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?

Wow. Crazy thread this. I agree with you OP. Short of stapling one to his hand, what the heck are you to do? It's a one off, where I would hope the school would remind a 13 yr old to have one, not the parent.

Ridiculous, he's 13, why would they phone you? My ds's school would never babysit the students like that (and mine has ASD), they treat them like mini adults not 5 year olds. There's always someone in the class with a spare pen/pencil.

I'm with the school on this one, especially if they cannot hand out equipment.

@Veuvestar

I ensure my child is properly supplied with equipment at the beginning of every day All the right books, all the right pe kit, all the right stationery, all the right homework. I do not have any control over him leaving it in his locker Sorry, nope, can’t do that

No, you don't. But you don't get then to complain that school contacts you to tell you about his behaviour.

I sympathise op I have a husband who has dyslexia/dyspraxia and he forgets/misplaces things all the time.
It's easy for me to forget sometimes and just snap at him but one of the issues with his condition is genuine forgetfulness and misremembering due to disorganised thinking... I can imagine this being worse with ADHD on top of it.
I think some of the posters are definitely being too harsh if he doesn't do this often.

He has a lot of processing issues, dyslexia and probably adhd, all of which the school know about.

You should have mentioned that in your OP

Bog- thank you

I’m not even blaming his issues- he should have a pen, it’s pretty basic.

But the school aren’t doing anything to help. I guess that why I’m frustrated, there’s a much bigger picture going forward with his learning.

This kind of low level disruptive behaviour is really problematic in schools. It isn’t just one kid it is many, and that’s the problem. They are texting half a dozen other parents the same thing, so that tomorrow will be less disruptive.

Hopefully you will impress upon him when he gets home, how important it is to behave properly rather than brushing it off as a waste of time.

So have you asked your son about the lining up? If he has ADHD I can see how he could forget his pen, but the excuses you've given for why he didn't have a proper pencil case are poor tbh. You need to be working with the school to find ways of helping your son cope, not complaining on here. Sounds like the notes home are code for he was being a pita.

I hope people realise that we can't lend out stationery at the minute. It's not allowed. It's even more disruptive than usual.

My ds used to sell the items in his pencil case for a profit.
I was baffled as to why the school kept ringing me to tell me that he never had the correct equipment or was missing as I kept replacing it.
Then his mate dropped him in it and the penny dropped.
Little sod 🤦‍♀️

Why are my excuses poor? Has no-one ever lost a pencil case before?
He had a ziplock bag as a pencil case for one fucking day.

All my children have been driven nuts by delays in secondary with others not having pens.

They've given out pens - they stoped before covid as they frequently wouldn't get them back - teachers have given out pens they have frequently bought out of their own pocket.

Many times the kids hadn't move classrooms between lessons but had "lost" the pen.

School now has to give out disposable masks as so many forget to bring them first term it spent over £5,000 pounds on disposable masks and was desperate to stop this going forward.

I have diagnosed dyslexia/dyspraxia and strongly suspect older two of mine do as well - organisiation doesn't always come naturally so we make sure we are properly prepared and yes they do have pencil cases but also spare pens and equipment in their bags.

What may be a one off for your child might well be common behavior for others and they may well have a blank policy to be fair and to try and stamp it out. Before mine started secondary I wouldn't have believed how frequently classmates had no pens or how disruptive an occurance it was going to be for my own kids to point they moan about it.

Why are my excuses poor? Has no-one ever lost a pencil case before?
He had a ziplock bag as a pencil case for one fucking day.

I hear you op. My ds also has adhd and lost a lot of stuff (as well as selling it).

He's the same as an adult.

I also have adhd. I lose a lot of things, my phone and car keys. Pens! Its shit it really is

We've had general emails about needing X equipment that will say Y% of students haven't had them along with where said supplies can be bought at discount in school (with the implication that if it becomes an issue, it is expected that these will be bought. They also started to charge for disposable masks for those that forgot them).

I've also had DD1 (14) say she's lost her pencil case or lost her protractor or something, only to find them at the bottom of her bag when I make her pull everything out to check before I'm willing to get her a new one. We've had to have a lot of talks on how to keep enough equipment to hand in different places & looking after things.

Maybe there are better ways, I'm curious if my DDs' school tactic has helped reduce the issue, but it's an issue many schools have different ways of trying to deal with because it is a pain. I'd rather find out through an email to help deal with it than left thinking everything is okay because my child has chosen not to bring it up.

