the new education teachers of opposite sex can search pupils

[Deliainthemaking]

www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23917943-teachers-granted-search-powers-by-bill-to-restore-order-in-schools.do

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12287022

it chilled me some of the regulations are very abolute power to the teacher ..and not in a good way. The opposite sex teacher can search students is horrific.
to balance it out though the mobile phone rules I agree with something needed doing.
Discuss your views.

"wronged" - "round it"

We did once dig up a weapons cache and have a bonfire on the wasteland at the back of the school and told the Y6 concerned that next time the police would be involved. That was an after school activity.

Well just shows what your dealing with doesn't it, very effective I guess with the children that want to impress their parents and teachers, have respect for the school and it's achievements.

Obviously keeping those children that don't back late and ruining their parents plans for the evening or have them walk home alone in the dark is going to have a massive impact.

I just feel very sorry for the mothers sat in an office who get a phone call to say we will be stopping your child from using the safe transport you've arranged and paid for to deliver them back to your doorstep, so you can now sit there and worry for the rest of the evening until you get home.

Er, mama, what about the kids who don't play sports? Or the schools that can no longer offer competitive sport now that the schools sports money has been cut?

Teachers and schools are, and will remain, 'creative' about punishments (not too creative though!) but they need parental support to make the punishments effective. Inconvenience (for child, family, etc) is exactly why detentions are used.

FWIW, our school has a list of pupils who can't do after school detentions. Some of them are because they are in care some distance from the school and get taxis paid for by the LA (which will only come at certain times), some are because they are carers or have to collect siblings but many of them are in that list simply because they've moaned to mum or dad that "it's not fair". Awwww, poor darlings!

'Er, mama, what about the kids who don't play sports? Or the schools that can no longer offer competitive sport now that the schools sports money has been cut?'

They are not her children. Therefore not of interest.

Since mamatomany has confessed on another thread that she has trouble making her children tidy their rooms without moaning goodness knows what respect they have for teachers. Still if it's a private school and she's paying she probably thinks it's ok for them to treat the teachers like shit.

They are of interest, but more so are the mothers/fathers of these kids who will be put under more bloody pressure by having to sort out either alternative arrangements or be worried until they see their child again.
Children in my class at school got put on detention for forgetting PE kits or DT aprons and other such bollocks.
It was usually children of single mums who didn't have all the time in the world to sort out kit or drop off forgotten items, same faces every week, not effective then and won't be now.

My children are very very well behaved at school, it's at home they are buggers

Jenga079: that sounds a very sensible procedure.

I am astounded that anyone could think inconvenience to a whole family is a fair consequence of one child's misbehaviour. (Perhaps the problem is the terminology, what is inconvenient could be taken different ways. Schools should not be arbitrarily adjudicating this. No child should be kept in after school unless a parent is aware and knows what time the child will be leaving school).

Forgetting equipment disrupts teaching and learning. Failure to be properly organised impacts on employment prospects

No child should be kept in after school unless a parent is aware and knows what time the child will be leaving school).

Which can be done without 24 hours' notice.

Isn't that the point that they are removing this required notice ?

Agree.

But they shouldn't go ahead with the detention until that happens and a parent needs to be able to say "no, not today" (and as I've said, I would happily trade a longer detention or different sanction for DS1 in return for it not happening at certain times).

My school has 2 after-school detention slots a week, worked by rota so that everyone takes a fair share of the responsibility, but it also means that a child is never kept behind without parental knowledge - the detention is literally 'booked in' for the following slot. It means that everyone has advance notice and even if the parent IS 'inconvenienced' it surely should serve to hammer home the message that mis-conduct in schools affects everyone.

Absolutely, they can think of something else, chain them to the rack, put them in stocks, whatever but they aren't going to make any child of mine miss the bus and have me sat at my desk for three hours wondering if they've arrived home.

Well surely you'd tell your child to phone you the moment she gets home mamatomany?

Sorry, but I take exception to "inconvenienced" - maybe I'm being over-sensitive and there wasn't meant to be an implication that the reasons would not be good ones. And I don't want to spill certain personal details on-line. But, please, please believe me - there are some things it is just wrong to do.

< hiding thread now, as this has got a bit difficult for me >

Ah so it's about punishing the parents, right.
And that's just what a working parent or perhaps single parent needs isn't it, punishing ?
And especially when the detentions were dealt out so regularly for stupid "offenses" like forgetting equipment. I'd be delighted to hear it's all changed and now they are only handed out for things within the childs control but I can remember one poor lad from a single parent home who had to drop his little sister off before getting school himself who was in lunchtime detention for being late to school most days.

mama - parents need to take their share of the responsibility. When I was at school, I was more worried about what my parents would say if I got into trouble than I was about any of the teachers. My parents supported the school 100% and were sensible enough to realise that I (or my sister) would very likely present a somewhat editted version of events if it came to that. These days, many parents (like you) don't support schools, leading kids to believe that they can behave any way they want.

And you knnow what, forgetting equipment, if it's somthing which happens again and again, isn't "stupid" - it gets in the way. No PE kit, no pen, no homework, no French book - kids need to learn to be organised. I don't imagine many adults would get away with constantly forgetting case notes for a meeting, or the prepared handouts for a presentation at work without getting pulled up on it.

Fighting parents' unsupportive attitudes is not something teachers should have to deal with. Education is not just something a teacher and a school has to provide and child has to take. It needs to be a three-way partnership for it to work effectively. Your "no child of mine is ever going to do an after school detention" attitude stinks.

Our headteacher used to recruit our school cross country team from the 'late detention' crew.

That was enough to make damn sure we got the bus to school on time ( public transport! At the age of 11! )

We used to sit on the wall and laugh at the poor bastards running round and round the school field.

Those were the days...

As I said, I think persistently forgetting equipment warrants a detention. The little boy who had to drop his sister off is another matter.

And I don't see why parents shouldn't be inconvenienced if they're unable to ensure that their children behave properly in school.

My school has sensible policies, I sought out one that does, I am hardly going to pay out thousands of pounds and then not support the very education I'm paying for am I ?

I'd home educate if I didn't want them subjected to rules, but the rules need to be sensible and keeping a child back after school without the parents being able to make alternative arrangements is not sensible and is potentially dangerous to the very children who are most vulnerable. the ones who's parents won't send a taxi or put themselves out for the child to learn it's lesson and that is why the 24 hours notice was introduced in the first place.

And you know sometimes life isn't fair. Sometimes your child will get a detention unfairly. Deal with it.