School letting me know that ds, 13, doesn’t have a pen.

[Veuvestar]

Oh and he was slow to get in line
Is this the best use of time?
The school has a system of behaviour points
Isn’t this stuff they should just be getting on with, or dealing with.
He lost his pencil case, he borrowed a pen, move along, nothing to see.
Does anyone rises school do this type of thing?

If the behaviour points work anything like the points here, it's almost just like a FYI. My child had one for not having essential equipment, mildly irritating as that particular piece of equipment was fairly subject specific and she didn't have the subject that day, but it just served as a talking point to remind her of the importance of having the right stuff when she needs to. She is SEN but frankly it's not an excuse, she should still have the stuff she needs and has sufficient capacity to learn that she needs to be prepared. Yes if she got worse than a behaviour point, I'd probably take a different view but really it's just a tool to help remind us and her.

@Veuvestar

Catcup- more parents like me? What, that ensure their child goes off with everything that he needs?

Yes, parents who shift the blame from themselves and their child onto the school. It's you and your son's responsibility to be ready to learn. Put the focus back where it needs to be. If you send him off with everything in the morning, then at his age he needs to be more responsible or proactive in having what he needs.

@ffsffsffsffsffs
I don't believe that your ds isn't allowed to take his bag to lessons.
Let's say it's a small secondary. Even 120 kids going to lockers, rifling through bags, locking them back up etc 5 or 6 times a day is going to be HUGELY disruptive. That in itself is going to take 10 minutes out of EVERY lesson.

Stop press! Not all schools do the same thing.
DC's school also doesn't allow bags in corridors because of cost cutting when the school was built. Basically the corridors are too small and would get (even more) congested if they had to allow students and bags down them. Yes, really.

Books are kept in classrooms, so they only things the students need to carry about are stationery items and diaries, which they mostly shove in their blazer pockets. The only time they normally go back to lockers during the day is to get lunches or PE kits. You could argue that students going into lessons, putting down bags, taking what they need out of their bags and then doing the same in reverse at the end of the lesson is actually more disruptive ...

Huge school by the way.

Catcup- you’re being ridiculous. Unless I run round after him in school I can’t ensure he has a pen.

The bag thing is interesting. I asked him again if taking his bag around with him would help, He looked at me like I was crazy! So I think changing that routine would be a bit counterproductive.

However I did get a bit more insight. Their lockers are in their form class and their form teacher often hurries them up to get their stuff because her class is coming in.

@Veuvestar - You are right. Perhaps you should spend the rest of your life making excuses for him instead then.

Or you could teach him how to be more organised, to check he takes his pen from one lesson to the next, to ask a friend for one before walking into the next room.

Otherwise you'll be blaming the hospital when Dr Son misplaces his stethoscope in 20 years time?

My point is, don't blame the school when you need to teach your son to take more responsibility for his equipment.

My DS has a SEN so I get how much of a challenge it is, getting them out the door on time, with what they need to have (this week, it was the watch that was left behind, with the alarm set to remind him to go to his music lesson). The school obviously have a set procedure for when students turn up without the necessary equipment, but don't yet have a procedure for helping your son, and other SEN kids, to develop the required skills to keep everything with them.

I'd use the school's contact as an example to take into a conversation with the SENCO tbh - he had his pen in his locker but still couldn't be relied on to take it into class, what can we use to help him (checklist on the inside door of his locker etc.)? and see what they say. He has the same symptom as other kids who need a rocket up their arse, but not necessarily the same cause. Can you put a pen clip on his blazer pocket with a spare pen clipped into it, to give him a back-up?

Catcup- seriously- do you think I don’t have these conversations with him.
How exactly can I ‘check’ he takes his pen from one lesson to the next? How, specifically?

@Veuvestar

Catcup- seriously- do you think I don’t have these conversations with him. How exactly can I ‘check’ he takes his pen from one lesson to the next? How, specifically?

You can’t check then no.

But as a parent, you can just take in the knowledge that this is happening. Full stop.

Having this knowledge can help you build up a picture of his school day and see where he is coping and where he isn’t, if that is something you wish to do.

This can help conversations with him now if you want, conversations with the school if needed in the future or just something to make a mental note of now and then move on with your life.

From your update it sounds like you're suggesting that the teacher wanting a reasonable transition between classes instead of one group hovering around their lockers (making them late for their next lesson and preventing another class from starting). It seems fairly reasonable to me for staff to get one class out promptly so the next can come in. It's not unreasonable for secondary students to get their equipment and leave. We leave bags in tutor rooms for big assemblies and it doesn't take that long for students to collect what they need after. I'm not entirely convinced that offers particular insight or changes the situation.

