to be pissed off with the school

[welshbyrd]

My DD is 12. Always on time for school.

However, yesterday, due to the icy conditions, she arrived at 9am instead of 8.50am.

I had an car accident 4 weeks ago, and since have become a very nervous driver, hence her being late,

I received a letter this morning, from her school saying that as she was late yesterday, she had done a 10min lunchtime detention for arrivng late to school that morning

Im tamping, if she was late regular id understand, but she is never late, the weather was far from ideal, and the fact im still trying to get my driving confidence back,

The letter states, please speak to your daughter regarding this issue. Please contact such and such a person should i wish to discuss the matter further.

The problem is, i don want to discuss it further, as im really upset about it, however, not matter how much we discuss it, the fact she has already done the detention, means even if they do see that this is a one off, and usual circumstances, beyond her control,they cant stop or undo the punishment because she has already done it

AIBU to think they should have discc=ussed it with me first, before discipling her?

I think that sometimes schools get a little bit of power and the people in charge don't have the good sense to go with it! In your DDs case they should have asked why she was late and her reasonable explanation should have been sufficient. It would be different if she was consistantly late, in which case the school ought to have contacted you to discuss the situation.

I relly dislike schools blaming children for things their parents are responsible for. If they take umbrage at something you, the parent, has done, then they ought to take it up with you directly.

This extends to their constant fundraising and guilt tripping of parents via the children, but I digress...

Check the school's lateness policy. Dd's school does this too - sometimes and entire bus load of them is kept in because the bus was late. But we know that's the rules. Amd if they don't want to risk it they can get an earlier bus.

If the weather was very extreme then they should probably have givent hem a bit of leeway - but it was only 10 minutes - can't see that it's anything to get really steamed up about.

Again Karma, how do you expect them to talk to every late student and get an explanation out of them? If students found out they could get out of detention by blaming their mums then everyone would do it and lunchtimes would just involves queues of arguing students.

Schools know their own pupils and soon get to learn which children always turn up late and which children don't. It doesn't take all day to ask a child why she was late. Takes 30 seconds. If a child is driven to school by a parent, then it is the parents responsibility to get them there on time. If a child is often late then the school should be taking that up with the parent.

I don't think that many kids are late to school every day and they are probably not all in the same form anyway, so hardly a challenge for a form tutor to ask why someone is late.

There is a difference between being late in the morning (when a parent is responsible for transport) and late to lessons (where the child is already in school and just has to get from one classroom to another).

Karma you've obviously never worked in a school so you don't understand the logistics of registering pupils in the morning and running lunchtime detention. If school starts at 8:50 then by the time the OP's daughter got there registration would be over. The form tutor would have a class to go to and would not have 30 seconds to listen to her explanation. If the tutor did stop to listen, then he or she would have to listen to every other explanation as to why students were late/not wearing correct uniform/didn't have PE gear etc. With 30 students in a form going through all that just isn't possible. The people who run lunchtime detention would not be form tutors and so might not even know a pupil's name, never mind whether they're normally late or not. Rules need to be applied fairly and evenly because if students know they can get out of them by arguing then you can guaranteed there will be plenty of arguments all day long.

YANBU to be annoyed.

YANBU to write a letter to the school.

If she isn't normally late then the teacher should have asked what happened and accepted that.

I do not care how many persistent late comers there are, I don't care if it's disruptive for the teacher, I don't care what their policy is - none of that is a buy out from common sense and decency. Punishing a child for something they have no control over and even more so something which was accidental by the parents is ridiculour.

I would write to the school and I was also point out that she is not just a student with a number, but a child who deserves to be listened to - what happened to their 'every child' bs?

Rules need to be applied fairly Yes they do and they weren't

i agree with the school, she was late so the school followed it's policy on late pupils.

It seems like parents here would rather teachers wasted class time listening to "but my cat was sick," "that car wouldn't start" etc rather than just implementing a very minor punishment (sitting for ten minutes in a room) so that the school runs smoothly and their children actually get taught. People who have never taught really don't understand how time consuming it is to deal with 30 students, try to get them all registered and ready for class and then get off to another class in time so that they're not left on their own. Yes it was unfortunate that she was late and technically it wasn't her fault, but lateness is hugely disruptive to a school and the school needs to have a clear and firm policy to deal with it. If there is a get-out clause for certain pupils then chaos will reign and you can be sure that plenty of parents would be complaining then!

Did she mention the detention, or was the letter the first you knew of it.

WriterofDreams - I would expect my children to be treat as individuals, not as a number.

There is no 'technically' here - it was not her fault and punishing her for something that isn't her fault is not acceptable. It doesn't matter what the punishment is.

If lateness is such a huge problem then tackle the repeat offenders!

YANBU at all. That is a ridiculous over-reaction by the school.

WriterofDreams I am a former teacher so have worked in schools. If this girl was in my form then I would have been aware of her record wrt punctuality and would have taken the time to listen to her explanation. If I genuinely didn't have time there and then, I would have asked her during afternoon registration. Failing that, I would be happy for her to explain at breaktime/lunchtime and then let her get on with her break.
I used to do my own lunchtime detentions. Perhaps things have changed, but I wouldn't feel comfortable sending a child to a detention unclear as to whether they deserved to be there.

I also think that handing detentions out indiscriminately undervalues them for pupils. If a child is given a detention, it should be because they genuinely deserve to have it.

Adults expect to be treated fairly in the workplace, I see no reason why children are entitled to less consideration.

