punishing the whole class, AIBU to make a fuss?

[georgeousgeorge]

So, some bright spark in DS1's class (he's 8 / y4) decided to pour water all over the teachers chair, she sat on it. 35 boys are "in the frame" and have been shouted at by the HOY.

Unless someone confesses they all get a half hour detention.....with the view being that the HOY assumed they all knew about it and that someone is going to dob in the culprit.... However none of them seems to know who did it, my DS certainly doesn't have a clue.

This is teaching my very good DS precisely nothing, he's polite, helpful, good reports, and has never been in trouble.

However, I do support the school, it is generally good.

However for the first time I'm turning into THAT mum - AIBU to make a fuss?

Of course it isn't fair but the school have to send a message that bad behaviour will not be tolerated and if they can't punish the perpetrator, it is reasonable to punish the whole group and expect peer pressure to do the rest.

If you really feel strongly, do as suggested upthread, back teacher up to your son but have a quiet word with him/her about your concerns.

If you have been watching "Educating the East End" you can see the consequences of children who do not respect boundaries and weedy teachers who are either to weak or too PC to assert any.

Rokenswife - how do you know the correct child confessed? Did the child have permanent pen staining their hands?

If it was the last person you suspected, I'd be worried that a particularly sensitive child had decided or been bullied into 'taking one for the team'.

Those of you who consider it 'unfair' - what would you consider a 'fair' punishment, or do you just consider no punishment necessary?

just to be clear, I don't find it funny per se

So why did you have a "silent giggle" at the thought of the incident, OP?

YANBU, it's only half an hour's detention. I think it's better to punish everybody than nobody, it's a massive disrespect to the teacher and has to be seen to have consequences. Plus it's a good life lesson in general: life isn't always fair and I think it's appropriate that sometimes older children have to come to realise and deal with this.

I wouldnot have allowed dd or ds to go this.

Half an hours detention for dd would have meant her being late for/missing dance class most nights.

For ds it would mean messing his grandparents (who looked after him after school) around or making dd late.

Not acceptable for something they haven't done.

YABU, I mean! So used to saying the contrary I mistyped...

I'm assuming that for y4 the detention is a lunchtime one?

pictures, read upthread - this is a primary school; the detention will be at lunchtime.

And, for future reference, detention is a punishment, so is not meant to fit around your DCs activities. The whole point is that it is an inconvenience (that's the deterrent part).

So no one has yet come up with an alternative punishment. Poor teachers -damned if they punish, damned if they don't. All parents of this class should support the teacher and find out the culprit from their children. Surely they can tell if their child is lying. It can be seen how discipline is hard to enforce in schools when so many parents are against punishments.

Picturesinthefirelight

So you would be encouraging them to say who did this then?

PastorOfMuppets

So same question

You would be encouraging your children to say who did this then?

lesson - don't muck about at school, in a world where kids get shot for trying to go.

lesson - the kid that mucks about earns aggro for all the others. So they aren't happy and won't think it is a jolly jape.

hopefully they will also grow out of the no-sneaking thing by the time they leave school. Staggered that allegedly intelligent, non-criminal adults use the term 'grassed up.

An element of 'team' building here?

The OP didn't say it was a lunchtime detention. At my children's primary school detentions were after school.

Also the OP says her child has no idea who did it. So what good is encouraging them to say who did it?

Or are the children being encouraged to pick a scapegoat (probably the least popular or SEN child)

Thinking about it, I remember being subject to whole-class detentions at school, either because of a 'whodunnit' incident like this, or a 'large proportion of the class being unruly' situation.

I was the definition of a hard-working, straight-A good-girl desperate to please the teachers, scared of being punished, and never would have played any part in any of it.

I don't remember feeling unduly scarred by attending these detentions. On the contrary, I think the drama of it was actually kind of exciting and the 'its so UNFAIR!' conversations with friends gave us all something to moan about at least!

"Classroom left unattended for pupils to run riot? More fool them, really."

you say no proof then post this ^^ where is your evidence for this and you haven't answered the question.

Pastor

Xpost on the last part of my post.

pastor

It could be quite likely as we have no idea when this happened.