Is it normal to give a DS detention for something a parent hasn't done?

God it sounds a pointless punishment for something so pathetic

Are all secondary schools like this?

It could make an interesting interview question, actually.
'When in school, what approach did you take to the requirement that your planner had to be signed every week?'

Persuaded parents to sign = straitlaced, organised, suitable office manager
Forged signature = unscrupulous but effective, might make a journalist
Ran two planners = tax accountant for Amazon...

DSs school has a mentor system - two 6th formers in each tutor group. I think many tutors palm off the planner signing onto them!

Checking planners are signed is one of the bains of my life as a tutor. It amazes me more students don't have the nous to forge the signature, or get it done weeks in advance. I tend to find parents who sign them are the sort of parent who know what is going on anyway and vice versa.

bigbluebus we have a similar issue for some pupils at DCs school (some come from a village by bus). I think part of the punishment of after school detentions (most are in school time) is that the parent moans and complains.

The point is that some unsigned planners will be the result of parental error and some the result of the pupil not getting it signed. It is impossible to tell which is which.

No requirement to sign planners at my DSs school. However, when DS has had detention, I often feel it is more of a punishment for me than him. He gets kept behind at school for 1 1/2 hrs and lounges around playing on computers completes homework, if that was what the detention was for.
However, as we live in a rural area, he misses the school bus, so I have to load disabled DD into car and go and pick him up. So I would feel no guilt at all if DS got a detention for something that I had failed to do!!!

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who forged their parents' signatures! We wouldn't get detention but would've been made to write lines if we didn't get it signed. I was so terrified of getting into trouble that I started copying my mum's signature on a regular basis. Eventually my parents realised that neither of them had signed for a while. They were very surprised to discover my mum's signature... I didn't get in trouble though - they were too impressed by how good it was to punish me! They did make me promise never to do it again though!

Slacker.

After starting secondary school that is. Not in life.

Forging my DM's signature was one of the first things I perfected.

My DD wants me to sign in advance, but I refuse to sign until Friday. She has never had a planner related detention, but has had a warning.

A friend's son signed his own a term before being found out.

Maybe missed it, but how old is your ds?

Kids, as opposed to parents, are held responsible for signed reading books from Y4 at our school - in terms of actual withheld playtime. They get nagged before that, obviously

Oh BTW teachers do write in both my DCs planners as they are dyslexic, and otherwise: DS writes something unintelligible to him and me; DD gets the wrong end of the stick and writes something which is "not the homework". Fr example for DD, she wrote in her homework for Maths last week and worried about it; it said =Finish diagrams; her homework was = revise for test.

I help with homework by: nagging, "Do you have homework?"; deciphering teachers hand writing; reading a check list of subjects. I also help by answering questions put to me, which includes revising A'level Maths now (thank heavens for Wikipaedia one of our other textbooks).

Ah, we have a well informed person here! So, MT, do you sign it for the week just gone by, or once the homework has been done for that week (sometimes set up to 3 weeks in advance here, so I imagine you don't wait that long)?

My DD nags me endlessly to sign hers. She was told in the first couple of days about planner signing (I already knew from her big brother).

The point of signing is that it means parents have had an opportunity to look at the planners, and if interested: check what homework has been set and done, so student can't just say they didn't have any; check on detentions; check on credits and give praise. Of course the school can't ensure that parents do any of these.

DD does have a friend who has a problem as her signature and her mums are identical, including the same initial.

Those of you who know that you're supposed to sign the planners,
and that know that it's the child's job to make sure you've signed,

How do you know these things? At what point in induction or whatever were you informed?

What what does it mean when you sign, beyond the fact that you've read it? Is it supposed to mean you've tried to make sure they do the work, that you've discussed it, what?

We have been told none of that, btw. DH got a text about a month ago to say we haven't been signing. I am reluctant to sign since I haven't been told what signing it means.

I am perversely resisting the impulse to ring school to ask partly because I am trying to be as hands off as possible about homework. I impose sanctions if I discover it wasn't done, but other than that, I want him to get on with it, learning from any mistakes made along the way.

Well, OP, I've never discovered what we are signing for.

DS1 seems to have got through his GCSEs without me discovering it, so I suspect it doesn't matter too much.

My DD has missed 10 minutes off her break before for getting to ask me to sign her planner, but i feel the responsibility is on her to make sure it's done.

Also i would be majorly pissed if i found out she had ever forged my signature...

Grimma - under the harsh regime that is how a S London Comp retains engagement and does well, the theory is that he should have left more leeway for printing it at school, i.e done it at school on Friday rather than doing the homework Friday night, encountering malfunctioning home printer and attempting to print at school on Monday when you have to queue with everyone else in the short break slot - he just didn't get to the front of the queue.

He had carefully scheduled that homework on Fri night to fit around after-school music classes, concert rehearsals and other homework,so he did actually do his organisational best, but I am engendering a 'you win some, you lose some' approach otherwise well-intentioned, hard-working, prone to get anxious and with a a fear of failing DS will get very discouraged.

No way am I going to ask to see completed HW, they aren't babies.

DD1 may throw stuff at DH and me to proof and DD2 asks maths and science questions sometimes.

But, that's their choice. No way am I going to read through English for DD2, her spelling is better than mine and I can't judge what is required.

DD got a ranting from me last week, I accused her of forging my signature. Turned out I had signed it when she woke me the morning she needed it signed and I was barely awake. She, of course, denied forging my signature so we showed it to a jury of friends (who were equally split on who signed it). Poor child, had to give her the benefit of the doubt because my signature does change from time to time. Don't know why I was so concerned though cos although I sign it I'm never sure why. I see her doing homework but don't run a check list as to what H/W she is doing. Bonkers really!

The key is to make the Signature right from the beginning so it never looks different

My DD makes my sign her planner for months in advance, and hands me a big handful of different coloured pens so it isn't too obvious.

She says her tutor never turns over and she knows we will both forget.

I've never ever read her planner, she's dyslexic and it's totally incomprehensible.

I really do not understand why we are expected to look at senior school planners. The teachers don't write in them, they are just lists of HW to be done. Even DD2's neat one makes no sense to me.

Personally I think my job begins and ends with remembering to say "Have you any HW and have you checked your planner?".