AIBU to think missing five lessons as a detention seems counterproductive?

If you are asking why you son is suspended from all 5 lessons when he is only disruptive in one, I guess it acts as a lesson in learning that actions and omissions have unexpected consequences.

The school will have a hierarchical punishment and reward system, and possibly an appeals process. Read up on your son's school disciplinary policies to find out, and appeal if necessary if you think it's unfairly applied

The teacher probably doesn't like him because he acts up. Once you get a reputation as a trouble-maker, it takes an awful lot of good behaviour to lose that reputation. DS will have to be good for a long time, then perhaps the teacher will like him.

As a former teacher, I'd say that removal from other lessons where he's not disruptive is not only counter-productive, but is plain wrong. Unless he's having alternative tuition in those subjects, it’s very risky to withhold learning in a GCSE year - most of all for him. obviously, but also for the school when its results come in. I wonder whether the OP is getting the whole story. It would be interesting to get the school's take on it and whether this is their policy.

You might ask your DS exactly why he thinks the “ teacher doesn’t like him”? Could it be because he continually disrupts the class with stupid behaviour.? Maybe if he started listening and behaving appropriately in class the teacher would like him.

I agree. There needs to be consequences but how is missing lessons a negative consequence? Hmm??
The behaviour at dc school is terrible. It is not improving due to use of a removal room. In fact dc described this situation (y10) in lesson boy making silly noise gets sent out of class, other boys joking about him being sent out ended up with 8 sent out!

My dc got a detention from a pe lesson.
He hates pe. What happened was it was a cold day after having been warmer and went out stupidly with no jumper (tiny bit of mud on) so got too cold was turning blue and got sent to behaviour support and lunchtime detention. They had really avoided detentions as hate losing breaks but now theyve had one dont care as much… About 3 weeks later had another detention from pe.

Anyway yes boys especially behaviour needs sorting and they 100% shouldnt be messing about in gcse years.

however as side issues to that

• in above instance i suspect those boys actually had not selected that gcse subject.
• largely the behaviour can be linked to sen.
• in my dc case due to other kids stealing they arent allowed back in changing rooms to get a jumper as they are locked..!
• We are seeing this with scouting saying they will come down hard on attendance and behaviour- but again that will mainly be sen kids because more non sen ones stop after a warning.
• im not saying kids friendships should be priority at all - but my kid has been put with their friend for a total of —0 lessons this year.
• also imo the behaviour is also so bad because- teacher ignore it in class and in playground but also because bullying is pretty bad here at least and many kids are trying to be cool.
• also often the most effective approach on things in uk whether that is school or nhs etc is often avoided due to politics (reduce exclusions, reduce sen schools), detentions in the day rather than after school or weekend, homework would support sen kids better if it were marked for eg. And if it were set in regular pattern and matched the current learning.
• of course the above increase in sen in mainstream and reduced exclusions are affecting children’s behaviour negatively. We waited at least y6 to y10 to get adhd diagnosis and meds and thats ridiculous. We have then had first ever positive PE point in 11years of school!And another teacher emailed to say how well done in class.

I just don't think any of us really knows how our teenagers behave in a group of their peers.

Missing 5 lessons would be useful because it would make him think. Make him realise his actions have consequences. If he only missed the lesson where he messed about where is the punishment in that? He would want that. The punishment has to involve something he likes. Honestly he is 15, he really should know better by now

🙄honestly, as per my last reply to you why don't you try reading OP's posts? She's not in any way against consequences. She just queried (queried! Didn't state!) if this was a meaningful one that would have an impact.

Yes, he should behave. No, it's not ok to be rude to a teacher and disrupt teaching and learning. OP accepts this. She is simply wondering how useful a sanction missing 5 lessons is.

And all you can do is continually repeat 'he should know better' and versions of 'that will learn him'.

That’s your school’s behaviour policy. Ours is different. My child’s eyes have been opened up to the out of proportion punishments - and so have mine. They haven’t used the term walking on eggshells, but they’ve described it.

I’m being supportive of the school where I can and sometimes I’m just silent as DC is describing behaviour which is bullying. DC is not disruptive and is well-behaved, but the school uses sledgehammers to crack nuts and sanctions are the norm. Parents were told to expect sanctions - that regular sanctions are normal. The bullying behaviour from school hides behind phrases such as high expectations.

All schools say high expectations - what this means in practice varies a lot between schools. The type and frequency of sanctions varies. What merits a sanction varies. I fully expect my well-behaved child to get a sanction(s) which sounds ridiculous on paper, but is based on what I’ve heard so far, including the school’s own communication.

Right now, I am more concerned with how the school will impact my child’s education and well being, than the “disruptive” impact of a child mouthing hello to another child in the playground. When sanctions are applied for tiny misdemeanours, they lose their power as a deterrent, parents lose trust in the school, kids feel the relentless chokehold and it wastes time. When sanctions are handed out for things a child has little control over, like accidentally going to a similarly labelled classroom and thus arriving late at the right classroom in their first week, what purpose is that serving?

The assumptions by some that all schools have a measured approach, that no teachers lie, that because their school uses isolation less freely then all other schools must too, the horrible things some have said about OP’s parenting and OP’s DC, against a backdrop of not even answering her question is breathtaking.

Disrupting a class isn’t minor, but the OP hasn’t said it is either. She is understandably questioning the merit of the particular punishment.

