secondary school punishment...am livid

[Tortington]

my daughter partially completed her drama homework - as did most of her class as the teachers instructions were not clear. she has the chance to complete the homework and hand it in tomorrow - fair enough - she now has clear instructions! however if she fails to do this she has been given a slip of paper which says the following

"Five lines, to be done on your own paper, to be handed in tomorrow with the missing homework. Do three lines if you receive help with your english.

I am given homework, not for the benefit of my teacher, but purely for the imrovement of my own academic and analytical skills. to neglect to complete the aforementioned work is therefore not a logical course of action. It is a pity that the writing of tedious lines such as these becomes a necessity, when completing the weekly homework comsumes far less time; however, one must recognise that if one avoids one's responsabilities then there is a consequential outcome which must be faced. hopefully, in future, i will have completed my homework and will not have to repeat this experience"

now this might look like a small paragraph typed out but its practically a page to a kid, and after questioning my children the "five lines" bit at the beginning means to write the whole thing out 5 times - of this they are both certain ( twins in different classes in same year)

i remember having to deal with the drama teacher and asking for the homework policy for my eldest son- i got sent the drama homework policy - which wasn't what i had asked for but you just give up fighting after a while when real life issues tke over and you cant be arsed with petty mindedness such as this. i would much rather they learn something or use their time constructivly as a punishment ( which this time they have managed to avoid) i dont understand the benal insane stupidness of such as excersise - is there any recourse i can take - i know my children have avoided such a punishment this time - but what for those children that have not? i think this writing excersise come from the premis that all children are 'orrible little gits that dont do homework on purpose. i recognise there has to be a system of punishment - but i wonder where the limits are if punishments are set in class.

what to the great mumsnet population think?

[Freckle]

Seems a bit harsh when the instructions were only made clear today. I don't think the overall tone of the note is unreasonable if a child is consistently failing to hand in homework, but it is out of order when (a) there has not been any missing homework to day and (b) the teacher failed to make instructions clear in the first place. Strikes me that the teacher is jumping ahead of the game somewhat. A bit disheartening to receive this if you haven't done anything to warrant punishment.

[GRMUM]

I think its no wonder so many kids are put of school......

there must be a more constructive penalty to pay for not doing homework?

[mears]

I thought that 'lines' were out as a punishment. Seems a bit OTT to me.

[SueW]

Have never understood lines as punishment. Ditto repetitive spelling for misspelt words - I still can't spell 'embarrassment' confidently even though it was the only word I ever had to correct in this way in an English homework.

I would have thought it more constructive to write 100 words on the importance of homework, in your own words, iyswim.

A PE teacher I know insists that children who bunk off games are given punishment which incorporates exercise but he is having a hard time persuading others that this is a good method of punishment.

[aloha]

OMG...all the reasons why I hated school are coming flooding back....
It's pretentious, pompous, ugly and absurdly long-winded prose anyway. I bet the teacher who devised it is someone who is terribly pleased with themselves and thinks they are remarkably clever. She clearly can't write a decent sentence, so maybe she should be doing lines herself?
What on earth is the point of threatening children with this kind of pomposity when they haven't actually done anything. And what does it mean about doing lines for having help with English? Does that mean if your daughter asks you for help she has to be punished?

[hmb]

I get them in at lunch time to do missed homework. But before Mumsnet lynches me, I always give thema second chance to bring it to me before that happens.

I do get them to copy out mispelling as it is in the school literacy strategy. We also encourage look say cover spell check. This is not done as a punishment but to try to help them to learn to spell key wocabulary. This is done in line with the governmants KS3 stratagy. This is often not down to the individual teacher. We often have to do as the school/department dictates

[hmb]

No i think that it means that if a child needs help with english they get a reduced penalty.

[Angeliz]

Not very positive is it?
It is actually EXPECTING them to fail IMO rather than waiting to see if they bring in homework when the instructions are clear!!

[pixiefish]

SueW- I agree. As a secondary teacher kids need punishing if they don't do work. I much prefer to set 'punishment' work where they have to think- eg- Homework is important because...
I try not to give repetitive lines etc (we've had a similar discussion on MN last week about discipline etc)
custardo- I do feel that you shouldn't try to undermine the staff at your daughters school (in front of your dd I mean- and I'm not saying that you have/will) present a united front so that your dd takes hw seriously- as I'm sure she does.
If you're unhappy the best thing to do is to put your concerns in writing to the headmaster who will address your concerns and sort the matter out.
Personally my homework policy is this-
First time- they have to do the work at lunchtime in the library and bring it in to me at reg in the pm. Note to parents in diary
second time- As above plus extra work.
third time- referral.
This is of course if it happens consequtively- not if there's months between them.
Please also consider that the teacher may be trying to set her 'mark' in the first few weeks of a new term- she may want to send the message that she's not to be messed with and the rest of the term will run smoothly. HTH

[WideWebWitch]

custy, agree with aloha. Don't know what to suggest though, feel out of my depth on this.

