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

So it seems you sons behaviour is deemed sufficiently disruptive to warrant suspension from lessons. What is he going to be doing instead during the five lessons he is suspended from attending the timetabled lessons,? And more importantly what steps are you taking to encourage him to change his behaviour?

I think maybe you need more information from the school as to what is going on. Just asking your son isn't getting you the full picture.

No, but I as a parent am not going to be overly gutted that disruptive children are removed so my children can do what they’ve gone there to do. It’s not salivating, it’s being at our wit’s end at the state of classroom behaviour today because parents can’t get a grip of their kids and instil respect, it is this generation’s biggest failing as far as I’m concerned.

You are just making excuses for him. You need to be very solid. “It’s because my teacher doesnt like me” - not interested. “I behave in other lessons” irrelevant. Courtesy and respect for teachers and other students is a basic constant - it has nothing to do with dislike/like, or interest/boredom. It’s a fundamental that he should know from his upbringing and will be expected of him throughout his adult life. No compromises or excuses.

He'll be pissing about far more than that if he has been put in isolation for 5 lessons. In all my years of teaching I have never come across a child who is only disruptive in one lesson for one teacher. They might be a bit better in some and a bit worse in others but they don't have a personality transplant in just one subject.

Most teachers don't bother to inform parents when children are mucking about in class as it is quicker to just to deal with it themselves. That is why you might have a false impression.

Next time you you have parents evening ask each teacher what his behaviour is like in their lesson and this is what their replies will mean:
Excellent (followed by glowing praise)= Excellent
Good (followed by some praise) = good most of the time.
He can be chatty but he contributes well and seems to enjoy the subject= disruptive but stops when told.
His focus has improved this term = disruptive
Most of the time it is fine = disruptive
It is better now I have seated him away from Bob = disruptive
He is developing some good strategies= disruptive
Lively = disruptive
He is a big character = disruptive
Not very good = total pain in the neck and rude.

I’m not sure you’ll get many people to discuss your actual point OP - I agree with you that it’s completely counterproductive by the way.

So many people on MN practically salivate at the thought of a child getting punished. They love it and believe it solves everything. So most of the answers will just be about that and how he’ll ’learn his lesson’ like it’s an Enid Blyton novel.

Then he needs to show respect and learn to behave in all lessons, and fast. And you need to support the school rather than complaining Little Lord Fauntleroy is being disciplined.

Sounds like you're only concerned about your sons gcses and couldn't care less about the other kids who are trying to learn. Really selfish imo. Have you spoken to him about what he is taking away from the other children? Maybe it's time.

Removing the child who is causing disruption allows the others in class to have the time to learn.
Isolation isn't used for a 1 time making a noise issue, its used when the kid continues to be disruptive. The teacher may not like him, but as unfair as that is its life. Not everyone is going to like us but acting like a clown and disrupting others learning is not ok.

That teacher will be teaching 5 or 6 lessons a day. 32 children per class. That is around 155 children a day. Do you honestly expect that teacher to understand the 'unrecognised needs' of 155 children? Unfortunately, at this stage of his education, it is sink or swim.

If you want your boy to cope, book an appointment and go in to see the teacher. Be supportive of the teacher. Tell her you'll support her in whatever she needs your boy to do. And find out what he can't do in her subject and explain he's struggling with whatever the academic issue is. Absolutely do not for a second condone his behaviour to her. Be on the teacher's side and explain that you know his behaviour is unacceptable. That is the way to get your child's unrecognised need understood.

Not by ranting about behaviour policies. Because as others on here have said. There is NO way, no chance at all, that you will change a schools behaviour policy. If you can't help your child sort out his behaviour it will waste his education.

Pastoral support worker here 🙋‍♀️

it sounds like your son is in isolation. It’s a consequence for messing around and disrupting others learning.

i can understand it’s counter productive but…

• work will be set for him
• it alllows other student to learn in peace
• your son will know the behaviour policy and still chose to behave that way. Actions have consequences.
• he will also miss break and lunch

Schools have very little to work with in terms of discipline so it’s many isolation and suspension. Some kids miss a lot of lessons because of this but school has to follow their behaviour policy to help the learning for the majority.

I am on the fence with your undiagnosed needs comment. Some are undiagnosed but that cannot impact the learning of others. I also don’t always think it should be used as an excuse.

All students, SEN or not, have to learn appropriate boundaries for adulthood. If they spoke to people in the pub how they often speak to teachers, it would not end well for them.

A couple of things.

His bad behaviour will be impacting on the rest of the class. Either encouraging other students to act up, OR distracting others from work. If he fails due to not being in class, he is one child. If he can't behave in class he could affect the performance of say 5 to 10 other children. Better to get him out than affect others.

He probably goes to an academy. They will waste children for the sake of the overall success of the business. So if your boy doesn't shape up, he won't get an education. Academies are businesses and your boy is bad for their company.

The supportive, understanding primary years are over. He has to cope in places where he isn't popular. It happens. Not all teachers will like him. Not all the people I work with or for like me. It's life. He needs to shut up and keep his head down in that teacher's lesson or it'll only be him that is hurt by his absences.

But what about all the other children this child and your own disrupts by their own poor behaviour?

Teachers need to teach but can't with even disruptive children who often set off others.

You sound like a caring, invested mum, who wants to do the right thing for their child, but is maybe going about it in the wrong way.

Rather than complaining about the system (honestly, you won’t get anywhere. Someone has been paid big money to be responsible for behaviour in that school. They’ve read all the research and done all the training and aren’t going to change it based on your opinion of it), could you get in touch with the teacher in the subject he’s struggling in?