He has other subjects that are taught in a more structured setting. This subject (music) is taught in room that's set up differently because it has keyboards and computers etc.

He always finds it harder to concentrate because there are more sensory distractions, and when it's in the afternoon and at the end of the week it's really challenging. Going to do what a pp suggested and try to get a quick release version of his medication.

I should say that the head of year has been fantastic so while I'm sure it's not the same everywhere I do think it's worth OP raising her points about missing curriculum time in a key year. There sometimes needs to be a different balance between removing disruption, punishment, and supporting learning.

What's happening last period Mon, Tues, Weds and Thurs?

No we are not missing the point. By 15 and in GCSE years the kid should know not to mess around. If he does he has to pay the consequences. He is 15 not 5, he should know the school rules by now.

That's not what you said though

You said firstly that he was taken out of 5 lessons so that he didn't disrupt learning for other students (in those 5 lessons).

I fully agree it may be your second point - that it's a punishment for him to miss lessons he does behave well in, but you didn't say that, and castigated OP instead of actually reading her posts. Now you are posting something quite different.

Absolutely - there will be certain children who will see this as an actual goal, to act up so they can be removed from lessons for a day.

I didn't mention anything about 'unmet needs'?

I was referring to the illogicality of @Poppinpoppinpopcorn post, which implied he needed to be moved for 5 lessons as it gave the other students a break, when OP had clearly said he misbehaved (misbehaves) in 1 lesson and not the others. So that's clearly not the reason for that sanction.

Posts like yours worry me: he deserves everything he gets. No. A misbehaving student 'deserves' to be sanctioned appropriately for his behaviour, and to understand what's behind it and how they can change. Not this menacing, punitive type language.

It always amazes me, how vitriolic some posters on MN are about poor behaviour at school; OP has been clear she is not defending his behaviour or looking for excuses. You would think only teenagers at school make mistakes, rather than mistakes and poor behaviour being something that we will all, at certain times, engage in.

Who teaches them? What schools just happen to have a spare teacher idling round waiting for a chance to give exclusive lessons to kids who can’t behave in an actual classroom?

I've worked in a few schools where removal from lessons (to an isolation room) happened, but for any longer than one lesson would be notified to the parents. Removing from a whole day does seem counter-intuitive and can lead to children deliberately acting up so they get a day away from classes. Ditto external suspensions. However, from a teaching perspective, it's very difficult to know how to protect the learning of the rest of the class. That shouldn't be at the expense of the learning by the disruptive one though, which seems to be the case for your son.
I'll be very interested to know what response you get from the school, if you feel like sharing that here.

I think the majority of teachers are good teachers. However, the quality of teachers in school are also directly affected by the ability of schools to recruit teachers. Many many teachers have left teaching because the work load is so massive and student behaviour is in the toilet. Therefore what you're left with is new teachers because they're cheap. But new teachers aren't going to have the behaviour management skills of older/expensive teachers.

There are never going to be enough teachers to teach in isolation. Ever. In any school, regardless of how much the school cost (in the case of private education).

It isn't about making the effort to provide teaching in isolation. That will never happen. They need to behave to stay in class.

If you think your child needs 121 teaching, that is tutoring. And you have to pay per hour for it.

They're in the situation in the first place because

A) They're misbehaving.

B) They continue misbehaving.

C) They don't ask for help (no teacher would deny a polite request for help at lunchtime/after school).

D) They don't tell their parents they don't understand.

E) Parents don't arrange meetings with the teacher.

I have a DC. When they don't understand their work / homework, I contact the school and ask about it. OR I ask other parents E.g. what are they covering in maths at the moment? / or to my child, what don't you understand in maths at the moment?, and then I look it up and help my child. But equally, I could contact the school and ask his maths teacher to go through the concept with him after school.

While I agree there may be a vicious cycle, the school system en masse can't save individuals (or their parents) who don't advocate for help and who instead choose to engage in disrupting the rest of their classes.

That's why I said collective earnings, not individual. It's £100k for the class combined as a collective across their lifetime (so almost the same as your individual student figure). And that's the amount PER disruptive student. Most classes have 4 or 5 highly disruptive individuals these days on average so that's a lot of potential earnings for the class being hampered. Hardly alarmist. I don't think many parents want the life outcomes, earnings, successes and grades of their children compromised by frequently disruptive pupils that poor schools are blackmailed by the Government into keeping in lessons. How much longer do the masses have to be sacrificed?

But in order for that to happen, someone needs to be present and miss their time. Someone needs to supervise the detention; foregoing a lunch, or staying late to supervise a student.

It doesn’t reduce earnings. Removing the disruptive pupil raises them. It’s £4200 more on average in a life time. Hardly as alarming as you’re making it. Less than they’d pay in taxes in 6 months if they had a decent job.

So, nothing to do with OP’s question then. As I said.

Completely agree. Not to mention research has found that for every disruptive student in a class, it reduces the collective lifetime earnings of the rest of the class by £100,000. When the worst offenders/disrupters in my classes are not in that day, I can capitalise on this for the rest of my class by being able to teach them a much higher-quality lesson. I've even requested last-minute challenging science practicals when I see on the register that a certain student is off so the rest of the class will be able to do it unimpeded without some miscreant being there to mess around, break equipment, not listen to instructions and ruin the practical for everyone. The quality of education that could be offered to British students if the bottom 15% wasn't there is astonishing.

Discuss this with his Head of Year