to think this teacher was over-reacting (I found it quite funny tbh)

[Ithinkitsjustme]

OK, I do support teachers when kids have been playing up etc, but I got a phonecall from my DS1's (age 15) English teacher
Teacher -"there has been a serious incident in school today and I've called to tell you about it"

Me - (thinking) what's the little bugger done now

• saying "Oh dear, what's happened?"

Teacher - "I have had to fill in a serious incident report that will remain on DS1's file for the remainder of the time he is in school and have had to report to the police"

Me - thinking f**
saying "that sounds bad, what has he done?"

Teacher - "he set off a cap during my lesson"

Me wtf??
"a cap?"

Teacher - "he set off a paper cap during the lesson"

Me serious incident, police, really??
"so he made a loud noise during your lesson with a paper cap"

Teacher "yes, this is a very serious incident, they are explosives"

Me explosives?? really?

Anyway this conversation went on for some time, me pointing out that there are actually more explosives in the crackers the kids pull at Christmas than in one paper cap, her adamant that this is extremely serious. Now, I have no problem with him being punished for distrupting the lesson, fair enough, but a serious incdent - involving explosives. Was she over-reacting or am IBU?

Caps are explosives! One cap on its own doesn't contain much but one roll can do this

and more than one roll even more.

JamieandTheMagicTorch, yep, it's an education doing a random search on t'internet but it was the only site with an image of the type of caps I remember [old gimmer].

I would imagine reporting to the police is more about getting rid of the little sod rather than really worrying about explosives.

Former English teacher here too. I think the woman is barking. I can understand her being cross - what he did was rude and disruptive and deserves some kind of punishment, but calling the police is a gross overreaction. He is 15 years old - teenagers do daft, thoughtless things.

Some perspective is needed here, people - this is just some daft kid showing off to his mates - he's not some terrorist in training!

What the hell are the police going to do?!

Would love to hear how that conversation goes!

hadagutsfull

have you thought about why desks with lids are no longer in schools?
there are two main reasons
1/ obnoxious little shits used them to disrupt lessons
and
2/ The continual dropping of the lids broke them and is was cheaper to buy desks that scrotes could break as easily.

Ithinkitsjustme

I can think of 5 pupils that I teach at the moment who would react in a violent way to your sons actions (I don't work in a specialised SEN school) towards your son, I teach 3 more that would have to be removed due to the noise that he has created.

So your son's bit of fun would cost me many hours on the phone to other parents explaining why their children where upset, no end of time on paperwork explaining what had happened and finally a phonecall to you explaining why your son was in hospital due to another pupil hurting him.

All down to a simple explosive cap.

For those people who are saying it is an over-reaction to call the police this is maybe true if the teacher rushed to dial 999. However most (if not all) secondaries have a school-based police officer working in the school to deal with instances of unacceptable behaviour such as this so the teachers can get on with the job they should be able to do - teach. Ours is fantastic at dealing with lots of issues that would not normally require police involvement but that benefit from it to prevent pupils behaviour escalating.
As for the OP's attitude - not really worthy of comment that hasn't already been made here except to wonder why you don't feel the school worthy of your support if they want to educate your child and his actions are preventing that?

BBJ

You are a teacher? And you refer to kids as 'scrotes' and 'little shits'? For banging desk lids?

Are you a bit burnt out?

Am I right in thinking caps are the same as snappits??

Is the school based police officer, a new thing? Have been a sahm for a long time now, but back when I was teaching I never had this in any of the schools where I worked and I worked in some quite tough schools.

bejeezus

get a grip.

Introduced over the last few years Karma.

You just sound overly aggressive
And worn out
S'all

Thanks penguin.

Wish they'd been on site when I was hit by a pupil or when they turned up stoned!

Is this a particularly tough school, OP? If so, they might be taking a zero tolerance approach, as a strategy to get behaviour under control.

yanbu on seeing the funny side of it, but I think he needs a good bollocking for the disruption, all the same.

OP, they are for out door use only.

Please point this out to your DS. And tell him not to activate party poppers during lessons either.

She may have overeacted but why would you think it was funny? That puzzles me.

Are you going to come back or is that it?

and you sound like someone who has nothing better to do than make personal attacks.

letting one of these off during an English lesson would be very bad

It is just procedure for this to be passed to the police. At my school the care and guidance deputy head has a meeting with the school police officer once a week and this would be passed on at this meeting. The focus will be on who is selling these to underage customers.

Some of our year 11s who can't manage appropriate behaviour this close to final exams have been put on home study already. I would be livid if my last few lessons before the exam were disrupted in this way - I'm using every minute and straining everything to help my pupils do their best, and the vast majority are working extremely hard. Nothing funny about someone trying to spoil that.