To think that using peer humiliation as a punishment for a quiet, sensitive child at the start of Year 7 is very bad practice by the school?

[pippalonglegs]

Oh, I need help and advice please. I'm hurting so much for my DS that I can't think about anything else. Please bear with me - it's a story.

Basically, in a drama class the children were split into boys v girls. The boys started giggling and got themselves into a position in which they became helplessly unable to stop laughing. DS commented to his buddy that it was 'as if they were all on drugs'. Teacher (probably stressed) overheard, took exception to the comment and issued a detention. DS came home seeming so sad and withdrawn and was very upset. He told me about the detention and subsequently I emailed the school (Monday), taking great care not to take sides, simply in order to understand what had happened from teacher's point of view. On Tuesday she called me, and left a voicemail in which she said that DS had 'shouted out a completely inappropriate comment'.

I had no contact telephone number so emailed again (Tues) and explained that even prior to this, DS had been struggling with high school transition and was feeling sad to the point of really not wanting to go to school, and might perhaps benefit more from an alternative approach. I asked if we might talk about the detention before it went ahead. She didn't reply on the Tuesday, the Wednesday or the Thursday - in other words, she completely ignored/dismissed my concerns - and instead simply sent him home with a detention slip for the Friday. Of course I was furious, not least because my sensible and genuine concerns had been completely ignored, and I felt I'd been treated as a stupid, interfering parent.

But then the full picture emerged. I happened to be speaking to another parent who told me she had been very shocked to hear what had happened to DS, although initially I didn't fully understand what she meant. Her child gave an account (unprompted by me, I should add) that was identical to DS's. She said that nobody had even heard his comment (which in my opinion merely illustrated a mature understanding of the potential impact of drugs anyway) and that it was only the teacher flying off the handle that caused any interest in it. But - and this is the significant bit - it also transpired from this third party account that DS had been made to stand facing the wall until the end of lesson, and was at that point given the detention. And that was the bit that crushed me. DS is the most gentle, kind and sensitive of boys, has never been in trouble before, and there could have been no need to subject him to that kind of humiliation in front of his peers. Detentions and discipline, yes - but peer humiliation, most definitely no!!!

Suddenly it all made sense. No wonder he had come home from school so upset. And the thing that really distressed me was that he had felt so much shame and humiliation that he hadn't even been able to tell me about it. My heart broke for him. Little wonder that he was unwilling to go back into school to face his peers. Personally, I felt that such a punishment merely lacked a cap with a big 'D' on the front - a punishment more suited to 1913 than 2013.

I set about researching the pathogenic effects and the damage of peer humiliation (which has a profound impact on cognitive development and behaviour in children). Armed with the evidence, I emailed the head teacher with a formal grievance (the substantive points of which were 1. the failure of the teacher to engage with me and 2. the humiliation punishment that was used). That was acknowledged by the head, who said he would appoint his deputy (also the head of pastoral care) to investiagte, and would then meet with me to discuss the matter.

The deputy called me yesterday and Oh. My. God!!!! It has been a long, long time since I've spoken to anybody who was so bloody-minded and unintelligent. In spite of promises by the head, he refused to have a meeting with me, although I asked repeatedly if we could sit down to talk about my complaint. Every time I asked, his parrotted reply was that he 'would not normally meet with a parent to discuss a detention'. It didn't matter how many times I repeated that the detention was the least of my concerns, he wouldn't listen. In the end I even said that I felt like Jeremy Paxman and I said I wanted a straight answer to a straight question - but his reply was the same again!!!

In the end, I said I would redial and speak to the head, which I duly did. Of course, in the intervening minutes, the deputy had skidded down the corridor to forewarn the head and the head was, initially at least, every bit as hostile. We spoke for about ten minutes, most of which was decidedly heated, and I have to say, most (though by no means all) of the anger came from him not me! Clearly, he was unused to being challenged by a parent and he didn't like it at all. I felt his attitude was autocratic, verging on imperialistic - and told him so!! He actually told me that DS wasn't made to stand facing the wall, he was made to stand at the edge of the room, looking away from the class group!! Oh dear. Talk about semantics!!! Paradoxically, his refusal to accept that DS had been made to stand facing the wall seems clearly to indicate that he knew how unacceptable that would have been. I said that kind of ducking and diving, that kind of manipulation was fundamentally dishonest and slippery and wouldn't play out at all well in the press.