OP I agree with you, and some of these comments are unnecessarily nasty. All these comments about wasting learning time, there are a ton of ways the school wastes learning time, it's not the epitome of efficiency. It's to be expected that kids would forget things in their lockers if they're not allowed to bring their bags with them to class. Teachers have complained forever that pupils forget their pens, maybe tie some to the tables and disinfect them between classes. No wasted learning time then. Obviously nagging children and parents to remember pens hasn't worked well enough so far, looking at the comments, somehow people still forget. Obviously the teachers are always organised and never forgetful. I guess it helps that they usually always teach in the same room and can leave their pens in that room. School helps prepare children for the real world, but of course in the real world nobody ever forgets a pen... If they did people would email their families about it and call them entitled and unpleasant.

Has no-one ever lost a pencil case before?

Things do go missing/get left - but having couple of spare pens in coat pocket/bag pocket is for mine kids common practise. Same with masks one in coat couple of spares in bag.

I've made them check they have everything before leaving house so frequently they all do it now automatically which is frankly not a bad habit to form generally.

If there a pattern of not meeting his needs - might be worth getting in touch with school and pointing out he requires some extra help and this is an example of this - and how can you both work to support him going forward.

All these comments about wasting learning time, there are a ton of ways the school wastes learning time

It's the one my own children have complained most about over the years so clearly not a trival thing to them. Though that's not to say all schools have the same widespread ongoing problem theirs do and it's possible this one may just being officious.

Your attitude is not one that suggests you particularly understand the importance of a collaborative home-school relationship. Multiple people have explained multiple times why these issues, whilst they may seem trivial to you, are actually having a huge impact on children's learning and safety at the moment. Children including your son. Because as much as he appears to be part of the problem, he will also be suffering the effects of the disruption caused by dozens of other children being forgetful and disorganised. His safety is also compromised by sharing equipment.

Given his processing and additional needs it would have been an especially good idea to ensure that he went to school on the first day back with absolutely everything he needed (since you say that his additional needs and his lack of a pencil case contributed to the issues you were contacted by school regarding). We had more than enough notice of schools reopening for all children to check equipment and uniform etc and to get everything ready in plenty of time. I work with children with additional needs and a lot of them (the ones whose parents decided to home school during lockdown) obviously found it very difficult coming back to school after 3 months at home. Unfortunately some of their parents forgot to send them with a snack/their coat/correct equipment etc and it made the first day back a lot more stressful for those children (and staff) that it needed to be.

You are clearly limited in what you can do to address these issues when you aren't actually at school with your son. But if you don't respect and value the rules that the school has put in place, why would your son? If there's a culture in your household of not respecting school rules and of viewing things like this as pretty and pointless, it will obviously impact on your children's attitudes also.

After attending 6 months of online lessons, I’d say about 20-35 minutes of an hours lesson is productive. And I reckon the entire lesson can be precised into 20minutes.
Time is wasted by kids not listening, asking what the homework is, being told it hasn’t been set yet, and repeat!
Asking should they write this bit, should they write it in their books, could they do it in word. And repeat!
At least they all had a pen in lockdown!

Tbh thats schools all over these days imo! Constantly moaning about the pettiest things. My youngest DC is just about to leave school and I cannot wait until there are no more pathetic phone calls about the wrong colour hair scrunchie or blue instead of black socks

How did the school let you know? Individual phone call for each incident (this would be an overreaction).
You mention behaviour points. Does the school have a system where the teacher logs incidents of poor behaviour (no equipment, not following instructions), which need to be logged to spot patterns and escalate and this automatically generates an email/text?

If you feel that he needs additional support in order to follow the rules and Covid-safe procedures that the school has put in place, you need to talk to the school. He won't be the only child who struggles in this regard due to additional needs. But you do need to start taking the rules seriously and try to understand why they are in place and how hard school staff are working to keep the children (and themselves) safe.

Secondary form tutor here 👋

I am tasked with doing a stationary check once per week and my head of year checks that I’m doing it and following up on missing pens etc.

In my role as a class teacher I have to give out 6-10 pens or pencils per lesson. I buy most of them myself as there is no budget.

As a supervisor at break time I can tell you that all of the accidentally lost pens are actually launched across the playground at friends for fun... I pick up the ones that haven’t been stamped on (for fun) and use them in my classroom 👍

Just because there are other causes of disruption and time wasting doesn't mean this one shouldn't be taken seriously. That there are many sources of disruption just means we should help reduce causes when able.

Lockdown lessons are not identical to in-person lessons. Some schools specifically had shorter online lessons compared to what they would do in person in order to reduce screen time and to enable time for some students to have small group work when more support was needed. Not all children had supplies to hand in lockdown either, it was an issue.