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

I think the crux of your complaint is that he’s missing lessons he likes and behaves in for isolation not the problem lesson, so everyone’s arguments about the other 29 aren’t valid? In which case, my point is that it is a punishment. The teacher may wish he was missing their lesson but the pupil is annoyed they are missing e.g. PE. He’s being deprived of things that he enjoys or wants to do due to the choice he made about his behaviour. Consequences aren’t always perfect but, when followed up and supported at home, they work.

Do I agree with it? No. Would it be my first reaction? No. I don’t believe he’s lost 5 lessons lightly as you suggest, and I hope you as a parent are going to step up and take this seriously. This kind of situation requires parents and teachers to manage before it escalates.

I have had 4 children go through secondary school and 1 currently there. My eldest behaved well in school as did most pupils at the time (he’s now 32), my second was incredibly disruptive and had so many exclusions that I had to give up work to be available to support the school with his behaviour. He was particularly vile towards younger female teachers and this was the behaviour that got him excluded. I always supported the school and we were open and honest about the trouble we were experiencing. Although it made him cringe, he was part of every meeting about his behaviour. My next two sailed through school with no behavioural sanctions but their best friend was in isolation nearly every day. My fifth is suffering the behaviour of all manner of different children, she works hard and ignores it as best she can but I’m horrified at the level of behaviour children have to suck up and cope with in lessons. There is a boy in her learning group that makes sexist comments and gestures towards every female teacher so he gets sent to reset. If he was mine, I would be mortified but I’m grateful the rest of the group don’t have to suffer him while he is out of the lesson. Is it working to change his behaviour? Probably not, but why should he matter more than the children who understand the value of education? It is him that is squandering his education (the same as my 2nd child) and only him that should deal with the consequences. The rest of the class deserve not to be disrupted.

Talk to the school, be open but don’t query the policy. Instead focus on what actually happened in that classroom that resulted in that consequence. Work together to make sure he doesn’t have this happen again and, at 15, your son is responsible for his choices so make sure he faces that too.

As an aside, I don’t think schools do after school detentions anymore because parents don’t support them. I’ve seen several stories in the media about kids who can’t do the detention because they have to collect a younger sibling/have to catch a certain bus/don’t want to walk home alone etc. Some parents don’t value education and so don’t support anything beyond the standard school day.

You take him out of the lessons where he's not targeting the teachers to send the message that any and all attempts to target a particular teacher are unacceptable.

Kids don't miss lunch. They have to be allowed to have lunch. You don't mention a few things, like how long is lunch? Really, after he's got his lunch, how much time would a detention be? Fifteen minutes or 45 minutes? Write a note of apology? Five minutes? His lessons are probably an hour. How many has he disrupted? If this behaviour is ongoing, a five minute note writing activity wouldn't be proportionate.

You also don't mention his size or the gender of the teacher. If he's 5ft 4" and the teacher is a 6ft male, then that's completely different to if he's 6ft and the teacher is a 5ft 4" female. He's nearly 16. Doesn't matter if he works hard elsewhere. Does matter if his behaviour is attempted intimidation.

I mean there's something you're not really getting here. "Harassment is any unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of either violating a person’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them." This can include "Repeatedly shouting ... banter ... facial expressions ... ridiculing or demeaning someone ... insinuations ... taunting ... treating them as inferior ... making tasks unnecessarily difficulty ... etc." Just saying to someone who's nearly 16 that all of this can be resolved with a 10 minute out or brief note of apology isn't really adequate. Or to use your phrase, it would be 'counterproductive'.

The school are protecting the interests of the majority who do want to learn yet can’t because the minority eg your son will not behave, so yes, it’s an effective consequence. Stop ruminating on whether it’s fair or not and get on top of your son’s behaviour so he can access lessons again.

You keep swerving the point. It’s GCSE year - he needs to stop messing around in any lesson, not just the lessons he favours. You need to get on top of this as does your son - that is the real issue. The school are quite rightly protecting the interests of those who DO want to learn and can behave.

Your child wont have the opportunity to disrupt the learning of others today. That the big win for them.

Yes it works for the vast majority. The kids in there all the time need something different and are supported differently. There are 3 of such students I can think of in our school of 1200. The majority of students who enter isolation serve 1-2 days ever.

They usually lose social time as well for the day.

Pulling kids out of specific lessons would be a logistical nightmare.

I'd be emailing to find out what he did. That's the part that you should be informed of.

Has the school said that he behaves well in 4 out of the 5 lessons he has been excluded from , or is that DS's version of events? Ask the school to explain.

Exactly. If OP’s son is messing around he is affecting students who DO want to learn and get their best grades. OP should be concentrating on that aspect - what is she doing (and the father) to support the necessary change in behaviour?

Yes, it is a helpful intervention (to the other children who they have (rightly) prioritised).

