The Royal Society of Arts (RSA), a charity that focuses on finding practical solutions to everyday challenges, thinks that children should get a grade A at the start of the school year.
 
The charity claims that students will be more encouraged to work hard to maintain this grade because an encouraging start is what they need to improve in a particular subject.
 
“Consider having each pupil start with an A or a number of gold stars, with points or stars docked when appropriate,” the controversial guide says.
 
The guide also includes an alternative way of giving pupils targets to achieve. Instead of telling students they have an F grade, teachers should encourage them with ‘not yet’ grades to let them know they can still reach their goal.
 
An example of this is writing an ‘A’ on exam papers before students start writing because this will boost their performance, the charity claims.
 
But Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, thinks it’s better for students to have an honest starting point and aspire to an A grade.
 
He said: “Children need to start from the beginning and not from the end. They need to aspire to an A grade. They shouldn’t start at the finish line. It’s ridiculous”.
 
He believes that children learn from failure and that they have to be told that they can fail every now and again.
 
Mr McGovern added: “Children want teachers to be honest and frank with them – it is only silly educationists who have these ideas about failure”.

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