At about that point, we had a u-turn and he invited me in to see him on Monday for a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Basically, it would help me to know if anybody else has had a similar experience. I have the meeting next Monday and would really like to know what options I have/don't have. DS is really suffering and has lost a lot of confidence and self-esteem since this incident. I think it's something that he will carry around with him for the rest of his life.

Oh my goodness, op are you on glue?

What Tireddog said, completely agree. That's been the eyeopener for me here. Very unprofessional.

harticus just because I am concerned about the increasing disempowerment of teachers it doesn't follow that my views are to the right or that I read the Daily Mail.

Your child shouted out an inappropriate comment and was made to face the wall. Then was given a detention. Normal school practice I would assume if he was disrupting the lesson.

In my lessons I would have sent him outside but other teachers will use the face the wall. Do not be one of those parents!

He misbehaved, he was sanctioned. Hopefully he will lean a lesson from this

OP, here's a true story about peer humiliation. It happened to a girl in my primary class over 40 years' ago.

See how this compares to what happened to your son.

At my school in rural Scotland in the late 60s it was the practice that travelling children( tinkers as they were known ) were only there part of the year. In my primary class we had a girl who'd been with us for three or four years.

I'd like to think we were nice to her but I suspect we ignored her.

As part of a homework exercise we were given a list of words to make sentences using them. One of the words was an adjective which sounds exactly the same as an adjective in the Doric tongue(the dialect of that part of Scotland) but with a completely different meaning.

This little girl unfortunately used the word in its Doric sense in a sentence which made sense when spoken ,if you knew the Doric word but was nonsense if was the English word. An utter bitch of a teacher spent at least 10 minutes taunting this child about what she'd written, what could it possibly mean , asking other children if they knew and on and on and on, inciting the class to laugh.

I sat there, aged about 8, thinking ,I know perfectly well what the girl meant, as do you (the teacher was a local from the village) as does everyone in this room. And no I wasn't brave enough to speak up.

That was peer humiliation of a child who was already at a disadvantage, was an "outsider" and seen as different. I've never forgotten it, it was bad enough sitting there hearing , goodness knows how bad the girl felt.

Life deals such blows and we can't protect our kids from everything! However, it sounds as though the school has responded very badly to your complaint and I would be more concerned about that than anything else. Beware of defensive/evasive Heads and schools that close ranks at the merest hint of an issue or complaint.

harticus
"The Daily Mail frothers are loving it though"

So anyone who wants their child to learn in a class with no disruption is a DM frother?

You really need to get over yourself.

Kids should not tit about at schools.
Teachers should override the temptation to be rude to kids who are being immensely annoying.
Parents should let teachers and pupils work these things out rather than getting involved, as far as possible.

Tireddog: The posts from several teachers on here letting us know that the staff photocopy planners to pass around the staff room and laugh at, have sweepstakes to see who can irritate a parent enough and can use their power to prevent certain children from going on trips are shameful for the profession.

That was my post - not 'several teachers'. I hadn't seen any other posts in the same vein, but I might have missed them...I posted this:

*I teach a lad with a similar mum.

He's coming along nicely, after a few sharp exchanges between mum &, well, every staff member he's ever come into contact with.

His planner absolutely does not get photocopied on a weekly basis to pass mum's ranting around the staffroom. Nor is there in any way a sweepstake to see who can get mum to ring the HT most in a given half term.

I took him on a residential trip last year. I had to argue quite hard that it wasn't the kid's fault that his mother has failed to deal with the transition to secondary - most of my colleagues were all for putting him on the 'place denied on H&S grounds' list.*

It was a fairly flippant post & I was tongue in cheek in that third paragraph; I can see it doesn't necessarily read like that, so apologies for bringing shame on the profession!

