To believe the school over my dd?

And here lies one of the key reasons why behaviour in schools is so shocking. The classroom is for learning! She is contributing towards that being impossible. We don’t sanction for anything, we sanction when students disrupt learning.

Another theme - her punishment is the detention. No it isn’t, it needs to be matched at home so she understands home support the school.

Go and spend one day in your local comprehensive school and see how many minutes of learning are lost every day to poor behaviour.

Sorry if I gave the impression I was defending the girl I know to my own detriment how impossible it is to teach in this kind of atmosphere! I should have gone on to say that her mother needs to try and get over to her just how annoying she is being!
I've written this before but years ago during the Catherine Tate's Lauren phase that almost drove teachers to drink one girl was notorious for her Wotevvaa, Am I bovvered etc etc performances in class. She stayed behind after one lesson and a completely different person quietly said she was stuck on her Coursework. She was shocked when I said Am I bovvered every time she spoke, after a couple of minutes I said Not nice, is it? We then arranged a time for her to come for the help she needed but next day her mother phoned Don't you ever speak to my daughter like that again..............Unless I'm there to see her face! Sometimes they need to be confronted with similar behaviour.

I think your advice is all correct and yes she should be telling the teacher rather than retaliating. Or more precisely, by all means choose to retaliate if you think that’s best, but if you do, suck it up when you get a detention! Or that’s what I would say.

Obviously I would be firmer if I thought my kids were starting violence or bullying etc - this would have me down like a ton of bricks- but for retaliating or low level bad behaviour it’s a bit “you pays your money you takes your choice”/ “play silly games win silly prizes”.

I wouldn’t give an additional sanction as the school have given her one already. I tend to think if they get a detention that’s their business (unless properly serious or the school have contacted me asking to work together, which has never happened). So in some ways no need to decide who you believe.

In fact neither of mine (yr12 and yr 7) have yet got a detention so I’m not saying that as a parent of kids constantly in trouble.

The problem is that she has rather painted a target on herself by her other behaviour, so teachers are going to assume its more of the same even if it is occasionally not entirely her to blame.

I would be explaining this to her. Is it fair, possibly not. Is it understandable that when a teacher sees the kid that is consistently a PITA in class doing something they shouldnt, again, they assume the worst? Yes it is.

Then she will have to learn.

The classroom is for learning and if a behaviour stops others learning andis distracting then they get sanctioned.

I sent one of my Y11s to isolation today for low level disruption. They currently think it's funny to shout out a friends mum/sister name disguised as a cough. So tedious. Either they don't care how annoying it is for others or they're that ignorant they think we will honestly believe they're coughing.

Behaviour policies focus around preventing learning time being wasted. It's nothing personal against a child. It's a clear policy with expectations.

I think it's actually time for the "well, it might not have been your fault on this occasion, but the problem is that so often it is your fault that the teachers are not going to cut you any slack" conversation. If she wants people to trust her then she has to show herself to be trustworthy.

It’s really hard to know who’s right and who’s wrong with high school. On Tuesday my DD12 was in class and the girl next to her kept throwing balls of blue tac at the boy in front. He turned round and threw a pencil in my DD face hitting her and just missing her eye. Her guidance teacher saw it and asked him to step out. He told the teacher my DD was throwing blu tac at him so she got hauled out of class. She explained she hadn’t so he took the girl next to her out who admitted it was her and my DD. To which my daughter looked at the girl and told her to stop lying she had nothing to do with it. Her guidance teacher pulled my DD to the side and asked her again and she said I promise you I had 0 to do with this and his response was ‘ I don’t believe you and your lies, after me helping you with all your problems you throw it back in my face shame on you’ he also made her miss the bus home. She left school really upset by this rang me and told me she had missed the bus and told me what happened. Once she got home I said look into my eyes and tell me this wasn’t you and she said I promise you mum tell them to check the class cctv. So I said that’s fine I’ll ring the school tomorrow because the way this teacher spoke to my 12 year old wasn’t acceptable.

