Given detention for lateness on tube strike day

I doubt the private schools will be giving detention to their pupils who have trouble getting in 🙄.

Haha true!

I say this as someone who did try and drive this week 😳 but I can’t believe how many people are in their cars this week!

(Having said that, I don’t live too far from a couple of large private schools and there’s always traffic from those schools - I usually avoid those roads, but this week has been another level of traffic absolutely everywhere - not just schools!)

Obviously walking isn’t an option for everyone but I bet it is for quite a few who got in their cars

Based on what? I’m in London and I know precisely one person who lives within theoretical walking distance of work and they have children to drop off in two different locations on the way to work.

Its been insane, anybody lucky enough to be able to walk to work will have done so simply because of the traffic. Its been amongst the worst transport problems I’ve ever seen in London, including during the complete power outage (because that only lasted 24 hours). Walking and buses simply cannot absorb the millions of commuters.

There is a serious safety issue for Londoners at this level of travel disruption.

Ah right, well, that’s what comes of living in north London 🤣🤣🤣. Though you’ll have been laughing during all the rail strikes and engineering works that have beset us over the years.

I guess if more people walked rather than driving then the roads would be clearer for the buses. Obviously walking isn’t an option for everyone but I bet it is for quite a few who got in their cars. Yes, you’ll have to leave earlier but hey, you get your steps in before you’ve even started work!

I’m in North London, I live along the northern line, not far from Highgate tube / Tufnell Park station, and it’s seriously bonkers! I’ve never seen it this bad before after 25 years in London. I tried to drive to Hampstead and it was crazy! A mistake!

Yes, maybe you’re right - over the years I’ve had everything thrown at me so nothing really phases me any more - there’s always a way! I once got booted off a train at Acton Town and trudged off in the snow to the next station, which was closed… all the way until Marble Arch where finally I could get back on a train. But that was back in the 90s where the mentality that you might simply not go into work didn’t exist.

I’m in south east London where there are pretty much no tubes so my journey isn’t impacted at all (obviously we get hit with train strikes instead), and my walk from the station in central London to the office didn’t seem any busier on the roads than usual.

Is all the gridlock outside of the centre?

As I said in an earlier post, in the late afternoon I witnessed 11 year old pulls begging to be let on a bus that was packed and refusing more passengers.

The bus drivers often chuck the kids off as well, for example if any get upset about not being allowed on. I take my DC to school on the bus if we're running late and it's quite common for the drivers to demand that all school kids get off the bus (and let the adults stay on) and to refuse to move until they do. I once had to intervene when one of the little 11yos sitting behind me started hyperventilating. She was terrified by the whole thing. The kids are frequently sent to the back of the bus queues behind any adults.

I would not want to be a teenager travelling to school in London, but it's easy to see how so many end up much tougher and self-reliant than I was at that age.

Poor kid - it is stressful. And I apologise for assuming you’d chosen the school as usually these schools are so oversubscribed, they go to first place choices. I’m retired now, but worked in schools with a very different ethos - my preference although I do recognise that the results from the tough discipline schools can be great and the really annoying low lever disruption can be far less prevalent, allowing the well behaved kids to work in peace. I hope she benefits from that at her school.

Hopefully she will be ok soon - I totally agree that it is very counter productive of the school and if I were in your shoes, I’d be tempted to keep her at home rather than risk another late, even if she does miss a whole day that way.

Completely agree and I have colleagues who were quoted £100 by Uber for a three or four mile trip on Monday morning.

@Longingdreamer I haven't read all of this but the school is bang out of order and I would write to the Head.

Send your child to school with a sleeping bag and a packed dinner and tell the teachers that they'll be sleeping over in the school buildings tonight to make sure they're on time for school tomorrow.

If they object, tell them to quote the example of the surgeon given upthread 😂.

Some people are completely bonkers.

Actually the transport problems in London because of the tube strikes this week ARE uncommon. I don’t know where you live, but it is insane out there. Every line is striking. There aren’t as many buses and they’re full. The roads are blocked up with people driving or taking taxis instead. Bikes also everywhere - but biking looks pretty unsafe if you’re not confident.

