Detentions as a punishment

I am a parent, OP, and I can assure you I see the problems, but I'm a teacher too and it is absolutely not possible to keep thousands of teenagers pointing in the same direction 5 days a week without some kind of sanction system.

That applies to workplaces too, but people choose to work in particular ones and and are selected, not just sent there.

I mean, there are countries (Japan springs to mind) that are much more socially, racially and culturally homogeneous than the UK (especially London) so no doubt individual bad behaviour is less common there, but there absolutely will be sanctions for anyone stepping noticeably out of line especially in a way that disrupts others.

I think you are maybe mistaking outward conformity for personal freedom.

If I wanted to get political, I might say that the need for a sanction system shows that UK teenagers have a considerable amount of freedom regarding how they behave, even if the consequences aren't very nice!
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When I was a teenager in the 1980s there were invariably older people - strangers even - ready to tut at you if you transgressed by dropping a sweet wrapper in the street or being rude - and parents always, always agreed with teachers.

Not so much nowadays.

OP I think you fundamentally misunderstand the British education system, which is there to educate children whether they want to be educated or not. This is the key bit. We don’t say “well, you turned up late so you won’t know how to do algebra”, we say “you have to learn algebra so you have to be here on time”. Which means failure to cooperate in the learning process is classed as bad behaviour. And there are sanctions for bad behaviour. Otherwise a small but persistent cohort of children would ruin not only their own education but everyone else’s too, because they are, in some cases, deliberately disruptive. It’s difficult to believe if you are at a cosy little primary school, but teenagers are a different breed.

And how in your world do you sanction bad behaviour, because you seem to not understand that punishment is the consequence of bad behaviour.

You contacted the school over a warning?! I’d be careful if I were you, OP. You’re going to get a reputation if you’re being petty like that and wont be taken seriously when there actually is something worth complaining about.

Ah there's a few I met two both were art teachers which is driving me mad. One is absolutely baffled why her darling who shouldn't have to follow rules is now a guest of his majesty.

The other has two sons, who keep getting picked on by their employer. Both 30+ and can't understand not follow a bloody rule

I've worked in education for 35 years, and in all that time, I don't think I've ever come across a parent as completely deluded and lacking I understanding of young people in this country. This whole thread is totally bonkers.

I’m suggesting that raising a couple of your own kids and managing over a thousand of other people’s kids are very different kettles of fish.

Yes we're gaining knowledge about the world, including the fact that if you do something wrong you should be punished for it.
Just imagine if schools weren't allowed to punish pupils. They may as well give up operating completely.
And in real life we do face punishments. What's jail or a fine? If kids didn't get punished they'd never know what real life is like.

I think you'll find in private schools punishment is more severe! Because the parents who are prepared to pay extra for education don't want their children to be treated weakly.

A teacher earlier in the thread said that the data showed that introducing lunchtime detentions for lateness reduced lateness at her school.

Teaching and raising kids are two very different things.

You really can't see that building a relationship with your own children is any different from managing thousands of teenagers in a building? Some of whom have been brought up very differently from your ds?

I suspect @noblegiraffe has done far more for the good of children over many many years than you have any idea of, OP. How flipping dare you?

The thing is SweatyLama that although you say you want change you don't seem to know what it is or how you want to bring it about.

My older daughter was very anxious about detentions, even though she never had one. She did feel that it would be humiliating for others to know she had broken the rules (she is my Lawful Good child, who is now a TA apprentice who has overseen primary school children who are held back from break and has chilled out quite a bit by her own admission).

My younger daughter doesn't care, and has had a few. She just uses them to do homework before going on to another afterschool club or home. I was like that - it wasn't a loss of freedom, for me it was freedom in the quiet. It was never humiliating - why would I be humiliated to sit quietly in a room like that wasn't what I did most of the time? I get it if a teacher or the school was to publicly shame them, which I've seen but is not often the case.

*But if you've ever attended adult classes, can you recall being punished for being late? Or for not completing your homework?

Yes, I attended a community college in the US where not attending prevents people from participating in sports and other clubs on campus, and can result in more severe consequences including having a low attendance marked on the transcript that follows after leaving. Any job that asks for my pre-UK qualifications can see them.

In the UK my son, who is 20, attends adult education where he is not allowed to be in his room from 9am to 4pm during the week unless he is ill and has followed reporting procedures which involves contacting his course tutor and training provider, and he must ask permission to be absent for any other reason. There are punishments for being late or absent without permission and after the 6th absences without permission, he would get kicked out, much as other gross misconduct like failing one of the random drug test.

He is technically free to leave as he was at secondary, but unlike then, it would cost him - he has a sponsored place and a contract that if he leaves or gets kicked out, he has to pay thousands back - a not uncommon feature if you can get a company to pay for your adult learning. This is the child who chose to be home educated until he was 15 - yes, some kids do get that choice, all my kids when they chose to enter secondary were shown and discussed the behaviour policy, uniform, all the rest. I'm not a parent who argues with a school about the rules we could read and ask them about beforehand. I find that respectful both to the school and my kids. I have chats with my younger daughter regularly - you can make the choice if you're willing to deal with the consequence.

Children in happy families do not sit in the lobby.

Oh dear, that's an interesting assumption, especially when it comes to kids who fall in line with their friends. I find Year 7s particularly vulnerable to this as they adjust.

I'm a governor at a school that has a lot of 'corridor wanderers' (though when I was there in the summer, there were a few wanderers Naruto racing down the hall). Schools are being really pressed to deal with attendance, including internal truancy, it's a safeguarding issue so now they all get moved into a room to study, which can be viewed as a school time detention or a natural consequence to keep them supervised and the classes undisturbed. Some of the kids are from happy families, they may also hate a particular teacher or find the quiet room studying on their own more appealing than a busy class or prefer being with their friends even when they can't talk. Near everything about schools is out of a child's hands and restrict freedom if we want to view it that way - detentions are the least of it - so yes, some push back sometimes because they feel safe enough to do so.

Unfortunately psychologists, psychiatrists and social care are not available on a regular basis to help out with poor behaviour in schools.

No one, least of all me, is saying that every child or even most children behave this badly; but sadly it is more common in many schools than you seem to think @SweatyLama. Even if the majority of children in schools want to learn and behave well (and they do) very poor behaviour from (say) 3% of the students in a school of 1200 is 36 major issues a day to deal with. I’m not sure how many social care staff you think there are in a typical school (clue: none). And there are not spaces in special schools for the disruptive students – who don’t need to be there anyway. The idea of sanctions is to support students to behave better and access learning.

Ah bless you , I have no idea how you navigate life with that attitude but hey ho it takes all sorts but please support your son to follow the rules because the school isn't going to change.

Do you don't actually have any solutions or suggestions ?