School's punishment of all boys in year 6

No. I’m suggesting she has the version of a 10 year old and a TA.

As a white person yes I am complicit in system racism. And ableism.

This is very old fashioned thinking. Both my DDiL teach and they would be horrified at this approach.

I'm sorry, are you suggesting OP was contacted by the teacher, had it explained to her how her son's behaviour was sexist, had it detailed what he should do differently next time...and she's just forgotten?!!

No, girls cannot be sexist against girls; but do you really think that internalised misogyny is imaginary?

Have you never heard girls bullying other girls for liking 'boy things' or for not doing 'girl things'? It doesn't just stop at children, either, with the number of sexist men AND women with internalised misogyny who will tell women (only women; never men) that choosing not to wear makeup is somehow 'unprofessional' or that they look ill.

It's a very slippery slope to go down, assuming that everybody with a certain basic characteristic acts the same as everybody else with that characteristic.

Are you white? If so, I presume you must be a racist, then? Are you able-bodied? If so, I presume you are instinctively ableist? Are you straight? Then you must hate gays.

I didn't say it was lazy teaching, but it is poor and grossly unfair teaching. Also, where did you get the impression that OP confronted the TA? Everything that she has said on this thread suggests a fair, measured attitude. Are you suggesting that it is somehow wrong to ask why you or your child has been punished? Justice is open and transparent; otherwise it automatically is not justice.

This, to start with! ⬆️

I'm a yr6 Teacher & I hate the whole 'punishment them all' approach when in reality it's usually just a few. So unfair.

I think it is very reasonable to email in asking for a meeting with the HT to explain what happened and was your son in any way involved in the behaviour that warranted the whole male student punishment.

I am very unhappy with group punishments.
Invariably a small number of students behave badly and if is convenient to the teacher the whole group get denied.

I have firmly pushed back on this several times when it occurred to my children years ago.

It is not acceptable IMO.

We don’t know they didn’t. We only have the OPs perspective.

That’s wrong and no explanation either. Do contact the school for a full explanation and apology to your son. Involve your son in the process so he can see that you support him and how to deal with unreasonable people who are in charge.

That's exactly what's so concerning. You don't deliver punishment without being able to explain why.

No it isn’t, it is lazy teaching. It wasn’t all boys doing it, it was some and was re football. Some boys were on the receiving end of the same behaviour too.

So the boys who received the same behaviour from the culprits don’t matter and should just suck up punishment on top?

Some schools use TAs as meet and greet with teachers coming out for serious issues. This was a serious issue. The teacher wasnt there and hadn’t arranged for senior staff to be there instead.

Lazy teaching all round.

The TAs in my school are well trained in behaviour and it's their job to keep parents informed. They call them daily. However I totally agree that the teacher who meted out the punishment should have been the one to speak to OP. Very lazy.

No. I assumed nothing. I kno the following:

That unless the staff member spoken to delivered and decided the consequence she should not have commented.

That the OP should not have spoken to the TA about it at all. The TA should not have made any comment but I also understand why when confronted by a parent they did.

Sexism starts incredibly young and it must be addressed firmly and timely. Sexism can be passive.

Girls cannot be sexist against girls.

It is not the responsibility of girls to challenge sexism. They can choose to but it is not their job as victims.

We have one side.

This is the kind of consequence that will invite complaint on mass so something serious is going on for the teacher to do it. It’s a long shot off lazy teaching

So parents should have been contacted before. It wasn’t just girls that the behaviour was aimed at.

If it does, it's an extremely poor school ethos if they give out punishments without making it clear to those being punished what it is for.

How can you possibly hope to discourage bad behaviour in children if you don't make the link with their punishment clear? That's Disciplining Children 101.

Even the worst serial killers who are sentenced to life in prison are told in no uncertain terms by the judge exactly why they are receiving that punishment!

Totally agree and that was my first thought. No 10/11 yea told would say this and not have more context.

There is more to this story OP and we aren’t hearing it.

A one off girls can’t play isn’t what caused this.

You contact parents for serious behaviour when it happens. SATS have been running all week.

Well unless they’ve got proof that every boy out of 100 was involved when many don’t play football and some of those that do were on the receiving end of the same behaviour but apparantly don’t count I’d love to hear what “ context” they can come up with. They had their chance at the end of the school day to give their context but chose to send a TA out.

This has turned into a silly point scoring thread mainly based on semantics now.

I think there is a genuine problem at the moment that everything that happens in children's lives is being overblown and dramatised by adults.
Consequently we are creating a generation of confused, insecure, anxious children who lack resilience.
This thread is an example of that.

I honestly think we need to calm down with our "outrage" at things like this and help our children view things with perspective and roll with the punches.
Life is getting harder out there and this current young generation are going to face tough situations going forward.

I think we are constantly getting side tracked from what should be our purpose which is encouraging children to be strong, resilient and ready to face the future.

If this boy didn't like what happened, maybe he and his fellow pupils need to speak to the teacher or Head & express their feelings themselves. And they should ask for an explanation for the school's actions themselves. They are 10/11, not 6.

That's the lesson here, surely?

No, I most certainly am not.

Is the TA not part of the school staff, then, and thus unable to have any understanding from the perspective of the school for which she works?

Even if your answer to that is somehow "No", you still seem to be going from the assumption that guilty until proven innocent is a good thing.

My child was subjected to a group telling off in year 6 which was way over the top. It really affected her. She mentioned to me this week that it was the 1 year anniversary of such event :(
I didn't complain as she was technically implicated in a very minor way (complicated). However, I did email to say it had affected her and asked if the punishment had ended. She didn't want to go back to school.

Or maybe it relates to behaviour that’s happened during the sats?

Are you? Because you’ve assumed that what happened is as described without any context or understanding from the perspective of the school.

It will be a culmination of unkind behaviour by multiple boys over a long period.

Multiple boys is not the same as all boys.

You do not know that your son wasn’t involved, either as a culprit or by encouraging or being complicit with others.

Except that the TA who meted out the punishment admitted that OP's son wasn't one of the culprits...

If OP knows that her son has no interest at all in football, why on earth would he care about telling girls that they could or couldn't play?

How do you automatically know that none of the girls were guilty or complicit in the actions of others? What if some of them were on the sidelines, sneering at and bullying the girls who did want to play football for 'doing boy things'?

What if half of the boys were playing football and refusing to allow the half of the girls who wanted to play from joining in? Would you have randomly punished the half of the girls at the other side of the playground, with no interest in either playing football or from stopping anybody else from playing? If not, then why do the equally uninvolved half of the boys deserve punishment or are 'probably' guilty?

Let’s rephrase that. Do I think white girls should be included in lessons about exclusion if along side white boys they’re actively excluding children based on race? Yes. If they’re actively excluding disabled children? Yes?