[tigermoth]

IMO it's a pity writing lines can't be seen as an opportunity to educate as well. Why deliberately set up children to hate school even more? What about getting children to write out a poem five times instead? I would have thought the drama teacher would have dozens of good ideas up her sleeve.

Agree though that she might be coming on hard and tough as it's the beginning of the year.

[competitionwinningCOD]

I used to set spellings as a punishment


particularly the word SOldier which no child in the whole of the midlands can spell.

I think a punishment should be boring
Its not as boring as haveing to find 30 lots of late homework

[hmb]

My last Y8 class couldn't spell NickEL, would insist that it was Nickle. They can spell it now.....

[Tortington]

i just for the life of me cannot understand why a teahcer would want a child to do something so inane with their time as this. it teaches nothing but contempt imo.

[competitionwinningCOD]

what woudl ou do then custardo?
bearing in ine thsi happens all t hetime?

[competitionwinningCOD]

"in mind"

[hercules]

Personally I find it a complete waste of time having to chase up h/w not done. If it works then I would definitely do the same thing. It would end up saving hours of work.

[hmb]

See my thread on homework. Year 11 second set estimated bs and cs. This is their main exam year 6 out of 22 did their homework.

My nice year 9s, 15 did the work out of 24.

And please no crap about my setting work that wasn't important. It was OK?

[popsycal]

woah!!!
that isnt a line it is an essay!!!

how old is your dd?

sound antiquated and out of order to me!"

[ScummyMummy]

I think your daughter should add the following to the end of the paragraph:

"...but given that my drama teacher is a pompous, bombastic, sarcastic, disingenuous charlatan whose instructions lack both clarity and reason, it is by no means certain that this will be possible."

Well, maybe not, but honestly, what a silly cow, custy. I actually don't think there's much you can do other than sympathise with your kids and talk to her about how there are mealy mouthed eejits in this world and unfortunately the odd one or two are teachers. Your poor babies though.

Hmb- making kids do their homework at lunchtime is fine by me! If the problem is kids not doing homework then getting them to do it seems eminently sensible to me- it solves the problem. It's a world apart from the utter, utter pointlessness of lines, IMO.

[fisil]

I bet that homework was unimportant crap hmb, and besides which i understand that teachers only set hw because they're lazy

I've been watching your hw thread with jaw dropped. But this "punishment" is also awful custardo. If a member of my department was handing out punishment like this then I would welcome a comment from a parent - I might not know this was going on, or even if I did and was working on it it would provide extra ammo. So I would ring up the school and ask to speak to the head of drama (who may be head of performing arts/English depending on how the school is structured). Sounds a complete waste of time.

I give mine a second chance and then send a letter home. I also point out to them whose education is missing out (which might occasionally have an effect!)

[aloha]

I think that even having to read that awful bit of writing is a horrible punishment. I really, really object to kids having to endure that sort of sanctimonious rubbish when they haven't even done anything wrong. IF they don't do homework which is really necessary (drama homework???) for the understanding of the subject, then yes, then is the time to talk about reasonable, constructive sanctions. TBH, I think she was embarassed that she screwed up because she wasn't clear in her instructions and she was shown up by her class. That's her petty way of hitting back, and saying 'yeah, you may have won that one, but I can make you do this - ha!'. I'm not suprised that her instructions weren't clear either. Clarity is clearly not her forte.

[Tortington]

gosh i dont know what i ould set instead coddy. off the top of my head i might ask them to read a short play and review it - and do their homework. maybe they could write a scene from a play or think of a childrens story and write how they miht adapt it to become a play. maybe i would ask them if they could help with some scenery or costume making for this years play. maybe they could learn some lines from this years play - even if they were not involved in it.

in other lessons the kids get i hour detention in which they do their homework to catch up - which sounds more sensible to me. if you dont turn up to detention you get a senior management detention on a friday where the teachers collect you 10 mins before the end of the last lesson and you spend an hour writing the school code of conduct - again i can see the point of this and have no issue. why therefore does this drama teacher see fit to add an extra element which other teachers do not?

my twins are 11 btw and this is the ony drama teacher - so she must be the boss! i dont want to undermine a teacher - i understand teaching is a job as is any other job and teachers dont need little shits making their day hell. i take the point about putting her foot down to the first years to show shes taking no shit - but its just this particular punishment thats gots right up my nose.

[agy]

I think the content of the lines is very sensible, and something the kids should take on board. At least having been given it in advance of the crime, they know to avoid it. Do the work!