is it normal for secondary schools to use fear their induction method for year 7s

[Alevelquestions]

My child started secondary this Wednesday and the school has concentrated on emphasising all the ways they might get detentions. Kids have already been given detentions for not having the right colour pens, for not sitting straight or for forgetting parts of their PE kit. This is within three days of starting. My kid hasn’t had a detention but on Friday he told me he spent the whole day trying not to cry because he thought he’d have detention for forgetting his white board. The school prides itself on discipline but it seems to be at the expense of humanity and remembering these are quite young kids undergoing a major and unsettling transition. Is this the normal approach nowadays? It genuinely makes me so sad.

Best reply on this thread. I wholeheartedly agree with this, word for word.

I can't think of anywhere else were setting boundaries is a bad thing.

In the 90s I used to get a lot 15 minute detentions for forgetting my homework or equipment. I had ADHD diagnosed at 36 years old! I strongly suspect my eldest has ADHD as well. I dread secondary for him.

Most schools take a soft touch for the first week or two especially for thinks like homework being on time to lessons etc but really how hard is it to pack their pencil case and equipment the night before for the next day.

An inordinate amount of time and money is spent in schools having to deal with kids with no equipment who will just sit in the lesson talking and say what do you expect you haven't given me a pen.

Lots of replies on this thread, it makes for very interesting reading!

I'm transition lead in a secondary school, and this process starts for our new Y7s after Easter, when I begin to visit primary schools, talk to Y6 teachers, meet the pupils and put them in tutor groups. Our children have a number of 'transition days', where they visit us and meet each other, and take part in taster lessons (I'm sure this is the same in many schools). Parents are also invited in for an evening to chat with teachers and each other, and 'meet the team'.

The focus is very much a pastoral one; children can't learn unless they feel welcomed and at ease. We currently have a smiling, happy group of Y7 children, who already know the school quite well and are keen to do their best. The focus in lessons is currently on learning routines.

I've picked up any rare problems and contacted parents to offer support. We also have an in-school team who offer a range of planned interventions for anxiety and those who struggled with behaviour at primary school.

If your child is still very anxious over and above what might be expected after the first couple of weeks, it might be an idea to request a meeting with the pastoral leader for the year group. They will provide reassurance and an extra level of support, if necessary.

Some schools will go in hard for the first six weeks or so but once the teachers get to know the students the teachers will relax a little with those who are genuinely trying their best. Most teachers are not wanting their students to live in fear of them.

Having said that the students do need to ensure that they have the right equipment. It might seem like the obvious answer is for the teacher to lend them a pen, but if one child in each class forgets a pen and so lends out theirs at the end of the week the teacher has probably lost 15 -20 pens because most children will forget to return them.

For the first half term or so get them to check their equipment in front of you when packing their bag. Make sure they get used to checking their timetables so they have the correct books.

Have an 'emergency' spare pencil case tucked away at the bottom of the bag, not necessarily fully stocked but with the bare essentials of a 4 colour pen, pencil etc. Have a few cheaper pens / spare whiteboard pen and tell your child they can lend them to a friend (you probably won't get them back but your dc might make a few friends).

Your school does seem particularly draconian, ours gives out warning points before they have detention, however the dc do need to learn to have the right equipment in every class. There are steps you can take to mitigate the risk. Over time your child will start to learn the routines. Having a whiteboard is a fairly essential piece of equipment in many secondary schools, especially for subjects such as maths.

@RedToothBrush 100% 👏👏👏

No. Not all schools. But there's a god awful trend for this crap in many schools. They claim it's about achievement and standards and its proponents say it's how all high achieving schools operate. It isn't.
I've worked in high achieving apparently traditional schools for over twenty years and have never been involved with zero tolerance.

Many schools these days have "zero tolerance" behaviour policies.

These are based on (mostly) ideas from the US and the most famous school that uses zero tolerance is Michaela in London,

Michaela is famous for taking in an ethnically diverse cohort of badly behaved and low achieving children and getting incredible results. They literally change children's lives.

But in order to do so they enforce the rules very very strongly. Children do not talk in corridors. They are expected to sit up and track the teacher in lessons. Etc etc.

Many secondaries now struggle with the behaviour of teenagers. I no longer teach and haven't for over a year but the levels of violence (fighting, punching) and general disruption (running out of lessons, hiding in toilets, blocking toilets and flooding them, setting fire to things) are increasing and secondaries really struggle to deal with it.

In addition many year 7s coming in have had their education disrupted during Covid and are both academically behind and emotionally immature/anxious due to Covid.

Secondaries have had their budgets cut year on year and a lot of the support staff - teaching assistants to run catch up groups, pastoral support staff to help kids who are anxious/traumatized - just don't exist any more as schools cannot afford them.

The cheapest and easiest way to deal with large groups of children who do not know how to behave is to teach them very clearly what the policy is and what the punishments are.

There's a definite class divide as well, with middle class parents who can afford good catchment areas tend to go to schools where there isn't the need for this. So their kids aren't subjected to it.

