To refuse to send DS12 to detention

This was the explanation given. It's exactly what I hear every day. The Y7 kids seem to be out of control and it's really putting DS off school

Well then, your DS should be glad as it’s an opportunity to turn around the poor behaviour of his cohort. Maybe they won’t like after school detentions and will think twice next time making it a more pleasant environment for your DS.

My kids went to different schools, some private, some public, depending on the needs and wants of the child and the schools all had different methods for behaviour management. By far, the most effective was those that used group punishment. Not surprisingly, kids become resentful when punished due to others poor behaviour and then send clear messages to their peers that they don’t want it to happen again. I had one child ask to swap to a siblings school that did this due to the poor behaviour of kids at their school affecting their experience and teachers couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything about it (public). The other school was private and part of the contract you signed said you would support the schools behaviour management policies😊. That child would have been well chuffed having the entire class inconvenienced with detention after school in the hope it changed things rather than moving schools.

So it wasn't all of them misbehaving then. I'd ask if your DS was actually misbehaving and if not I wouldn't be making him do the detention. Sounds like he has enough to put up with everyday let alone being punished himself for others behaviour.

The school sounds awful, though. Is there any chance of getting him in anywhere else?

Detention is against their own policy and aside from that, collective punishment is ineffective. Rule 103 from the UN bans it.

Because it’s always the teachers fault if they have a difficult class🙄

And I am a head of year with 300 students in.

Send an email to their head of year. Whole class detentions are not an acceptable practice, and sanctions should be directed at those involved. If they can’t be certain, you cannot sanction them all.

If a parent sent me this, then I would put all of the detentions on hold until I had had time to speak to the teacher.

This is a hill I would die on! I would quote the behavior policy and ask for a detailed reason that my child was included in the group detention.
My DD has 8 days left of year 7 with a clean detention sheet, if she was issued with this I would be fuming.

This is a really unprofessional note. It reads like a rant for the teacher to let off steam, not a clear and reasoned explanation for the detention.

So supply teachers have inherited what is already a challenging year group? Taking on a tricky class requires time to build up relationships in order to set clear expectations. Otherwise the chaos you’re describing becomes the norm. Why don’t they have a consistent teacher?

I think that's exactly what it means @AlwaysTheGoodGirl . Definitely how I read it anyway.

I would refuse to send your DS to that detention, quoting the behaviour policy back at the school and asking them to confirm whether or not your DS was in fact one of the troublemakers.

Are there any other schools you could look at? This all sounds fairly shoddy tbh.

Sounds very similar to my ds school. His class (also yr7) is just total anarchy, pretty much every day my ds comes home with stories of how they missed most of a lesson because one or other of the kids kicked off. He was begging to move classes for the first two terms, I raised it with the school who refused (too many other kids had already moved out of the class apparently). Now my lad has got used to the disruption and the chaotic behaviour has been normalised to him and he's now actually ok with staying in that class (for the entertainment value of watching the chaos).

But they haven't been given a whole class detention yet. I think I'd tell him to suck it up, that's life, take his annoyance out on the real culprits. But I'd also be having very firm words with the school about it.

Then the detention is contrary to policy. Refuse it unless detail is provided as to what DS himself did.

That sounds like a teacher at the end of their tether and definitely not a professional message to send to parents. Teacher has lost control of the class and this was the only way they could think of to claw back some sense of that.

I’d approach this with some sympathy for the teacher but also be clear that your child wasn’t involved, if you’re certain in this instance that he wasn’t. Reading between the lines of the message from the teacher it sounds like some of the normally compliant ones have joined in this time. Put pressure on the school to have a solution in place for this year group. Often parental complaints carry more weight than daily complaints from staff.

I would definitely question the validity of a class punishment and I'd want to see where that is described in the behaviour policy. I don't know if any schools who allow that.

Yes I'd ask teacher about it. Cant be the whole class misbehaving can it?

Mine lost his perfect record in Y8 for bouncing a ball outside the classroom! Not a detention but a tiny sliver of red on a perfect chart of green. And he missed out on end of year ice creams.
At least that was on him though, your DS sounds like this was not his fault.
I am never that parent, but if DS was in agreement I would say something to school, even if he went to the detention with everyone else, perhaps it could be erased from his records (or even everyone's records) as this is something out of his control?

This. Unless they can confirm that your son was one of the ones misbehaving then I wouldn't send him to the detention and would also ask for his record to be updated.

Sounds like the class are out of control in general though and I'd also want to know what the school are doing about that. That's the bigger issue by the sounds of it.

I'd be surprised if the teacher was allowed to give a mass detention like this- it's against our school behaviour policy. I'd definitely want to see the rationale.

If it was 'virtually' all the kids then they are admitting that some are innocent and are punishing them too. I would very much be 'that' parent over this. I would press your son's spotless record, threaten to take your complaint to the governors etc etc. the fact that they can't control the class is not a reason to punish everyone.

Year 7!! Hell’s bells, is there any other school? I would usually say suck it up but in this case I would contact his form teacher and explain his upset about losing his good record. Explain that he is struggling due to constant bad behaviour of others and this will demotivate him . His form teacher must be aware of the dreadful teaching environment. ( Teacher here)