School Detention - Fair?

Agree. Sounds like how prisons are run.

BTW, school is ‘opt-in’ in the UK, you do not have to send your children. Legally they have to receive an education but not necessarily in a school/prison.

That's just so annoying.

DC's school don't do same day detentions. We don't live near the school and I'd be really worried if they weren't home on time (if they had an immediate detention).
So far, we haven't found ourselves in a situation where I've had to intervene but there was a time a couple of months back when the bus broke down, in heavy traffic and they had to get off and walk, and were late.
I contacted school, with screenshots of their chat to me, and from the bus tracker to show what had happened and said that as this was circumstances beyond their control, "I trust there will be no sanctions". There weren't but had a detention been issued I'd have refused to allow them to attend.

Happened to my child - exactly the same whole class after school detention when my child had literally not done a thing wrong. Had an argument with said teacher & told her under no circumstances that my child is to attend… she told me that she had to.. I said that if she was being held back I’d literally come to the school & collect her myself as she is not a prisoner & that she’s free to leave at anytime after the bell rings at 15:05.

she didn’t attend..

Because kids lie. All kids. Doesn't matter how 'good' they are 99% of the time. All kids get swept up in the hoo ha from time to time. And all kids will lie from time to time.

You do not know him inside out. No child is the same around their friends as they are with their parents. Especially not at that age.

Do you actually know it was a whole class detention? Or is that just what you've heard from your son? When you were that age, what would you have told your parents if you didn't want them to know you'd been messing around in class?

And I'm sorry, whose fault is it for misbehaving? An 11/12 year old in y7 is responsible for their own behaviour. If 31 kids were mucking around, it says that there's a hell of a lot of parents that don't value education and haven't taught their children how to behave.

Agree. The naughty kids don't give a shit.

I'd have refused to let him attend the detention in the first place. He didn't do anything wrong, so his behaviour didn't deserve punishing.

Yes, I am that parent.

sureky the rest ofthe ckass were going, so how did he forget?

I’m really surprised anyone is still doing whole class detentions. I thought they went out at least 15 years ago.

Number of times I've given detentions for things like talking/messing around when the child swears they weren't, when I have seen/heard them right in front of me.

Secondary school pupils don't tell their parents the whole truth. Quite often they don't recognise the whole truth (so not necessarily their fault they're not telling the whole truth). Children/teenagers are well known for protesting "it's not fair!".

Make sure your son learns his lesson for messing around/skipping a detention or home school.

Collective punishment is quite rightly regarded as shit practice, and if you're still doing it you're a disgrace. It's lazy and unprofessional. If you're not competent enough to know who the miscreants are, that's your failure. You don't just punish every child in the vicinity because you dropped the ball.

I would find out what’s happened from the teacher point of view having listened to my child’s and then I’d explain to the teacher & head of year how it has affected my child - what’s done is done but at least by sharing your viewpoint and your child’s you’ve given him a voice and in future they might be a bit more reasonable. I hate when parents have the attitude of “not my child, absolutely not my child” because very often the child is no more of a saint than any other human beings I know. But having said that, I absolutely DETEST how many people view teenagers as guilty until proven innocent. I have one child I know can be gobby and another who I’m regularly told “we wish we could clone, his personality and mannerism is a true credit to yourself- he’s amazing”.
Obviously even with the latter example, I know he’s not perfect and I’d always welcome both sides of the story before passing judgment. Sometimes kids get in with the wrong crowd or have a very temporary lapse of judgment. If he’s overall a very good kid and is always praised, awesome, hopefully he’s told you the truth. No harm in enquiring before passing judgement either way.

No, I think it’s far better to say ‘ oh dear, that’s tough, but just get on with it’ - you're doing your DC a bigger service in the long run. If you blow it up into a huge issue about unfairness you’re not helping your DC learn about the world. I’ve seen too many students who can’t cope if things don’t run smoothly- far better to learn some resilience over very small issues. Detentions don’t seem to mean what they once did - no one got a detention in the 80s for not having a protractor that day - both of mine have. I would have been in massive trouble at home if I’d had a detention- it’s not the same now.

I think there's a message here that sometime you get caught up in things you don't intend to. It isn't always possible to "protest your innocence" and the safer course of action might to just take the mild punishment on the chin and move on.

I think the follow up "discipline" was fine. Your child was given a punishment and didn't attend; the punishment for that is bigger than the initial punishment; and so on and so on. Same as real life really - fine for inadvertently using a bus lane is £60 but punishment for not paying is £100 and punishment for not paying that is points/prison. Just the way of life, and you do your kids Jo favours by saying that they don't deserve the punishment do they don't have to do it.

I would never encourage people not to advocate for their child - it is extremely important especially when there is SEND involved.
However, I would encourage you to come at things with a very open mind, particularly if your child's need includes rigid thinking or difficultly seeing something from another perspective.
Listen to your child but also listen to the people both adult and children around them because what a child, and particularly one with SEND, genuinely sees as a true version of events can sometimes (not all the time) be very far from it.

I'm a secondary teacher and our behaviour policy doesn't allow whole class detentions like this. I agree that they are unfair and tbh I think they're a lazy option for punishments because it avoids targeting and dealing with students who are actually disruptive.

Bet he doesn't 'forget' to attend a detention again.