendance (a huge issue at this school) and academic performance, you would recognize those kids that come to school every day and get good grades. Anyway – I just thought it was unusual, but apparently not.</p>
<p>Middle school only had an award ceremony for the 8th graders. They did have honor roll, high honor roll, and a “high five club”. (The last was bringing up your entire GPA 5 points.) I’m not sure that perfect attendance is recognized, but the history award would probably have made the district newsletter.</p>
<p>Our middle school did do some awards–an honors breakfast for those kids on the honor roll (which I never knew existed until the breakfast invitations rolled out) and they also recognized the “valedictorians”–the kids with 4.0’s (there were 8 of them). </p>
<p>Our district also has a gifted program for K-8, and because the middle school gifted program is truly a thing unto itself in which the students attended all their academic courses together (except math–you could be in the main gifted program without being in the gifted math program (2 yrs accelerated, on track to get to Calc III senior year of HS)) for all 3 years in which they were in the middle school, every year the teachers did awards of all sorts (we also had the same teachers all 3 years–in my 5 academic subjects (Math, Reading, English (grammar), Social Studies, and Sceince) throughout MS I only had 3 different teachers). For example, one year I won a Biggest Eyeroller award :). I’m sure some districts would deem this overly cruel…</p>
<p>At that point we still had 8th grade graduation, complete with diplomas and gowns. I’m pretty sure that there were student speeches as well. Thankfully, they’ve down away with this–even they could see what a BS thing it was.</p>
<p>As far as bad changes go, there have been plenty of those. The worst to me has been how they have tinkered with the math curriculum–I forget what it’s called, but it’s some new-agey thing that has gotten a decent amount of press. It’s terrible, in my opinion–they changed how they teach long division! Because the old way just wasn’t good enough, I guess? (the new way is stupider for sure). I joked last year when my brother’s math teacher won Math Teacher of the Year that I really should have gotten the award, being that I taught him at least as much as his teacher did.</p>
<p>Presdential award, baby. I average an A-. Big deal. It requires very little intelligence or hard work to average an A- in middle school, but whatever.</p>
<p>We had awards similar to what you describe (I got almost all of them It was the last time I ever got an award though LOL). However, like some others have mentioned, ours were only for 8th graders, not 7th graders. Perhaps the awards your older son got were in 8th grade?</p>
It was the last time I ever got an award though LOL). However, like some others have mentioned, ours were only for 8th graders, not 7th graders. Perhaps the awards your older son got were in 8th grade?</p>