Detention for "under achievement"

[oddbin]

School question: DS1 13yo had an assessment and they didn't do very well on some of the questions. The teacher says they can resit that part of the assessment. However if he again doesn't do very well on that part of the assessment he will get a 30 minute after school detention. Is that normal? AIBU to say he is not doing a detention for that?

Maybe the teacher should also serve a detention for not teaching that topic very well then. Assuming of course that your DS paid attention and behaved in class, and did his revision.

Bloody awful way to manage this problem IMO.

Depends. If the teaching was adequate but the revision wasn't, I'd be perfectly happy with that.

How can that be determined?

Difficult. If your DS is swinging the lead in class and not revising at home, why wouldn't you want this sanctioned? If he is working to the best of his ability then that's different.

Which do you believe it is?

Presumably the school would only do this if:
a) the topic had been properly and extensively covered in class.
b) the child who failed had the ability to do well and no reason not to have done the revision.

Assuming the above is true, I'd have no problem with it.

However, if the child struggled academically, had any extenuating circumstances, had missed the lesson/s or the topic hadn't been adequately covered, Id be annoyed.

I doubt that the detention would have been issued if any of the above was true though.

Well I have never encountered this before and he had parents evening 2 weeks ago and no massive concerns were raised... The teacher left this on a voicemail this afternoon and she mentioned other people in the class are in the same position so I am now wondering whether she is worried about a certain number of her students underachieving it may look bad on her

Well, you could start by talking to your child and asking them wtf was going on. I failed various tests at school through poor, last minute revision, esp when I was younger and not very good at revision technique. Consequently, I wouldn't leap to the conclusion that the teacher was at fault and I would want my dc to understand the material covered adequately.

Has your child complained about the teaching or told you they were struggling with a topic? At 13 I'd expect them to be a bit proactive too.

I've only just found out about it now from a voicemail left by his teacher so I haven't been able to speak to him yet. He hasn't mentioned anything to me.

Thats disgusting.
Have we been teleported back to the 80s. She'll have them wearing the dunces hat next.

Presumably she hadn't marked their assessments by Parents' Evening.

Whether or not she is worried about it looking bad on her, she will also be worried about his learning.

What was the subject/topic/assessment?

I did this once - I put most of a class (not mind - this was as Subject Leader) in an after school detention to repeat an assessment. This was because I knew they had had decent teaching and revision materials and there was clear evidence that they, in comparison to other students and classes, had 'downed tools' because they were, collectively, unhappy about the timing of their assessment. It just wasn't good enough and I told them so.

I personally don't think this warrants a detention, not at all. If he or any of the other pupils don't do well in the resit then surely the solution is to cover the parts of the topic they seem to be struggling with, surely?
The fact that other children are in the same position seems to suggest that it isn't down to bad behaviour. Detentions should be doled out for lateness, bad behaviour, late/missing homework, inappropriate/missing uniform etc

Well, that's what I thought anyway. I would investigate further if I were you

See I also don't think I agree with him re-sitting the assessment at all. He has done the assessment and he got a bad score that should be the end of it. I don't agree you can keep re-sitting assessments until you get the score that your teacher is happy with.

oddbin:

Why?

Can you check whether your DS understands the content of the test? Bite size or something? If he does not, I would write an email to that effect & the teacher will have to do some consolidation lessons.

Because of the reasons I wrote. He was assessed with material that he should have known at a time that he should have known it. Giving students more time to revise and resit the test is cheating IMO that is his score and new data will skew the reality.

oddbin:

It won't skew it at all. As as long as the question is different (although still testing the content) it will reflect his learning. It's not like what he needed to know was a secret.

Is it a resetting test or will the results count towards resetting at the end of the year?
I imagine several kids didn't do as well as they should have and it's probably clear that they haven't bothered revising properly.
Teacher is giving them a chance to do it again, and do it to the best of their abilities. I think she's pretty sure that they'll revise properly this time and achieve the score they should have got first time round.
If he still gets a low score and the teacher insists on a detention then speak with her about unrealistic targets but not yet as she's just giving him another chance.

If your ds can resit the assessment now he knows what the questions are, he should easily be able to revise what is needed and achieve sufficiently, assuming he puts the necessary time and effort into the revision.

I very much doubt the teacher would waste their own time holding kids back in detention who achieved a realistic score for their ability. That would serve absolutely no purpose except to demotivate those students.

Example : in my gcse class students are given a test. Student X achieves 60% and I give her detention to catch up on studying the material because she is a very clever student and I know from her classwork and previous test scores that she should have scored at least 80% with adequate revison.
Student Y also scored 60%. I do not ask student Y to stay behind because for her this is an extremely good score. She has struggled with the concepts involved in the current topic and I know that she will hVe had to study very hard at home to achieve her 60%.

IMO that has already happened. Giving students more time to revise because they got a bad score on a test doesn't teach them anything. It's either due to poor revision which needs to be addressed or it's down to ability which also needs to be addressed. But I don't agree with giving them more time, them getting a better score so it looks better than what it actually is. The test has already happened. That is what the test was for. To identify areas of improvement surely. Which it has.

Oddbin resitting the test may not be about data, but to ensure that your DS does actually understand the material.

Why do you think the test is about data?

what sort of assessment was it?

oddbin:

Of course giving them more time to revise teaches them something: the content they didn't learn the first time!

Why are you objecting to him learning and then being tested? So odd.

It's not reflective of reality. You don't get to have that first date over again because you had a zit on your nose the first time and told a few bad jokes. You don't get a second chance at that job interview if you fluff it. Of course he should learn the material but re-doing an assessment? I disagree.

But the assessment is to check whether he knows the stuff. He didn't when he first did it. So it seems sensible to do it again when he's had a chance to learn the stuff.