Are all Secondary’s this strict?

I agree with you OP. My DC's school uses detentions fairly sparingly and I'm sure that is more effective than what you describe.

The seriousness of touchong a curtain and wriggling feet could vary a lot depending on context.

Looks like a ‘zero tolerance policy’ school which are on the rise in UK. I went to the open day of one and the head was very honest about it and spoke a lot about it and their reasoning behind it. Parents on our local groups speak very positively about it because the kids are given a very calm focused environment and they want to control bad behaviour. Talked to few kids and they said they were very happy that there was no bullying and class disruptions.
Perhaps it’s not the right school for your child.

Yep, this is how most (though not all) secondaries are. Exam factories with no view of the kids as individuals and full of teachers who hate their jobs and seem to find enjoyment in giving detentions. I’ve worked in enough of them and heard the staffroom chat to know. It’s precisely why I decided to teach primary, it’s not perfect, but much better.

I don't think it is unreasonable request for most children not to touch the curtain? Why would they need to touch it?

The overuse of sanctions takes away their effectiveness. The homework being an example. If they get a detention if the homework is not perfect or a detention if it’s not done they know there’s a 99% chance they are getting a detention. So human nature says just don’t do the work. I’m glad my DS’s school really successfully strikes a middle ground and only issues sanctions for persistent poor behaviour or one off really bad things that were obviously intentional. Other things such as making a poor choice get a warning and a chance to use it as a learning experience. Homework is an opportunity for teachers to see who is struggling not a threat to hold over everyone.

Sadly the Academies do seem to be like this.
I am sure it's partly why so many young people have mental health issues and also why young people leave school totally unprepared for real life

Agreed. Friends and family members who are teachers say it is the low level continual disruptive behaviour which stops the learning.
Big flare ups are rarer and will have a reason.

Kids go home and tell parents that they are getting detention for no reason (touching a curtain etc). The reality is more like the child has been told multiple times to leave the curtain alone and stop messing with it. It won’t be a case of ‘kid touches curtain once and gets immediate detention’

I did it myself when I was a kid. Came home and told my mum that the teachers were so strict that if you dropped a pen, you got detention. That was a load of rubbish!
Parents tend to believe everything children say and fly off the handle about it. I can pretty much guarantee that if you were a fly on the wall in a classroom, you’d see the real reason why a child got detention for “touching the curtain”.

I don’t recognise this sort of thing in the school my eldest have gone to- a local grammar with an outstanding grammar ofsted report. My eldest is finished now, middle one is y11. The eldest got one detention in his entire school career.

But the intake is fairly MC, with supportive parents, and low levels of poor behaviour/disruption. Whenever there was an issue (anxiety in the youngest, or a problem at home), the school were very supportive and I felt they really cared about the kids’ welfare and wanted to do what they could to help. I think my kids felt that too- that the school was on their side.

Interestingly, the other local school that other kids went to from their state primary seems closer to your school OP. A lot of disruptive behaviour from kids, detentions given out like sweets. Kids that were just below 11+ level and borderline, now barely scraping passes in GCSEs, and this being accepted as fine. I don’t know what the answer is. These were not ‘bad kids’ at primary at all. It seems in a lot of cases their behaviour and performance trajectory has nosedived since leaving primary. I don’t know what the answer is as to how to fix it. The behaviour is disruptive so the school are more strict… but then the punishments become meaningless so they don’t try.

I do think most state secondaries are like this because it’s basically crowd control so they have to be brutally strict. Unfortunately it’s the sensitive kids who suffer.

My DC were well behaved kids who wouldn’t have says boo to a goose and didn’t need shouting at, or the cattle prod treatment, but they had to endure it nevertheless. Two of them, who are adults now, are, I believe, still suffering ptsd from it. Five years of it takes its toll and I don’t blame kids who vote with their feet and refuse to go in. I wish I’d home schooled mine in retrospect.

I wonder how pastoral care or safeguarding works in a school of this type. As a teenager are you really expected to feel able speak to a teacher about something that's concerning you when they're also putting you in detention for foot shuffling or dropping a ruler?

I’m starting to see this in primary and won’t be sending my child to the state that adopts fairly military esque tendences. I get why they have to but it isn’t great for the ones desperate to be good and living on edge and I think it would be unhelpful for my eldest.

My daughter has a tricky primary class- they were arguably too lax but then adopted the harsher discipline approach including whole class punishments. It’s quite hard for a well behaved 8 year old to deal with being screamed at for something she hasn’t done.

It’s a rock and a hard place situation though- I get some schools have had to go very hard line to get anything done and no-one wants to see total chaos but then people seem to wonder why anxiety has risen and so many kids are school refusing.