Having said that - when you find yourself on the receiving end of some impressively unhinged & foully abusive rant because you've dealt with Freddy Smith in accordance with the school's disciplinary policy, it's quite helpful to know that Mrs Smith has behaved similarly towards four of your colleagues within the same week. The planner's there for parents & all staff to communicate with one another; it's not a private conversation. If you do regularly fire off three pages of paper-slashing invective in response to your dc getting a break time detention, then yes, it's quite likely to be shared by the teacher on the receiving end - 'woah! You'll never believe what Mrs Smith's said about me this time' - & yes, some parents do attain quite legendary status in that respect.

& given that Mrs Smith is also seldom off the phone to the HT, yes, it can become a source of mordant humour: 'She's only rung twice to complain about you? Pah, lightweight. I'm up to four this term. Bob's winning though - six phone calls, two letters to the Governors & one escort off the premises after she turned up & threatened to deck him.'

I'm not advocating any of the above as a sterling example of professionalism, fwiw. But it does go on.

As I said in my post, I had in mind a student with a parent like this; his behaviour in school & on previous educational visits was sufficiently unpredictable & potentially dangerous to justify refusing him a place on a residential trip, because his attitude was to ignore any staff instructions or sanctions on the not entirely unreasonable grounds that his mum had his back however he conducted himself. I argued that we could manage his behaviour & in fact we were successful in doing so on this particular trip. We even got a thank you card from his mum...

Sorry again for my inappropriate levity in my earlier post. Half term's over now .

raven, I still dine out on the unhinged phone call that followed confiscating a can of pop that a child deliberately opened in my lesson after being warned not too. Apparently by the time he got it back at the end of the lesson it was flat, so I should have stumped up the 50p for a new one. The child was shouting at his mum, telling her what to say, and she was repeating it down the phone. Between that and the parent asking me to write him a quick essay to prove I was clever enough to teach his child, we really like to scare the student teachers!

I really feel for you and your Son. The only advice I would give you for when you meet the Head is to keep it relevant and get straight to the point. Try not to get emotional, and make it clear what you expect to happen from here on in.

Also, tell him you are going to follow the meeting up with a letter outlining what was discussed, and what is promised. In my experience, putting it in writting has a much better outcome.

Good luck.

Oh yes poor son having to stand facing a wall because he was being cheeky how will he ever cope.

The only thing that's going to 'scar him for life' as the OP said is her reaction to the whole thing. Good grief.

How this would 'play' with the press:

1. A Beattie Johnson type will be very sympathetic about your plight.
2. A sadface photo will be taken.
3. You will be in a Daily Fail hatchet job article about helicopter parents/the parlous lack of parental support for school discipline/the youth of today, tut tut.

I think you need a mediator to figure out what you need, and more especially what your DS needs from the school.

You may well have to change schools, if he is so sensitive, he may blossom in a less regimented environment.

Sometimes it's better to have a extra curricular classes where you have vetted the teachers personally and not in the school.

I feel for you, as you are obviously very upset.

I wonder if your DS is picking up your upset?
It's difficult to remember that he is in the school, and you are not, so doing what's best for him is essential.

I hope you get a satisfactory resolution for your DS.

I hope I'm not posting this too late. When I was in year 7, a bully had a go at me and pushed me over. When I got back up and retaliated, a teacher saw me and I got in trouble. I told my parents and my mother was so incensed by how unfair it was she spoke to the head and came to the school to speak to him about it.
Being told off by the teacher in front of my peers and doing a detention was fine. Forever being that pupil who's mother 'stormed into school to tell off the head teacher' made my life in school a lot harder than it could have been.
You've raised your concerns to the school but asking for him to get different punishments from teachers is going to make him stand out and make his school life hard. If he's already sensitive, having a mum who gets overly involved will make him a target. Let him do his detention and learn on his own

I do think you're overreacting, but I also think he only needed one punishment and if he was made to stand away from the class at the time, he doesn't need the detention too.

I can't tell if your DS is genuinely distressed by this or if you think he's upset but actually he didn't tell you in the first place because he knew how you'd react.