Karma - there are two kinds of teacher - frankly there should only be one kind and that's the ones like you! :)

There has to be a standard policy in situations like this, otherwise it's totally impossible to implement. There are on average 150 students in a secondary school which makes the logistics of dealing with lateness very very complicated. Unfortunately in this situation a student is just a number because dealing with, say 25 late students (a fairly typical number) who come late into school over a space of twenty-thirty minutes is just not possible when you consider everyone has classes to get to and administration to carry out. Schools run to a tight timetable and students have to fit in with this, time can't be wasted on talking to every late pupil to find out what the circumstances were. If a child came in with an injury or crying or something that would be a completely different case and then time would be taken to deal with that student individually.

My students are practicing for SATs at the moment and are learning the process of doing exams, something they're not yet very familiar with. I've stressed to them that there can be no talking in the exam and yet a couple of them have talked. Now, they're good kids and I know that the talking was innocent but I can't just allow it to continue. A rule is a rule - how can a school implement discipline they don't apply in all cases? You can be guaranteed that if the OP's daughter was left off detention because it was her mother's fault then that excuse would crop up again and again and again and parents would be complaining that some children were getting out of punishments unfairly. I would agree that in very exceptional circumstances rules should be bent, such as when a child is ill or suffering in some way but other than that, for a school to run smoothly rules have to be implemented across the board. Allowing appeals and arguments for minor punishments just needlessly eats up time and time is so so precious in a school.

I'm sure the repeat offenders do get harsher punishments such as missing the whole of lunchtime.

Thank you ChippingIn. Nice of you to say so. I don't often miss going to work, but reading things like this makes me want to go back tomorrow.

Seems ruddy unfair to me.

All this 'rules are rules' stuff just teaches children that some adults are a. stupid and b. petty. Which I suppose is true. But still, not idea for a school to teach students authority figures are petty and stupid.

I'm sure I'm coming across as very harsh but IME students actually prefer when a rule is implemented without the possibility of argument. They then know where they stand. Students quite rightly get very very riled up when one child is allowed out of a punishment for some reason. The question is, where do you draw the line? If I say that lateness incurs a warning the first time and a detention the second time (which appears to be what happened with the OPs daughter, as this is her second lateness) and then only implement that for certain pupils, where is the fairness?

WofD - oh so next time she just needs to cry a bit - then she would be treated like a person and not a number - I see!

Deal firmly with repeat offenders then it wont be a huge problem and you would have time to treat the other children like individuals and not a number.

How positively kind of you to allow ill children to be late without punishment

150 students in an average secondary school - I doubt it

The school has to have a clear policy on things like this so that all students understand it. If the policy changes in certain circumstances then it is clearly unfair and discriminatory. If the pupils know the policy and it is applied across the board then there should be no cause for angst. Now if the policy is considered too harsh then this is what the pupils/parents should bring up with the school, in order to have it changed. Usually when a child registered at a school they sign up to the behaviour policy. If you are aware of the policy and believe it to be fair, then there is no point in complaining when it is implemented. Schools are always berated for not having enough discipline. How is standard discipline for 150 teenagers going to be implemented if the policies are open to change and interpretation for individual pupils?

Karma - I hope you do go back when the time is right for you. The schools need all the great teachers they can get!! The ones that understand they are teaching 'people' not 'numbers' and that they are teaching more than 'fact recall' - I wonder how they should recruit to get the kind of teachers we need & appreciate and less of the power hungry monsters that fall into teaching for the wrong reasons.

WofD - of course students love being punished unfairly The 'fairness' is the teacher listening to the student, knowing their history and being the adult - making a decision that is right. There are only problems with that when you have shit teachers who don't make 'fair' judgements. What should happen to the OP's daughter - nothing. She should be able to say to the the teacher that she is sorry she's late, there was a lot of ice this morning and since her accident her mum is even more cautious so it took them a lot longer to get to school and that in future they'll leave even earlier now the weather has turned. End of.

You should feel guilty for making your child late for school. They are not unreasonable to impose a minor sanction.

The 25 late children won't all be in the same class, so will be dealt with by different form teachers. I think it's possible to make time to speak to them at some point during the day.

The fact remains that this child has been punished for something that wasn't her fault. She won't be scarred for life, but will be left with the impression that her school is not fair and doesn't care about her as an individual. Where is her incentive to be well behaved and try hard if it isn't taken into account at all?

I don't think you can be totally inflexible when dealing with children.If the OPs DD continued to be late, then that is the time for the school to have a chat with the OP.

Wrt talking during exams, I think that is a different situation. The children themselves are in control of whether or not they chat through exams. They've been asked not to and have forgotten/not paid attention.

Fair enough, we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think I'm shit teacher because I implement my school's behaviour policy fairly and I'm sure my students would agree with me. I would really admire anyone who could argue with a number of different teenagers every morning on points of discipline, still register the whole class on time, and get to the next class promptly without going insane. On the scale of things this situation seems very minor to me and I'm glad the parents in my school don't get so worked up over things like this. Otherwise my job would be absolute hell instead of the joy it is at the moment.

If my son is late to school because of me or because of circumstances not of his making, then I phone the school office and explain.

He was late last week as on a Tuesday he has to put his brother on the school bus and the bus was late. I got hone asap and then sent him in and took over waiting with ds2 but I phoned the school to explain.

Perhaps if op had let the school know that hers DES lateness was her fault...and partly due to the weather.