It is hard for the non ND/ SEND children if they get punished for dropping pens or touching things they are told not to while other children don't because of their condition. Children are rightly not told about other children's medical or educational needs.
There has always been "that's not fair - (child x) was doing it and you didn't tell them off"
Schoolchildren have always pushed boundaries in class and been reprimanded - it doesn't help now that parents do not support the school when their perfect little angel has done something wrong and sometimes will go bleating to MN that their DC will not go to detention

I guarantee the kid did not get a detention. For "touching a curtain".

Far more likely it was for repeatedly not paying attention. Schools have got clear guidelines involving warnings and consequences and usually there's at least two warnings before a detention is issued. " Playing with the curtain was probably the final instance of not doing what they were supposed to.

Another example would bea kid saying " I got a detention for dropping my pen". What really happened dropped pen and went to pick it up for the third time in lesson because they are passing around someone's shoe they stole out of their rucksack in the corridor....

Most schools set at least an hour homework every night ( across 2 to 3 subjects) so 30 mins is very light

Come on, OP, when I was at secondary school (and it was a comprehensive, not a grammar school), homework was a couple of hours' worth every night. 10 minutes is nothing! Kids have to learn, and if parents don't enforce discipline at home, then the school has to do it.

DC mature a lot from y7 to y12.
Courses at college level have various degrees of self direction depending on the course.

Honestly, no. My DD’s school is not like this at all. She is also Y7. They have rules but they are sensible. They are allowed to go to the loo when they want, they can can talk in corridors, they can use classrooms at lunchtime, uniform rules are quite relaxed, there’s quite a lot of scope to let them think and be themselves. I think the only thing they’d get an automatic detention for is if being seen with a phone in their hand on school grounds. She’s never had a detention. They don’t have loads of homework. They have a behaviour point system and she’s only ever got points for positive behaviours. Friends kids at a local school get a detention for everything and anything, the latest being because they didn’t pass the daily pencil case check. The kids leaving the local high school are only allowed to prom if they meet the behaviour, revision and attendance point system. It seems to run a bit like a prison.

DD school is a single sex selective grammar though and the standard of behaviour is known to be very high. She feels safe at school. They don’t need to enforce punishments and crowd control in the way that other local schools do. I’m very relieved she is where she is.

I’m probably going to out myself with this comment as I’ve been moaning so much about how crazy it is lately. My very well-behaved son has received seven negative points this year and the narratives are completely ridiculous.

-dropping a pen and picking it up
-not having the right pen (he did but another child took it when he went to the toilet)
-dropping a ruler.

The infractions are SO petty. He is such a model student and yet comes home worrying I’m going to be cross he dropped a bloody pen on the floor. It seems to be the picking it up that causes the drama so I’ve had to double up all his stationary so he can just leave it on the floor (where it often gets crushed underfoot 🤦🏻‍♀️)

The people on here who deem fair to get a detention for touching a curtain - do you have a little idea about how many SEN are unrecognised/masked/undiagnosed until well into secondary age or have you been living under a rock?

OP - YANBU.

This doesn’t sound like the school for your child, don’t understand why you would send another? Apply for another, yes maybe more inconvenient distance wise but education is a long journey 5-7 years if progress to 6th form. Did you not talk to existing students at open evening, talk to other parents locally before making choices?

BTW I would hate to work in a school like that and would have hated my dc to go to one. A school with out-of-control bad behaviour is just as bad though.

I wouldn't assume teachers are 'on a power trip'. Classroom teachers don't get to decide the behaviour policies, but they are expected to follow them. Yes, there may be a couple (the ones your dd likes) who are bold enough to not follow the rules, but the kind of authoritarian headteacher and SLT who would run a school in this way are probably willing to make teachers' lives difficult (not just students') if they don't toe the line.

Teachers do not always agree with their school's policies, but most will not be unprofessional enough to show the kids that. Upholding the schools rules is part of teachers' jobs. They can't just opt out.

I think that your DCs school and some of these responses are crazy! Of course that’s far too strict! My DCs school isn’t like that at all, neither do they have students running rampant causing chaos either! We have a behaviour system at our school from 1-4 and every lesson is graded where the vast majority of kids are getting 1/2 (which is the standard). 3s are uncommon and 4s are rare. They get break time detentions for forgetting homework (where they finish it), and after school detentions for repeated infractions or serious behaviour problems. Our school is lovely, and isn’t run military strict either. My kids are not afraid of going to school and they love their teachers.

So they went round a drama studio and where told specifically what they can and carnt touch. Then some deliberately touched something they carnt (curtain). They knew they weren't to touch yet they deliberately did. Yes they should be punished there was obviously some reason they they shouldn't touch it