My daughters’ pick up their awards the next day after the awards ceremony. It is their award so if they don’t want to attend, no problem.
For Teacher’s Pet Night in middle school I had to fight with the principal to get the robotics team recognized. This was an all-female robotics team with a female coach (cough me) who won two local trophies and a national trophy-more than the school had ever won before by a single team, and the first national trophy. They still didn’t make it into the printed program because she “forgot”. I think they need to dispense with these “awards” ceremonies-the kids know they’re a joke, they thought I was crazy to fight for them to be recognized because “we already know we won”.
Wow, we hardly have any awards. Roughly 10 each by middle and high schools and only for graduating students. Middle were handed out in about 15 minutes as part of the 8th grade graduation ceremony. It was mainly an honor roll thing, they don’t recognize any special achievements in partcular subjects or competitions. There were also awards for citizenship I think and my favorite, the Typhoid Mary award for perfect attendance. (I seem to recall a kid cited for perfect attendance K-8 and thinking maybe he should donate his genes to medical science). High school had an awards ceremony which was dominated by college scholarships and external awards, much of which really had little to do with the school. Not sure how it dragged on for 2 hours with only about 10 actual new school awards being announced. I am pretty sure there was only one visual arts award, and one drama award. No one really pays any attention to these awards at our school since they happen right before graduation and the kids are done with school, who gets them is irrelevant for colleges and forgotten the next day once the hs diploma is in hand.
I recall an elementary awards assembly where one of the kids called up for perfect attendance was coughing and sneezing constantly. Why is this an award?
When S was in 7th grade, he was taking 8th grade French and maintaining an A. The French teacher gave an award to everyone in 8th grade French who had an A in the subject. S didn’t get one. What?
I was unaware such a thing existed. I’m not sure if it did at all or not at my high school.
Maybe you misunderstood. We don’t have the runners go all out in every race. Sometimes they are asked to “tempo” a run for strategy or just practice. It doesn’t hurt to let another runner win once in a while and does wonders for their attitude. There is teamwork even in Track & Field.
I actually enjoyed my son’s Awards Night yesterday. It was longer than I’d hoped but not too painful. Because he’s a senior, I knew almost every one of the dozens of his classmates who got an award. It was fun to watch them march across the stage and to find out their plans for next year. While some were kids I see all the time, there were also many I hadn’t laid eyes on since middle school, and it was interesting (and nostalgic) to observe how they’d grown up and changed.
BUT then a rude awakening … I found out this morning that there’s yet ANOTHER Awards Night in 10 days. I suspect that the next one won’t be nearly as much fun because not too many of the kids will have changed any more since yesterday. 
Nope, this is my 10th year as a high school track parent, so I’m not a newbie. This was not a tempo run. A dad I know told off the coach and pulled his kid from the team, saying, “If Sally wants to beat my D, she has to earn it. My D is not going to just hand her the win on a silver platter.”
Ours went 1-1/2 hours about 60 kids or so, not bad. They recognized all the National Merits and each Dept gave out an award in gold, silver and bronze where the recommending teacher gave a nice write up on each student which was read aloud. Service academy scholarships and ROTC…and the jazz band played for a bit at the beginning. Oh, two sets of parents of deceased students from previous years gave out awards one being a solid kid who has “never won anything” and forgot the other…and of course handed out the cords for magna, summa and cum laude…all very nice and livestreamed.
@TheGFG I will agree that some people understand teamwork better than others and some never will.
My kids are in boarding school, and I miss them very dearly. But it’s when I read about other parents having to sit thru a 2 hour awards ceremony, I just pour myself a glass of wine.