DLR was running, astonishingly that didn’t help anyone on my side of London. The roads become gridlocked, the buses are caught up despite bus lanes and they have nothing like the required capacity. Working around one or even two tube lines suspended is BAU for any London commuters. All of them closed makes commuting impossible for many of the multi millions commuting into town.

Many of the CoL pupils will not be commuting by tube, a sizeable number tube dependent will not have made it.

Just because you found a route does not mean that everyone can.

I never said they would learn this by magic on day 1. But now this kid knows a) that the journey is taking longer than she thought and b) she gets a detention if she’s late. So now she knows to leave earlier.

Grown adults should be able to work this out. And yes, I’ve lived in London forever, through many tube strikes, terrorist alerts and all the rest of it. Never left the house without my mini A-Z. Nowadays we all have phones that can help us find a new route.

Do I think the detention is fair? Not really. But schools aren’t a democracy, parents and pupils sign up to their rules so best to crack on and find new ways to do things.

As a teacher, I can promise you we do indeed ‘rock up late’ during tube strikes.

If you haven’t worked in London during a tube strike, then you might not understand the extent of the chaos.

And kids who live here need to realise this and also realise that there’s not always leeway for them to be late and if that means getting going at least an hour earlier, so be it.

This was the sort of day where you could leave an hour early and still be 5 minutes late if you were lucky. Kids have no choice about where they live. They're not magically competent at 11, and no amount of competence is going to get them somewhere reliably on time when grown adults can't. Adults who are treated with understanding and accommodation when they can't.

Totally unreasonable expectation of children. Who have no choice about where they live, and families often have precious little choice about where they go to school.

If it’s Michaela or one of its ilk, parents are told very clearly at open days what the rules are and that exceptions wont be made.

of course it’s unfair. But you get the benefits of this approach as well as the downfalls. There are lots of both.

it wouldn’t be the school I’d choose to send kids to or, as a secondary school teacher, to work in, but you chose it with presumably full understanding of its methodology, ethics and working practices.

You’re not being unreasonable to think it’s unfair, but this treatment of students is all upfront - honestly, I believe you need to teach a child what to expect before she starts a school like this so it’s depersonalised to an extent. Exceptions aren’t made, that’s how they work. And it’s why they aren’t the best schools for many students but serve others very well.

The reality is that if you live in London you need to know how to get to your destination via different routes and get creative, because things like this are not uncommon. And kids who live here need to realise this and also realise that there’s not always leeway for them to be late and if that means getting going at least an hour earlier, so be it.

Absolutely ridiculous. This is clearly outside DC's control and should not be punished. However much we may value punctuality it is inevitable that everyone will be late for something at aome point for reasons they couldn't control. To punish for this, imo, devalues punishment when there is no valid reason.

As for the people who would endanger a child by sending them into gridlocked london streets on a bike (presumably inexperienced) or have them set off in the small hours, I have no words. All to avoid a power-tripper giving them a detention. FFS.

I wonder if there will be detention today!

Those saying you should cycle - you have no idea of what the Op's child's route to school is like.

We're in London too and my child generally has a 50 minute commute via tube & train. The most direct route to cycle would take her through some rather dodgy bits of London.

Of course, but it’s not much further from Old Street or Blackfriars. Knowing teens lots probably get the district from Blackfriars to save them a few minutes more walk.

I think it’s really unfair. My secondary school child was five mins late because of the tube strike - and so were half the children! He didn’t get a detention.

Is her school one of the known, strict, London academies?

The roads are insane in London right now and journey times are completely unpredictable. Traffic everywhere, bus service is reduced as some drivers can’t get to work without the tube, queues at bus stops. I met a friend at a hobby yesterday and it took her 90 mins on the bus to get there when it would normally take 30!

The teachers may have been close to on time, but “on time” for the teachers is probably 8am as opposed to 9am for kids - and aiming to arrive at 8am will always mean you’ll be leaving when there is less traffic.

Yes, and a lot of them use the district line.It depends where you live.

Mansion House is the closest station district and circle line.