..for all the boys in school to miss play...

[correllia]

We have a new head at my son's school. It's a small school of 70 odd children. Last week one child threw a tennis ball down the loo in the boy's toilets.

As the culprit failed to own up all the boys had to remain in the hall when they had eaten their lunch & sit in silence for the duration of play, or until the perpetrator owned up. This finally happened 5 mins before the end of play.

The children therefore had to sit in silence for approx 45 minutes. They are aged between 5-10.

Am I being unreasonable to feel my son has been punished somewhat severely considering the crime (he didn't throw the ball btw!) ?

Opinions please....

It probably led to an afternoon of annoying boys who had not had a good runaround at lunch, so counterproductive.

I had an English teacher who used to do this. He finally gave up when several girls admitted to twanging a pellet across the room to the boys, to let their friends off detention who had to be somewhere else. None of them were the right one, as he knew who it was from the note that was written on it .

clype Haven't heard that for years

One of my work supervisors used to try this trick by giving his current least-favourite colleague the shit jobs, which also meant his blameless co-worker copped for the shit jobs too. When I challenged the supervisor about his lack of supervisory skills his answer was, predictably, silence. He didn't get his job by being intelligent.

IMO, in a school, that sort of hackneyed blanket discipline indicates incompetent teaching.

I do think that schools need to abide by basic due process considerations in applying discipline. Knowingly punishing an innocent person is contrary to basic notions of justice.

*OK so those saying it's lazy, how the fuck would you deal with it?

As a teacher, it is sometimes the only option. If something happens and you don't know who has done it, you have to get someone to own up or someone to grass up. Short of getting every kid to write a statement (takes a lot longer than 40 mins) explain to me God like creatures what you would do.*

Of course it's not the only option. The police seem to manage without imprisoning the whole town for each unsolved crime. Collect evidence, interrogate the prime suspects, put out an appeal for witnesses. If you can't pin it down this time then you probably know who to keep an eye on.

And if no one owns up, what lesson have the children learnt?

Not to let their mates be twats or they'll all be punished for it.....

The police seem to manage without imprisoning the whole town for each unsolved crime.

But interestingly the armed forces use it quite a lot - mass gatings, weekends cancelled etc. Works rather well....

Lying. We have a camera like the one that looks onto the yard. We know when it happpened. We can go and look at the camera or the person responsible can go quietly to the (designated place) during play and own up. If we have to look at the camera, there will be more consequences than owning up and being honest.
Could work until the first time that it doesn't but is underhand.

I hate this too. It is so unfair on the children that haven't done anything wrong.

I would be interested in knowing how often it works. Surely if the child is naughty, they won't care about everyone kept in. That's what happened in ds class anyway. They were all kept in. The perpetrator didn't care, he would have been punished anyway so it made no odds to him.

Lazy, shit and against OFSTED guidelines.

vienna1981
"IMO, in a school, that sort of hackneyed blanket discipline indicates incompetent teaching."

It indicates incompetent management (whether classroom, middle or senior) not teaching,

YNBU. Why should others suffer for the wrong doing of others

I think it's really disgusting to punish all of the children like that, and I don't think it's likely to make anyone own up. When I was about 10, one of the children in my school did quite bad diarrhoea in one of the toilets. The toilet wouldn't flush because of the amount, and there was some diarrhoea spatter on the toilet seat. Obviously the child was ill and couldn't help it, but knowing the cruelty of the teachers, didn't dare tell a teacher, but just slunk away and left it. When the mess was discovered, the next day, the headmistress ordered the guilty party to come forward in assembly for punishment. As if anyone would dare! And they showed no concern at all that a child was ill, they just wanted to punish them. Since nobody came forward, the entire school, even the little ones, were forced to stand to attention in the gym for five hours. It was absolute torture - I had very low blood pressure at the time and almost fainted - and of course the guilty party still didn't come forward. Does anyone know if it's legal to punish children like this? Because if a school did that to mine I would call the police and sue them.

This blanket punishment is happening in my 8 year old's class. The teacher has a timer and starts it after she has asked them to sit on the carpet. She deducts the time it has taken to do this from their lunch time. The problem is that this has been every day since term started. It is extremely 'lazy' as it punishes children like my son who are quick off the mark.

Why do teachers ask on here, 'what would you do?' it is not my job to think a bit more imaginatively about this, I don't receive a salary for the job. I have chosen not to be a teacher and do not need to think about 'my' solution. I've recently been in to my DC's school to discuss my DD's reception teacher's severe attitude that is totally uninviting for a lot of children that are crying their eyes out every morning. She is also very rude and dismissive to the parents- completely unnecessary. The head of year was very approachable but just kept stressing to me the pressures they're under as the school has just recently merged. Of course you can appreciate that but I go think that they forget to appreciate the world outside of 'school' means that people equally have 'pressures' and they are not in reverse asking the teachers or reception staff how they should manage those!

No child will be traumatised by missing one play time.

One of my long-retired teacher friends had a very effective method of getting a confession from her Year 3 classes, but it would certainly provoke a Mumsnet thread if used today! She gave them all a 'magic' sweet which would turn your tongue green if you told a lie....

Not to let their mates be twats or they'll all be punished for it.....

When I was at school, the kids that had enough social clout to be able to affect the behaviour of other kids were the ones that were being naughty. The quiet well-behaved kids would have been laughed out the room if they'd tried to pressure the naughty ones into owning up

My DH owned up to a (minor) 'crime' when we were both at Infant School... He hadn't committed the deed, but the teacher has offered a sweetie to the guilty person if they came forward...
Sweet rationing was still in force at the time, so I'm surprised that she wasn't mown down in the rush...

Yanbu. Blanket punishments are massively unfair and teach nobody anything. Crap and lazy. Imagine if every time a bit of graffiti or piece of litter was dropped the police blanket fined everyone who lived in that postcode.
Or possibly more relevant, if every time a teacher did something wrong, the entire school staff got official warnings, right down to the care taker and crossing patrol.

Lurkedforever1

But it wasn't a teacher that set the sanction up it would have been the head or a senior member of staff.

My school did a blanket punishment for all the boys after a ball smashed a window in the boys loos. No-one seemed to notice that all the glass was on the inside as was the ball...
But only the boys were under suspicion. Shared boys/girls playground right outside the window.