however today my DD made a silly joke in class that wasn’t received well by the person she made it to so he told the teacher and the teacher wasn’t happy with the comment. My DD rang me at lunch told me what she said and my response was well you said it so deal with the consequences. It was stupid accept fault apologise and take the punishment if there is one 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ nothing I can do to help you there. She never said anything overly bad but a stupid throw away joke. She had already apologised to the lad and teacher but I think the teacher did mention potential isolation and she was really upset but that’s her punishment. My DD has never been in trouble at school and her parents evening last month was 10/10 really good so I think the teacher may give her a bit of leniency as she couldn’t sing her praises loud enough. Then she walked in the door with a form to a trip for good behaviour 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ve told her the ‘joke’ was stupid and why it was stupid and she knows that and I said if there is a punishment you take it and move on. She’s learnt her lesson. She hates getting into trouble so I know it will consume her with anxiety for a while now xx

And every one of us knows that if you ever try to explain anything to a teacher, it's viewed as answering back. Every single one of us knows that.

If it was just the situation with the paper, a one-off situation, I would absolutely believe your daughter over the school.

But there is recurring pattern here... Maybe it wasn't her fault today, but it's like the little boy that cried wolf by now.

It's not really two different stories so you don't need to pick one to believe. She was part of the disruption, and some of her behaviour was deliberate and unnecessary, even if someone else started it and was bothering her. There are ways to deal with it, and it's not how she went about it.

'Low-level' really sounds like no big deal to people outside schools. But as soon as a teacher has to talk to one kid about leaning back on their chair, and another one takes the chance to put chewing gum in their mouth, someone else announces their pen has run out (instead of asking to borrow a spare with basic politeness), someone else is not so surreptitiously checking their phone, it's easy to miss who threw a ball of paper first, and anyone who joins in is still also a problem. This would all be annoying enough if you were just locked in a room with 30 kids wanting their own way. But the job is to teach them something, even if most can barely concentrate and won't listen, let alone try something that's difficult.

Usually, the teacher has already made up their mind, has only seen what they have seen and isn't interested in any mitigating circumstances.

Oh come on now lol.

She's either 13 or 14 years old.

She's presumably been at school since she was 4.

She knows what disruption is, and she will have had it pointed out to her by the teacher just incase for some wild reason she didn't.

Her parent isn't 'accepting it' though.

Yes but clearly it's not happening when the OP is telling her to do it.

So 'lose your phone or tidy your room' would be appropriate here, if the OP really insists on her being punished more than once.

Just the sort of parental attitude a child and the school need! With her low level disruption being accepted and sanctioned by a parent will only encourage her to more serious things. When does a parent stop trying to be a friend and start being a parent?

Then she needs to learn that her behaviour is affecting other children's education as well as her own. It is impossible to teach when this kind of thing is going on.

What if shes telling the truth? Does she usually cry when she gets in trouble?

I feel a bit sorry for her if the boy was winding her up, which no doubt he was. Express a bit of empathy with her.

What Year 9 pu pil admits they're in the wrong? Her disruption is probably so low level that she really doesn't realise how it's interfering with the lesson.

I think this is really tricky! I was like your daughter. When I was adamant I hadn't done anything wrong, my mum would remind me that behaviour creates reputation. Unfortunately if you are often disruptive, people won't believe you on the occasions that it genuinely isn't your fault.

Instead of coming down hard on her this time, help her plan what she can do next time someone antagonises her.

All of your post applies to 2 very different dc's of mine.
Ds is clearly asd though no diagnosis so pissed about in lessons.
Dd was bored as the work was too easy.
Suggest dd can earn her tech back with a thorough clean of her room.
Examples of Ridiculous School Rules include an older ds being labelled a bully and a school meeting scheduled with us and the head for ds moving his best mate's school bag.
Nuts.

Because cleaning your room isn’t a punishment it’s a reasonable expectation that you keep your living environment clean and relatively tidy.

In this specific instance her account of the action and the school account match - the school is just missing a reason for her to be turning around. We ALL know it's very difficult in school when someone is annoying you to deal with it effectively for exactly this reason. On this occasion and the fact the actions match, I'd be inclined to believe that she was reacting to someone behind her and I wouldn't punish her. Keep addressing the general disruption though. I'd let her know you're on her side and want to support her getting through school. There's no point in just turning everything into a punitive experience.

She’s old enough to not behave like this but well done for not letting her think she can get away with it

So why not tell her as 'punishment' (even though the school have already punished her), that she must clean her room immediately?