Detention in yr 7 - harsh?

School is like a fixed price menu. You can’t à la carte it by choosing the rules you like and rejecting those you don’t.

You just have to agree with the majority of the ethos.

Jasminedes don't worry about the behaviour points. If it's the same as dd's school there won't be any consequences unless she gets lots. Even extremely well behaved kids in dd's school have had the odd couple because they aren't perfect and I'm sure no one thinks any less of them for it. Dd's form tutor keeps them in at break if they don't get things signed when they've been asked to. Dd has been kept in for that reason. If they need things signed by a certain time then the kids need to learn that they have to do this as things run more efficiently then and the teacher doesn't waste time asking again and again.

Pengggwn

Sounds about right. One lesson a fortnight one of classes is significantly more off task/silly. Out of interest I looked where they were the lesson before and suddenly it all made sense. I'm the unreasonable one for expecting them to enter sensibly, write thr date/title (which is always in the same place!) Without getting questions like 'what's the date? Is that the title? Oh do we have to write it?'

Apparently Mr so and so has said that all the things we are meant to do for consistency don't help learning so they can come in how thry like, sit where they like, have a chat with each other and sir for a bit, don't have to write loads etc.

I was too professional to point out that Sir's results were very low last year and that being too much of a mate was probably a contributinf factor.

I am still seething that dd ended up with three behaviour points in her first two weeks of year 7, for forgetting to get me to sign something twice (other teachers were not even asking for it) and something else trivial
Sounds like sometbing like a planner/diary that needs signing, which is part of being a form tutor at most schools.

The 'most teachers' don't ask for it is probably 'a handful of cool teachers who are desperate for validation from teenagers that theu are fun' have chosen to ignore basic school policy because it doesn't suit them (which creates issues around school because then all we hear is 'Mr X lets his class... Mrs Y doesn't tell us...)

I am still seething that dd ended up with three behaviour points in her first two weeks of year 7, for forgetting to get me to sign something twice (other teachers were not even asking for it) and something else trivial. However, she has got none since. I would be quietly fuming in your shoes, but I would stay alongside both school and daughter by emphasising that they enforce the rules strictly to keep high standards and that she will not be the first or the last to get a harsh detention decision. In future years you will be able to joke about her wayward youth.

Steppemum you sound like a wonderful teacher and very much in tune with the yr 7 psyche!

My DD was the Class Representive in Primary and has followed that through to High School. Every teacher has told me she has been a delight to teach. She is an optimistic, incredibly enthusiastic, kind and humorous child. She is a member of the orchestra, part of the school theatre production etc etc. She is always keen to do well in class. She was thrilled to be starting High School. She is NOT my problem, she is a delight as steppemum pointed out. I do not want this bright light t extinguished by draconian
and quite frankly lazy, throw away punishments. I have no problem with detentions where appropriate but not for very minor misdemeanors that cause more harm than good.

Please treat them with some respect and surely they will show you the same courtesy.

Erm the black marks and phone calls home. No sanction to students. Oh and the emails home.

Yes actually I have had 4 transition to secondary school. One is autistic. As I mentioned somewhere in the thread, one forgot his homework and this resulted in detention. Now he's more careful about ensuring the night before he is ready for the following day.

Theresnoname - where do you got no sanctions from?

Pretty much everyone is saying more appropriate sanctions, not no sanctions.

I don't know if you have had a child do the transition to secondary. It is huge. Nothing to do with micro managing parents (another nice leap conclusion there). It is much much harder with much, much more to remember. At primary the pe kit lived at school all term, and the reading book etc lived in school bag unless in use. very different to needed to sort your timetable, books and homework for 5 different lessons running over a 2 weeks timetable. Of course there will be blips at the beginning.

And what a great leap - forget homework in year 7 and mummy and daddy will be micromanaging them at university!

I'm a teacher - I would have given her a day to submit, then if still nothing a lunch time detention. To go from 0 to after school seems pretty OTT

So after all those years of primary and having to remember to take pe kit, reading books, spelling books, various projects etc. None of this rubbed off onto children so when they moved to secondary they knew what was expected?
Maybe they were micro-managed by parents? If so this support has to continue and phased off.

Schools, well teachers have to be consistent. How confusing to have some teachers who give no sanctions and others do.

And the school where theirs no sanctions? Well apart from a call home? How does that help the child make the transition to adult? University and work years and they are still expecting mummy and daddy to deal with everything.

Obviously send your kids where you like, they're your problem at the end of the day.

wow not remotely bitchy.

1. I am a teacher.
2. My kids know how to behave at school. My dd has never had any discipline, not even the demerit marks her school does. Her year 5 teacher told me she was a delight to teach.
3. she was head girl of her primary school
4. ds has had one or two moments, (literally 1 or 2) the school were firm, we were firm, he stopped. He was recently held up as an example (anonymously) for something he had done when the head spoke to year 10 parents.
5. people who meet him complement me on how polite he is.

so no, they are not my problem, they are my delight, and they are that way because they go to schools who understand kids well, and make their discipline fit the children and context they are in. Schools where kids flourish.

(plus my amazing parenting of course!)

You see I'm wondering where you draw the line.

School has already given the DC 2 weeks sanction free.
OP has suggested it should have been a month (so after 6 weeks it would be fine to give detention?)
And suggested for a first offence it should have been overlooked (how does that get coordinated between teachers?)

Genuinely forgetting is not really a good reason - it should have been written in planner, she could have checked with other students etc.

The problem is that children are very different from one another

This. DD (primary) struggles with organising herself and with anxiety. She also is very harsh on herself and desperately wants adult approval. Her school believe that punishments lead to better behaviour, and are unable to distinguish between deliberately bad behaviour and a child that is doing her best but just can't comply.

We got to the point last year where she said that when she was at school she felt as if she was always about to be told off, but as she didn't know what she was doing wrong she didn't know how to prevent it. She was constantly expecting the next words to come out of the teachers mouth to be the ones telling her off and giving her a demerit. Her mental health was getting worse and worse, and she said she hated herself and wanted to die.

Her anxiety escalated and she started scribbling all over her work when stressed (several times a day at it's peak) so hard she destroyed the book because the paper tore.

Obviously that meant the punishments escalated as she was 'deliberately' destroying school property.

There were no other schools within reach except private, which I couldn't afford.

Thankfully we eventually got a psych ed assessment which concluded that the best way forward was for the school to stop handing out punishments to her, and allow her to go for a walk out of the class if she felt stressed. The school doesn't like it as that is 'letting her get away with it' and 'unfair on the other children', but as they called in the psych ed (and I got the LA involved) they don't have much choice.

Some months on the scribbling has decreased a lot in frequency and she is generally happier. As it took 3 years of 'zero tolerance' to reduce her to that state it will take her a while to recover.

To put it in context, in reception class (different school, before we moved) she had one 'time out' in the whole year (justified, but she was so upset she cried).

So yes, the 'zero tolerance' approach is fine for resilient children who are good at organising themselves - the ones who have won that lottery in life.

Penggwyn - year 7 kids forgetting a bit of kit or getting the wrong day to hand on homework?

Really not a 'behaviour' issue, more a 'getting used to being at secondary' issue

As I said common sense goes a long way.

Glad my kids aren't in your school.