Years ago, I remember a friend telling me about her first parent evening. Eager to hear about her daughter’s progress, she asked, “So how is she doing?” – “She’s doing fine, exactly as she should be doing,” the teacher replied. My friend left feeling dissatisfied. What she really wanted to know, of course, was how her daughter was doing compared to everyone else. But, over the years, the teacher and her colleagues stood their ground – until SATs came along and gave parents the comparison they wanted, much to the detriment of many children.

Discussions of grades and rankings tend to focus – rightly – on mental health concerns. But ranking also harms learning. Children who are ranked or openly graded (and can therefore compare) care hugely about their perceived relative performance and much less about what they’ve learnt or how they can find out more and grow their learning. Whether it’s grades, house points or stickers, if it can be compared, it will be. And as parents, we often make matters worse by asking, “so how did it go?” meaning “how did you do?” rather than “what did you learn?”. Any comparative grading (e.g. school prizes) or ranking “shifts the focus from learning (what students are doing) to achievement (how well they’re doing it) but also teaches students to regard their peers not as friends or allies but as potential obstacles to their own success,” according to education expert Alfie Kohn.

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