To think school should give a reason?!

[bzoo]

DS came home with a detention slip for tomorrow after school. There are options to be circled as to WHY they have received the detention. Options are

1. incorrect/missing uniform
2. incorrect/missing equipment
3. other

Circled is the option other. No other info given except time and place of detention and to bring homework or a book to read.

Aibu to think the teacher should have given a reason?!

DS says that in PE on Friday their first instruction was go to the field and do anything to warm up. DS and several friends ran up the field and started to do the long jump. Whilst I appreciate that long jump is not exactly warming up does this warrant an hour detention after school?

DS accepts he has been given a detention. I accept he has been given a detention. Not sure he is going to 'learn a lesson' as he is not entirely sure why he has the detention! He says nothing else happened in his PE lesson.

So would you expect a short reason as to why the detention has been issued?!

My DS + 'other' usually = dicking about, tbh.

It's not that I am disputing his detention. He is attending it!!

It the lack of information from the school! DS was telling about his friend who is going to tell his mum he has an after school club instead of detention. Whilst telling me DS rolled his eyes and declared his friend was stupid cause parents evening is in a few weeks and his mum will just find out. He told his friend to suck it up!

He does have some sense sometimes!

My dd got a detention in food tech, the slip she bought home just said "behaviour detention"
I asked her what it was for, she said it was because she seasoned her chicken at home, and that wasn't on the instruction sheet.
I didn't believe her, I was convinced she had done something terrible and just didnt want to tell me so I phoned the school.
Turned out she did actually get a 40 minute detention for seasoning her chicken at home the night before. It was not on the printed instruction sheet.

It's not disrespectful to actually want to know what a detention is actually for. If we are expected to support the school and reinforce their rules and support the punishments they put in place, it would be helpful to know what exactly they have done wrong.

"I think we can see the root of your child's discipline problems. You have no respect for the teaching staff and your son has probably picked up on that."

Huh? OP says that even though she doesn't understand why her DS has been given the detention he's going to be doing it. What's the problem there? And where's your evidence that her DS has "discipline problems"? From the sound of the OP there's never been a detention slip home before, so he's not doing too badly. You've imagined a discipline problem and then proceeded to a pop-psychology diagnosis of the imaginary roots of your imaginary discipline problem.

"instead they have imposed a punishment which will take up an hour of their time. How is that being lazy?"

It's not generally the teacher who hands out the detention who supervises it, surely? It's the teacher who happens to be scheduled on a rota basis to supervise detention that particular week and who will be doing that whether there are one or a hundred students in detention across the whole school. The teacher handing out the detention's effort starts and finishes with filling in the detention slip. What's being "lazy" is just circling "Other" with no explanation. What's the point of having a "reason" field on the slip for parents if it's not going to be filled in?

"You need to stop bleating about the teacher being at fault and start making this your child's problem."

Like by... oooh, expecting him to do the detention? The way she is doing and has been very clear that she's doing from the start? If the school wants her to reinforce the lesson "arse about at school and you get your time wasted by the teacher" it would helpful if they told her that the detention was for arseing about, in the space on the form provided specifically for telling parents what the detention's for. Which they haven't. So she can't reinforce the message because they haven't given it to her. Which was the whole reason for her starting the thread.

Tantrums, that is ridiculous. I would struggle to justify that seasoning the chicken the night before deserves a detention to my child. I believe fully that parents should back up the school but this seems unreasonable. The whole basis of rules should be that they are sensible and justifiable for individuals and / or society as a whole, that just seems arbitrary.

You asked a question about whether you should as the parent be given the reason for detention, you are not unreasonable. You gave context to this in your OP (which would have been asked from you by posters anyway) and I don't get the sense you are believing him unconditionally or assuming school is wrong. You as a parent would want to work with school and explore whatever he has done to warrant him detention. You can't reinforce their discipline or discuss the behaviour/reason if you don't know it. I would be peeved too and seek reason out and suggest the form be completed properly in future, giving reason that parents cant cooperate with the school without it.

If I didn't respect the teachers then he wouldn't be attending the detention! He is indeed attending the detention

Just in case you are unaware, as a parent you actually have no say in whether he attends the detention or not. School don't need your permission to give detentions. If you allowed him to not attend, the school would just escalate the punishment for non-attendance.

That's true noble, tbh that was really why dd attended her food tech detention. Otherwise it would have been a 2 hour Friday detention.

I'm actually quite shocked at some of the reasons for detention! Seasoning a chicken the night before!?!?! Seriously!?!?! I'd have tore my son's teacher a new arsehole for that one.

The only time I've objected to a detention was when they gave my son a detention for not having appropriate PE kit. Unfortunately we couldn't buy his size or anything near his size because the only factory that makes the 'official' uniform had burned to the ground meaning there was no stock anywhere.

Tantrums that is beyond ridiculous.

Schools are still run by some spectacular dickheads I see.

Of course the OP should know what the detention is for otherwise why bother to have a bloody form?

And it was an idiotic reason for detention issued by some berk of a teacher dressed with a little brief authority.

I wouldn't dream of stopping a detention. That's a crazy message to give out. Regardless of whether I can legally or not.

I think some of the reasons seem daft when put into a sentence or two. That is probably why some teachers don't like to give a brief reason on a form.

For eg, the chicken seasoning one. Maybe the teacher has had no end of trouble getting the class to follow the instructions - people leaving ovens on and what not. And so she laboured the point the lesson before and then anyone who didn't follow the instructions to a T got detention. Of course she might just be a power crazy nutter, but my point is that often you don't see the larger situation if just given a brief explanation.

You are being thoroughly reasonable and I have no idea why some people are giving you a hard time here.
You are absolutely entitled to know why he's in detention. I work in a school and I do hate it when patents insist their child will not do detention. But clearly you're not doing that. The school should give you a reason and if I were you I'd ring up and ask. You're only trying to be supportive.