They are just following the government line about how everything is always the parents fault 🙄 because things in school always make sense dont they? Skirt too short wrong type of shoes trousers dont fit home you go! Take a day off fine fine fine away threaten to put parents in prison and where are the kids going to go? Ahh into an oversubscribed care system also dysfunctional! we are getting school wrong and wierd punitive actions like isolation not doing much work is unhelpful how exactly is not educating a child going to help anyone? Its not is it

Anyway missing five lessons sounds stupid especially if they are not going to do any work related to the subjects there is plenty of online education they can do if you need to put them in isolation

‘If I was the parent, I’d be changing schools’.

This isn’t the threat you think it is.

At the moment, one student has missed 5 lessons. If your DS had pissed about in those lessons, 30 children would have missed those lessons.

Support the school and your son’s behaviour will improve, and he won’t miss any lessons.

Put yourself in the teacher’s shoes. Can you imagine how bad your son’s behaviour must be for him to be put in isolation all day? This is the same teacher who is endlessly judged and scrutinised for the results her students get in GCSEs, despite working enormously long hours. Now ask the right question, not ‘isn’t it wrong that he’s missing 5 lessons’. We’ll have no teachers left soon at this rate.

My sons’ school also have internal suspensions for when behaviour becomes impossible to manage within the classroom. I strongly recommend making an appointment with the class tutor and/or head of year and asking them to explain the system to you and ask how you can work with the school to get your son’s behaviour back on track. Hopefully missing a day of lessons will be a short, sharp shock and he’ll realise that it’s better to be in class with his friends than being isolated for a whole day. My oldest son got one once and he was absolutely bored stupid for the day - he never got another internal suspension after that!

Dd's secondary improved so much after they adopted this system.

She was actually able to concentrate, and the little shits that just loved disrupting everyone else were removed. She said it was bliss.

It’s fairly common in secondary schools here, if you mess around in lessons you’re sent to ‘reset’.
The ‘reset room is manned by a completely different teacher so they won’t be able to teach you your subject however students are able to access their class teachers lesson online via a camera link (as long as it isn’t p.e , music or technology) and then the work is set online.
The idea behind it is that there should be 0 disruption to lessons and if you can’t behave you don’t stay in the same space as the people you’re performing to and disrupting. If a student keeps doing it, they will spend more time in reset then in their own classrooms.
The school do after school detentions for not doing homework, so for many in reset they have a lot of lessons in there and then have to stay after school until the homework is completed,
It’s a policy that seems to work to be fair, my son says there isn’t a lot of disruption and the school gets really good results.

Ex teacher.

the normal name for missing all of his lessons for one day and being in a separate room is either internal exclusion, some schools also use reflection or internal isolation.

as you’ve said a detention is usually lunchtime or after school.

in most behaviour systems internal isolation is the step after detentions, so it is the consequence either of not going to a detention or of a more serious offence (swearing at a teacher, fighting, etc).

yes, for the majority of students this does work.

every school I have ever worked in (secondary) has this system

Our local secondary does this as a punishment called reset. Kids are sent to reset where they sit in a room in silence for the whole day, not allowed out for breaks and they also eat lunch in there. In silence.

Reasons for being sent to reset include talking in the hallway while moving between lessons, having the wrong uniform, having hands under the desk (must be on the desk at all times), lifting their head during 'head down and work' time, and standing up in the lunch hall. Dds friends told her there were more kids in reset than in the classroom.

Im my opinion its horrible what they are doing to children in secondary. They are also not allowed to use the toilets when they want and many children have been in distress. If this was a workplace for adults it would be on Dispatches! At the same time behaviour in schools is out of control so I don't know what the answer is. I just feel so sad for the children that are being unfairly affected by this.

This. As a teacher I agree he is missing lessons but think of the 29 others who can learn in a calmer environment.

Withdrawal of his phone if he has one, and other privileges, might be a good place to start.

It will work for most pupils because the disruptive pupil is not interfering with the lesson. it's about the greatest good of the greatest number.

My DC's school uses this (internal exclusion) as a punishment, but only as an escalation for behaviour that is more serious. They would get a lunchtime or after school detention first.

So I think you may not be hearing the full story from your DS. I agree with @Legoreflexology that the "silly noise" your DS mentions might have been sexual sounds like moaning. This is an awful thing that some boys do to intimidate female teachers / pupils and if that's what was happening the school is absolutely right to treat it seriously.

It works for the other 29 kids in the class who NEED to learn during a GCSE year. Why should your kid ruin their education? It's a wake up call for your son.

I have worked in two different schools; one where disruptive behaviour is taken seriously and another where it is ignored. In the one where it is taken seriously the rules are transparent. Pupils treat each other and staff with respect 99 percent of the time and consequently a lot of learning takes place. In the other it's chaos. Your son needs to behave