Explain you support the school - and the sanctions - and want to help ensure it won’t happen again. Ask what behaviours they’re seeing in lesson, what gaps in knowledge your son has, how you can help him engage, etc.

You don’t know how your child is behaving in other lessons, only what he is telling you. Nor do you know what he did in class - only his version.

Hes being punished. If he wa only taken out of the lesson he didn’t value, it would be almost a reward.

I would make an appointment with his head of year and find out what is really happening in his classes, and 100% support the school to correct it.

If he misbehaves in one lesson, it's a choice behaviour and not an unmet need. He deserves everything he gets.

I do think behaviour management in schools needs a review. But so does parental attitudes to behaviour management, because as a parent your focus should be on prevention rather than cure. If you think the sanctions imposed are harmful, then the most useful thing to turn your mind to is making sure your DS never receives the sanction.
In your position I'd be reinforcing the schools messaging about my DSs behaviour being unacceptable and telling him that if there was a next time there would be consequences at home as well as at school. I'd not let him have any idea that I was questioning the school, as that encourages him to disrespect their processes believing you'll support him in that.

What communication have you had from the school?

I’m guessing you DC has been an awful pain in class and destroyed learning multiple times - schools actually don’t want kids missing lessons.

The best thing you can do is go and speak to whoever put him in isolation and find out the reality of your DS’s behaviour.

I would honestly threaten (and mean) to sit with your DS in lessons if he can’t control his behaviour. Schools may not allow this but I actually had this (a parent followed their kid around all day) and that kid never kicked off again as they were humiliated by their parent..

Ypu need to get your kid’s behaviour sorted and you can work towards this by supporting the school.

Is there a reason you are unable to read OP’s posts?

she states clearly that he misbehaved in one lesson and doesn’t in others. The exclusion from all classes is her question. It’s not impacting the other children in those classes, either way (he doesn’t misbehave there) and it may cause him to be disengaged.

She’s asking a question, not defending her son’s behaviour, and some posts have a really nasty undercurrent

Is your son disruptive in one lesson because of an unrecognised need?

Saying that the school shouldn’t punish other children in this way isn’t relevant to your child. You might as well say that your son shouldn’t do cross country because a different child might have asthma.

It sounds unlikely.

It's much more likely, as a pp said, that this day in isolation is a consequence of missing previous lesser sanctions that were set. Are you sure that didn't happen?

In a school I was in the system would be three warnings then you're removed from the class to isolation for the rest of the lesson, and/or if you built up a few of those and didn't attend the resulting detentions, you'd get the day in isolation as a re-set. As subject heads we were required to set work for any of our students in isolation if they'd have had lessons in our subject (regardless of who'd sent them there).

Have you actually looked at the behaviour policy?

Students are not always aware of how disruptive their behaviour is to the rest of the class. It is probably not just this one subject. There is generally a pattern, with some teachers more able to handle it than others.

Your child is soon to be an adult. Time he took responsibility for his actions and stopped pissing about.

If your son is allowed to mess about in lessons, then the other children who can focus and learn are missing out. Of course your focus is on your child, but the school have a duty to support those who want to learn.

Undiagnosed children are getting fewer as diagnoses become so prevalent. But also there are just children who like to get attention. That isn’t due to ND, it’s a behaviour thing. Respect, attitude and potentially parenting. Rather than look for other factors to blame, just tell son that he wouldn’t be in this position if he didn’t mess up, and that you’ll be very cross if he does it again.

My parents always backed the school, and it meant I had consistent expectations and behaviour. I hope you haven’t let your son know about your concerns?

It helps the other 29 students who can get on with the work and focus on their GCSEs without the ones who can’t be arsed running it for them.

It also makes it harder for schools to discipline kids if the parents are undermining them or agreeing that punishments are wrong.

I’d focus on supporting the teachers, they have enough to do without battling with kids who can behave but choose not to.

Tell your kid to do the punishment with good grace. Ask one of his mates what was covered in the lesson and do some reading up on the topics. Remove gaming privileges or something one night so he sees you in support of the school.

The benefit is for the other children who won't have their learning disrupted. This sounds like isolation rather than detention - in my experience the class teachers will be asked to send work for the child out of class to complete

But I expect the GCSE lessons went much more smoothly for all the other students in the class, without the disruptive presence of your son.

If he wants to join in the lessons with everyone else, he’d better learn to behave himself, hadn’t he?

It's not enough to have a child physically in the lesson. They need to be engaging with it, in order to benefit.
No one is being sent to isolation/R2L for minor behaviour issues. This will be because he has repeatedly caused disruption to the classroom or there's been a one off incident that was serious enough for the teacher to remove him from the room.

In our school a child needs to acquire 3 negative behaviour points during the lesson, to trigger R2L. The teacher gives a warning before the first point and sits the child elsewhere before the second. That's several opportunities to improve before removal.

The onus will be on him, as a GCSE student, to catch up on the other work he misses as a consequence of his behaviour and subsequent removal from classes.

He won't be there because of an undiagnosed need. The teacher will be in communication with head of year, ALN support. We get given information on our pupils and any additional needs, so they can be supported. The teacher will have offered in-class support. They want your child to pass, not least because teachers are judged on how well their classes perform in GCSE results!

If he feels she doesn't like him, maybe he should take a minute to consider why. And do something to change that.

Remember that every time the teacher has to pause their lesson to address behaviour, the whole class is losing precious teaching time. If I was the parent of another pupil in that class, I'd be cross that your child's behaviour was affecting my child's education, on an ongoing basis.

The teacher has to balance the needs of everyone (and their parents' opinions), not only your son's needs.