No, I was just making the point that the lockers aren’t in a corridor, they’re in a classroom that is being used. By a teacher who is keen to get them out to start her class

"By a teacher who is keen to get them out to start her class"

or making sure the children aren't late for their class.

Both I would imagine

@Veuvestar I’m with you op, I don’t think it’s a big deal and the school could be spending their time and resources better.

All these comments about a teenager being disorganised, it’s a pain for teachers when they don’t have the right equipment, constantly inspecting ridiculous rules about uniforms ( thinking of the girl who wore a pair of ankle socks over her tights in winter), then there are the hair, makeup and jewellery inspections, and the complaints about time wasted dealing with unorganised teenagers, errmm they are teenagers most of them have their heads elsewhere and rightly or wrongly one of most teenagers priorities is their image, fashion, how their peers see them. Image problems aside, surely if the school know there are issues and know they will be wasting time at the beginning of each lesson they find a plan to manage that instead of wasting time noting down every single child that dosnt have a pen, tardy getting into line, got the wrong book, wearing an extra pair of socks etc...then spend time contacting each and every parent all the time, they could have staff in corridors between lessons ensuring kids line up, remind them to check they have the right equipment/books before each lesson, giving them a few minutes to run to their lockers and sort their shit out🤷🏼‍♀️ Surely that would be more productive than going through a arduous chain of events before wasting what 5-15 minutes on the phone with each parent. Then add the fact most teenagers don’t listen to their parents anyway and will just shrug it off when and if the parents say anything.

No, I was just making the point that the lockers aren’t in a corridor, they’re in a classroom that is being used. By a teacher who is keen to get them out to start her class
In any school I've worked in students get moved on quickly from any locker areas because they have lessons to get to. Staff don't want students late for lessons and hanging around corridors any more than they want them late for lessons and dawdling in classrooms.
That's what I mean, it's fairly standard for schools to get students to their lessons on time.

I don’t think the OP was saying that what the teacher was doing was wrong just that it was not an ideal situation for a pupil with processing problems . It is possible to acknowledge the issue this causes for her son without that being in anyway critical of the teacher . It’s basically a systemic problem.

Ultimately it was problems like this that lead to us moving dc ( dyspraxic, dyscalculic , ADD ) to a specialist school for a few years . One size does not always fit all. At his specialist school he was never let off the hook in fact they challenged him more than in mainstream but he was also treated as an individual .

He understands that he has to adjust to the world and not the world to him but rather than these issues being ‘bad behaviour’ they understood that this was a problem he was wrestling with and helped him find strategies to assist him. To see things constructively and sometimes to laugh at himself and put his difficulties into perspective , the world does not end because you forgot a pen for one lesson but it is inconvenient for the teacher and the other pupils, so let’s think how you can prevent that happening again,

He Improved whilst still keeping his self esteem in tact . At 21 and in full time work he still uses many of the strategies he learned in those formative years . It breaks my heart to see so many young people being judged like this , it’s like saying to an elephant we are going to compare you at jumping with all these kangaroos and if you don’t do as well as them it’s because you aren’t trying hard enough.

We know we were very lucky to be able to take this path.

“A bit of a kerfuffle in a lineup or a lost pen isn’t a big deal to me.”

Not to you but multiply it however many times a teacher has to deal with it and it becomes so.

MrsTabithaTwitchit
I see what you mean.

When I've had similar situations (but lockers were in the corridor) I would let students with processing issues pack up a couple of minutes early so they had everything they needed, or if they had forgotten to go to their locker at break/lunch, I'd let them out fractionally before the bell so they could get to the locker in good time and still arrive on time to the next lesson, as long as it wasn't becoming a regular habit as school policy was break/lunch to go to lockers.

If OP's son is in his tutor room then could the teacher have him get his equipment ready when he arrives for registration rather than at the end of registration?

I am a secondary teacher, for the first 10 or so days of students being back at school I was lenient on the equipment issue, after that I have started issuing behaviour points which parents will be notified of automatically about lack of equipment, they have had time to 'get back into the routine' and know what they should have. I tend to be a bit soft and its only on the second or third infringement I add a behaviour point. So the first time parent hears will not be the first lesson.

We are not supposed to lend out equipment, I needed the class to use rulers and couldn't complete the lesson without and then had to spend 10 minutes sanitising them as I had to lend about 70% of the class a ruler.

I tend to buy the pack of 30 pens from Poundland to lend out - they are crap - or I save pens left on my floor for others to use and tell them to sanitise them currently!