Saturday detention and inflexible school.

Doing not Dieu!

@morethanpotatoprints

As a teacher, I would be happy not to set homework but, like everybody else, I have to follow the rules. One of them is that I set homework. Another is to chase up and report missing homework.

I would imagine they added to it to stop parents constantly asking to rearrange punishments.

If you don't agree with their policy - move schools. All I have understood from your posts op is that the school is at fault for not bending their clear rules because your DS can't follow simple instructions, i.e. to do his homework.

It is your DS that has caused you these problems therefore your anger/disappointment should be Dieu at him - what is he going to learn if you put the blame withsschool and not him?

I actually think it was unfair of the school to add to the punishment because of parental unavailability at the weekend. That sense of injustice will only serve to alienate pupils and parents.

However, the boy really needs to get his head around homework and get on with it otherwise he is going to have a pretty miserable few years ahead.

Why are so many teachers and parents hung up supporting homework anyway?
It doesn't serve any purpose. If its to learn something then surely this is better done by the teacher at school. If it is to recap, this is also the teachers job at the end of the lesson.
What is so important about homework? and why is it necessary when they have been at school all day?

I would have been seriously pissed off with my kids if they had got Saturday detentions, or any detention for that matter. Surely before you agreed to send him there you knew they did them?

I don't see why the school should offer an alternative sanction because a parent and child want to go on a scout trip. The proverbial floodgates would open and the only children doing detention would be those from families with supportive parents.

Would it be an option for your son to spend a day in internal isolation or be suspended instead of going to the saturday morning detention. Schools can't make children attend detentions, but they do have the option of temporary exclusion.

I feel the OP needs to find another school if she doesn't like the behaviour policy.

He's only in Year 8 and has had three of these Saturday detentions. If the parent doesn't like it, there is the option with another school that has other sanctions. Essentially, the child is set work and is not completing it. The parent is not prepared to ensure that the work is completed - this is Year 8, not Year 12 when a parent could argue that they are unable to do this. What about revision for GCSEs and A' Levels - are you saying, as a parent, you will not step in if your child fails to complete the work?

As a parent, I would stop all the Scouts, computer etc and establish good homework routines.

OP, can you agree with the school that DS will only do two enrichment activities until his homework problem is sorted.

My DCs all do significant amounts of out of school stuff. If their homework was suffering that would be it for the drama dancing and music lessons, and for the shows and gigs. They all know that. They do their homework. I have cut back on my own playing commitments because I felt there was the potential for negative impact on the kids getting all their stuff done in the evenings if I was also in and out. It makes me sad, but its not my actual job so it has to come below the kids' education in my list of priorities.

The school does not put this in place after one missed homework Thants - this is for children who consistently don't do their homework. It's not up to the school to continually encourage and encourage - at some point there has to be a consequence. Seems quite right to me.

Lots of people are saying there other ways to make them do homework other than detentions. But nobody has given any examples of how they would make sure the work is done without. What are these wonderful techniques you all have that would make all children behave and do their work to an appropriate standard.
This child sounds like a very extreme example I must say. He would have been put on report at our school but this wouldn't get him out of detentions for the failure to submit work.

Floggingmolly he probably will do it again because it clearly disrupts the parents and siblings more than the child them self and that unfair!
There are ways of encouraging homework that don't mean kids are at school 6 days a week!

Detentions are not supposed to be taken at your convenience. They're supposed to work as a deterrent, and it sounds like this one has achieved its objective. He won't do it again.

*personal responsibility

A number of people here seem to think that teachers enjoy giving up their time to detain students. We don't do it for the sake of it. There have to be consequences.
I got into trouble for not doing homework (not a detention, it just got mentioned and I was given the chance to do it at lunchtime). As a result, my parents asked that I be removed from the school opera that year to reduce my extra-curricular demands. I wasn't allowed into a school production until my attitude to homework changed. This was my parents' decision. They supported the school.

"Some schools think they own kids?" Really!
Consolidating work done at school and encouraging some degree of self discipline personal and responsibility is owning kids?

Wow Saturday detentions! That's crazy. I would not let him go. School is Monday to Friday. The school should not be ruining families weekends and it must he very costly opening the school for no reason on weekends!
Clearly detentions don't get through to kids so they should try something new!

I am a youth leader (not for scouts) and given the impact on the rest of family would have asked for this one to be rearranged.

But beyond that I would be using scouts or something else he loves as a bribe/punishment. Over the years I have had many young people who have missed things because they haven't done their homework or whatever - strangely it is only ever an issue or a few weeks!

I suspect the reason he isn't doing his homework is because he can get away with it with you as you don't understand it and haven't got time to make sure he does it/check that he has done it.

Time for you to give some attention to your DS it would seem.

I don't think Scouting is a silly hobby at all - I think it's a fantastic activity to be involved with that can give you skills, opportunities and confidence which go with you throughout your life.

That being said, I think the school have been flexible by postponing the detention. Does he have a homework jotter which sets out what homework he has for the week? If so, then I would suggest transferring that to a calendar, getting him to show you what he's done, and marking it off as he's completed it.

I would also suggest that you request he is put on report, so that you can see exactly what progress he's making in class and what his attitude to school is like. A bad report one week = no Scouts the next.