If it's the former, I'd say he needs to learn that these things happen. I was really well-behaved as a child and quite shy and I still remember being made to face the wall aged 6 - a massive overreaction to the situation at the time - especially given my age. I later discovered the teacher was going through a divorce at that time and vented her out on all her pupils, so I'm just glad that for me it was a one-off and I wasn't one of the naughty ones! I still remember it vividly, but it hasn't emotionally scarred me - just made me realise that she was a total cow.

If it's the latter - your DS knew you'd overreact / call the school / insist on meeting the head teacher - then perhaps you need to give him some space to make his own mistakes, accept whatever punishment is given and move on. Like I said, it doesn't sound to me like both punishments were necessary, but I can think of nothing worse than my mum flouncing up to school to negotiate my way out of a detention for me. Worse than the punishment itself if you ask me - and definitely more humiliating.

My Ds has been bullied since yr 7 and in yr 11 it still continues not just by some of his peers, but by his form teacher! Ds has always asked me not to get involved until recently when another boy (also being bullied by the teacher) decided to lodge a complaint along with his parent/s, but before I got to do it, Ds said that the teacher had quashed the other boys complaint by something he brought up (made the boy feel small), so we felt that it wasn't worth doing without having someone else to back up the allegation. There are three boys that are habitually picked on, made fun of and treated appallingly by this one adult that should know better imo.

I don't like to make waves with anything, but I get more angry with each day of pain that Ds suffers.

I once complained when Ds was stabbed 4 times in the back with a drawing compass, the same teacher as above did nothing about it, so I brought it up with the head of year and despite assuring me that it would be dealt with, it wasn't! one of those stab points was very close to Ds's spinal cord.

I, as a parent have no confidence in the school to protect my son and the teachers smile nicely at parents evening, but do I trust them? no I do not. I just tell Ds to use the teachers to gain knowledge, pass exams and do well in life, that's enough to thumb nose them even if they never know it.
Some teachers I think, take great pleasure in humiliating young people who cannot or will not stand up for themselves and I do think that depending on the type of personality the child has, it can affect them badly, though some kids laugh it off. Some though can't and it stays with them. I don't believe though, in making a mountain out of a molehill and I do think that children have to learn to weather the storm sometimes and if they have a loving family, I'm sure they will come out OK. Ds will not stay on at school though and I find that a bit sad and that is down to his experience at the school, not his lack of interest in learning.

For I think sometimes you just have to be the adult and do something, even if your DS doesn't want you to.

DD was bullied a lot at school (she's now y12 and all is well, on the bullying front, anyway). We didn't know about much of it, as she kept it quiet and also when we did know, she mostly didn't want us to do anything, so we didn't. That was our mistake. She has now suffering some MH problems, leading to attempted suicide . This is being dealt with and she is having some good therapy, but her problems have been traced back to the bullying she suffered. I really, really wish we could turn back the clock. I definitely would complain at the first sign and not leave it. DD thought she could deal with it on her own, but she couldn't.

By the way, if your DS is Y11, he could change schools for Y12? That's what DD has done and it has done her a world of good.

Apologies for the thread derail, it's just that I feel very passionately about this subject.

Hope the biscuits were nice.

ILove he is hoping to go to a 6th form college rather than another school. I'll support whatever he wants as long as he's studying and happy.
I hope things for your Dd continue to improve :)

Biscuits Shelly?

where's op gone???

I am all for listening to children. But why do we need to listen more to the children who like giggling and disrupting a lesson than to the ones who would like to get on with the class?

To my mind it isn't about mindless respect for adults. It's about intelligent respect for your peers, realising that you are not the only pupil in the class and that your viewpoint is not the only one that matters.

fwiw I have a giggler. The school put him on report last year. I approve whole-heartedly. He needs to learn that other people matter as much as he does, even if they are quiet and well behaved.

And by Yr 7, a child should be quite old enough to realise that the teacher is a person too, that disrupting her lesson and then taunting her with it is humiliating her in public. Far more so than a boy surrounded by his peers and egging them on to laugh at her lesson is likely to be humiliated by being made to turn his face away from them.