Son’s school is doing my head in

[MoSalahsBeard]

Please tell me if I’m being by unreasonable here.
school have started emailing parents if their child is even 30 seconds late to class. My son is a good kid but was late a few times last week. He got marked with ‘negative points’ because of this. I chatted to the head of year on the phone about why he was late etc, concerned that he had been twatting about and not getting to class on time. She brushed it off and said oh no his lateness is actually on the low side, think nothing of it. So we relaxed about that.

fast forward to this morning. Ds goes to the loo to text me and say that he’s been given a card that each of his teachers need to sign as to whether he is late or not and if he’s even 30 seconds late he gets a detention. I’m confused cos of what the head of year said last week so I emailed her to enquire. She forwarded my email on to the deputy head who replied to me that they are trying to steer ds to be on time, and that because he had texted me during school time they had taken his phone away.

please be gentle in your replies. My mh is awful at the moment. Struggling to cope.

They are trying to instil good life ethics for the future. In the big wide world, your DS will be judged more harshly than the school are doing at the moment. In work, you are judged by everyone and nobody more harshly than your colleagues. I've led large departments at work where I would get the staff to agree and set their own rules of behaviour and believe it or not, being on time was number one. You see, being late puts everyone out, it's considered an act of selfishness, a sign of disrespect to your colleagues. They bothered to get there before time, they were ready for the start but there is always one that everyone has to wait for. Or, if you start on time, the person you have to explain everything to. Don't judge the school, they are only trying to do right by your DS except he doesn't realise it yet. Quite often schools are the only place where these life lessons are taught these days, don't stop or interfere. When he is a lot more mature than he is now, he will be grateful that they took the effort.

This.

Your son needs to get to class on time, simple.

Secondary school teacher here. It depends why your son has been turning up late? 30 seconds seems a bit strict. Sometimes kids get let out of their class late, or got held up in busy corridors /stair cases etc. Anything more than two minutes late we class a genuine lateness.

Tell him to get to class on time. What’s the biggie? He got a detention? Well maybe that’s to remind him to get to class on time… There’s no benefit to you not backing the school up, unless he is being unfairly treated, which it doesn’t sound like he is.