teacher keeping children in

[thatsthewayitgoes]

I really would appreciate your views as I'm not sure if AIBU or if teacher is.

Shortened version of events. My 7 year olds class is not an easy one - some difficult characters. Teacher is new and has had to work on discipline in the class.

Yesterday some of the boys were seen wrecking the younger childrens' sports day preparations by another teacher. This teacher apparently didn't see which boys it was so class teacher decided to keep all the boys in for half an hour at lunchtime.

This meant my son missed a club (that I'd paid for). My son denied he'd been involved. He's a little sh*t at times at home but has never been in trouble at school.

I asked the teacher today if he had been involved. He said "no" he knew my son wasn't involved but as he didn't know who had been he had to keep them all in. He apparently told my son and 2 others that he knew they weren't involved.

I explained that my son felt punished by being kept in. He said he's very sorry but he would do the same again.

AIBU to feel aggrieved on my sons behalf? All the girls were allowed out (even though my son swears one of them was involved). Or is this normal? Thanks X

Pearlman - but that's not the fault of the parents, you've chosen to do that. Holidays - you're contracted yearly, surely? Train fares for conferences - why didn't you claim these back? Charge for the extra lessons if they're outside school hours! I have a lot of sympathy for teachers but you're not helping yourself by giving away labour for free and paying for resources out of your own pocket, are you?!

I think it's admirable that you go above and beyond, Pearlman, but that doesn't cancel out teachers actually doing things wrong/making mistakes. They're separate issues and one can't 'make up' for the other.

In all other professions, everybody is human too. And make mistakes. And... are held responsible for them.
In this particular situation looks like the school says "parent, pay up so your innocent kid should participate in a collective punishment"

Not a witch hunt. Just "to make a point" that such practice is not on. Just like teachers do to children.

Cashiers get their wages deducted if there's a discrepancy. Nobody dies either.

I guess i belong to a generation that picked up more negatives from school than positives.

I wouldn't exactly say an individual teacher. School collects money for the club. School does not let a kid to attend while pocketing the money. Seriously the parents are supposed to support?

Seriously - week 1 of teaching school is no collective punishments. And I trained 20 years ago.

It's bad behaviour management. Let it go, though - the teacher is obviously working on it. If it happens again, have a quiet word with someone.

The sheer and utter unfairness of collective punishments sticks with me today. We had several in secondary school from a tutor who could never work out who did what (even though we all knew) and the punishments made no difference, whether through peer disapproval or any other means - we just hated the teacher for it instead.

All those sessions did for us was infuriate the class because we felt helpless and worthless, and the naughty ones just didn't really care about us or the teacher. (I met the ones in question on a train 10 years later and they were no different!)

I wouldn't make a big deal of it myself in this situation, but I would have a quiet word if it happened again/became a habit.

Op, check the school's Behaviour Policy to see if it is allowed. My son's class (year 8) was constantly getting class detentions. The Behaviour Policy stated that it was not permitted to penalise for others' behaviour so we complained and the teachers concerned were reminded about school policy. If there is nothing in the policy, approach the school. This is totally not on to punish your son and weak of the teacher who clearly doesn't want to deal with the situation.

Thanks loubielou - you are correct! Useful to know this is not school policy.
To be honest I have so many gripes at the moment with the school, I'm not pursuing this one - bigger fish to fry. Glad to know the majority think IANBU - I genuinely didn't know if I was over reacting xx

As you have indicated your child knew who was involved, I assume you have encourage him to give the teacher the names of all involved so to avoid the whole class being punished?

I think the teacher was unreasonable. If he knew your son wasn't involved there was absolutely no reason to punish him. Sounds like he didn't want deal with angry parents, which he failed miserably at and thought he could pacify you by saying your son want involved. Punishing them for nothing sends out the wrong message, perhaps next time your son will just take part in it if he thinks he's going to be punished anyway. I would definitely take this further with the school

My DD was punished when the teachers witnessed an incident - and punished the whole year. I did complain. My DS knows and believes in a fair system He wasn't even in the playground but doing a job for another staff member. I think it's unfair to collectively punish as the children are scared of the biggest children causing the issues. They won't say anything to these boys and rather walk away.

A teacher in my children's school used to use group punishment. It was against school policy, so it was put to an end.

The fallout from it though was awful. Yes, bad behaviour can escalate if not dealt with, and a message needs to be sent to the class as to what is unacceptable. However, group punishment is not the way to go. It was completely ineffective in my child's class as he told me 'There's no point in being good Mammy, I still get punished anyway.' That was the message my child learned at 7 - nice.

In no civilised world would the courts jail, for example, all the people who had been in a shop at the time of a robbery, just because they couldn't find out who had actually done the crime.

I suggest you look up 'joint enterprise' - we actually do this, But I agree no civilised country would.

Shit, really sash!? I'll look that up. Sounds outrageous.

I disagree with collective punishments-instead speak to the kids and find out who did it.

Of course! What an excellent solution! And of course children always confess to any wrongdoing, don't they?

Well, what a bloody ridiculous law, sash. Bit from what I have just read on BBC website, it is on its way out.