Summary.To what extent do children and teachers form reciprocal evaluations of each other? This study followed three classes over the school year, comparing teacher ratings of children's classroom demeanour, children's interpretations of this evaluation, and children's own ratings of teachers' classroom management. The overall picture was one of girls and high achievers favouring and being favoured by their teachers. Children clearly detected the boy‐girl differentiation but not differentiation by achievement group. Separate occasion analysis showed a pattern consistent with anab initiocausal argument for development of reciprocation on the basis of gender which must have been learned in the present classroom. For achievement group the data pattern was more consistent with a continuing than an original causal process. Among high achievers, a degree of both accurate interpretation and reciprocity developed for both boys and girls. Among low achievers, boys were generally out of touch, both in interpreting teacher evaluations and in reciprocating appropriately. Low‐achieving girls showed an unexpected pattern consistent with striving to hold on to favourable, gender‐based teacher evaluations from the early part of the school