My son is a new starter and the rules are strict but the idea is for them to be responsible smart punctual and organised.
as parents we should help them. Why did your son not have his whiteboard? Did he check his bag when he packed it? Perhaps help him instead of complaining about rules.

My son’s mobile phone beeped with a Duolingo alert in a lesson because he did not know the rule about switching phones off. The teacher reprimanded him for having it on and reinforced the rule to the class but as he apologised and said he did not know the rule, she let him off with a warning . He won’t do it again lightly.

I think this is becoming increasingly common. I have adult kids (early 20s) they did not experience this level of punishment. However, I have other children and a history of home education. My DD, who has been home educated, via an Internet school since COVID decided last year to go to secondary school for the start of year 7. We have moved areas and she chose to do this in order to meet more children of her own age in our new area. She started 3 days late due to us not being able to secure a school place until then at a local school. On day one she came home crying - she had been shouted at for making a mistake in class, including the teacher humiliating her in from today the class (I complained about this when she left) and getting lost. On day 2 she had her pencil sharpener confiscated as they're not allowed, she was told next time it would be a detention (we had not had a new starter pack at that point due to the delay in school allocation). There was a bell that sounded at the beginning of each lesson to tell the teacher that they could tell the kids to take their blazer off. She lasted 9 days before saying she wanted to go back to the internet school where in her words "they treat you like people".

That's so sad,@urghhh47 and I think shows just how quickly it can affect children who perhaps were otherwise doing fine even in the average primary school.

Its so wrong.

Comments like these are the reason school behaviour is so bad.

You cannot make exceptions. One missed pen from your child might seem like just one missed pen. But...

1. A teacher has several classes throughout the day and if several pupils per class need a pen, that is time wasted (teachers have enough on their plate) handing them out and then pupils don't return them, so then there is time chasing up taking the pens back in.

2. It teaches responsibility. If pupils know they can get away with things then they will soon not hand in homework, be late to class, misbehave etc. Multiply this by 1200 pupils.

Yes sadly this is my experience of secondary school in Southwest too OP. My firstborn struggled a lot because he was a sensitive kid who had never received as much as a warning throughout primary. After 3 years (this was during Covid) he had finally settled and understood not every stern word was targeted at him. Until that point it was belly aches, tears, anxiety and countless meetings with the school but he refused to leave because he was warned other schools much further away were the same and he wouldn’t leave his closest friend, who was his only stability.
I do think some schools are harsher than others and they go out particularly hard on the Year 7’s - it did calm down in my experience once the kids were settled.

It's certainly tried in many UK schools, but there's no evidence base that its effective. Broken window theory. Certainly contributes to anxiety and adult- pupil conflict in schools.
Relational approaches are far more effective.

That’s horrid!!

My sons school give detention for late arrival and I have to tell you the day he forgot to get ready and was still playing games on his phone in bed at 8am....we'll I've never seem anyone act so fast yo get ready at warp speed and run like road runner to get in before the bell.

I quite like it, it totally cured him of any dawdling in the morning.

Came here to say the same thing. We also went private for this reason.

However, we're in Scotland and I do think there's more of a culture of this in English schools though. An obsession with rigid discipline, overly strict uniform policies, and overstepping boundaries by fining parents for taking their own children out of school.

RedToothBrush

Good reply!

They don't take particularly badly behaved pupils actually and they have a dreadful attitude to SEN.
I would say their draconian policies are necessary due to the completely inappropriate site they are in (not enough space by a long shot) it's a remodelled office block.
They get their results through a highly restricted curriculum and drilling. At a recent meeting that was also attended by university lecturers, I was told that many students from these schools are struggling at university where they have to think and research independently without a one page summary to learn off by heart!

Have an 'emergency' spare pencil case tucked away at the bottom of the bag, not necessarily fully stocked but with the bare essentials of a 4 colour pen, pencil etc

Mummy to the rescue! Why not get them to check their bags and take responsibility for themselves?

Teach them - it works.

I can imagine this. I mark gcse papers sometimes and can see the schools that have drilled and have learnt answers ("self quizzing") and they often do well. But yes it's taken the joy out of teaching and learning imho and doesn't set you up for further study.

Well you sent him there. You surely understand what the discipline system is. Its a question to ask at open days.

Taking a tough line is fairly normal. My ds' school does different levels of detention lunch after school and Saturday. You get behaviour points which can add up to not going on reward trip. Forgetting pens would be behaviour points I think.

My ds has raged about the idiocy of some punishments.

I'm bound to support the school. We agree to that when ds joins. I haven't always agreed with detention as such but the school have enough to deal with without me questioning discipline.

Tell me you don't work in school, without telling me you don't work in a school.

@LotsOfFinches I couldn't work somewhere like that at all. I teach English. If I get a class full of identical responses I've done something wrong.
I also couldn't work anywhere that does SLANT. I never sit up straight myself and the tracking would make me really uncomfortable. I'm currently on the waiting list for autism investigation but some of things are really hard for ND students. And sitting up straight on non-adjustable school furniture can be genuinely painful for some students.
I do worry what's going to happen to all the young teachers trained from scripts they have never had to produce their own resources when the new GCSEs come in (in a couple of years).