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?

Right, so you have a chip on your shoulder about the teacher.

Well, you have had my best advice, OP. This is a chance for your DS to learn. Don't squander it.

Oddbin

Tell her to get stuffed then. From your posts it seems that this is what you really want to do.

Just don't expect any more second chances next time your son screws up.

Trifle chip on my shoulder about the teacher? That is exactly the type of response that I would expect from a teacher. If we disagree with anything that you say we are teacher bashing. Just because you are a teacher doesn't mean you get everything right all the time teachers make mistakes too.

now now oddbin, you know you are not allowed to say this. Teachers are gods and your child is and always will be the problem

What I'm intrigued about is, say he doesn't do very well and only marginally better than before? Say he has been studying hard. Will there be any assistance for revision techniques. As if the subject has been taught well and your DS has tried hard, there is a failing somewhere and maybe that needs to be addressed rather than detention.

oddbin:

Of course teachers make mistakes. But nothing you have said suggests this teacher is making a mistake. It suggests (to me) that she wants to give your DS a chance to learn what he hasn't bothered to learn before it is too late to learn it. It's up to you whether you allow your bias to rob him of that opportunity. Good luck.

Trifle I would say I have said things that suggest the teacher could have made a mistake. I am happy that he can learn what he doesn't know whether it is because he "couldn't be bothered" or because the teaching was poor. I am not happy with a reassessment or a detention. I have no bias. You seem to have a superiority complex.

Buck yes that is my point as well but hey all I am doing his teacher bashing of course

trifle: "what he hasn't bothered to learn"

Just so you know this is what is getting oddbin's back up. You can't say you are trying to help when using such inflammatory language. Cause he didn't get it doesn't mean that he couldn't be bothered. Tone it down and her response to you might itself be toned down.

Wow since when has being made to resit a test wrong? If my boys mess up enough to do badly in a test I am 100% behind the school forcing them to do it again. Sometimes boys have to do it 3 times. It's a really good way of forcing teenagers many of whom would rather not do any work ever to get their finger out and put in the hours.

Personally I think its a very good idea to resit. Do some more revision, and make sure you know your eggs. Just moving along having failed a test means you don't know the topic as well as you should. Its a second chance; a chance to understand that more work is needed and to see the impact that can have.

Now the detention if that doesn't work should only be if the kids are really just not bothering to revise. I suspect that's pretty obvious to teachers.

But if he hasn't learned it well enough to pass the test, don't you want him to learn it properly? I find it strange that you're happy he's failed and just want him to move on. If I learn that my sons have failed something and are being retested, I think it's quite right; I'll be a bit annoyed with them that they didn't revise the first time but think that the 'punishment' is entirely fitting. The point is for them to get to a certain standard in a topic. Making them revise again and giving them a new test is one way of doing this.

Are you entirely clear on what the test was for, oddbin, or just assuming? Would the date of the resit not be recorded in school systems, so making it apparent it was a resit and how many children had to do it? Could it be for assessing which children should be moving down a set and the teacher thinks the result does not reflect the relevant children's ability, so is giving them another chance? Is it the resit you object to, or the detention afterwards?

Ontop yes it is one way of doing it but it isn't the only way. I have never said I don't want him to learn the material.

Round it is the detention I am objecting to, I disagree with the re-sit but I would not raise that with the school. I would raise the detention. That was just a side comment.

Peanutbutterrules
I suspect if a child is revising, their parents might have an inkling also.
However, what the parents might not know is the quality of the revision. if the child takes craps notes, focuses on the less important facts, this is what the teachers should be able to see and give guidance on. If there is no guidance before the resit, then the resit seems hardly valuable.

My DS has had to do a resit before and the teacher goes through everything to understand where the knowledge gaps are. Or at least that's how DS describes it to me. A quick message on voicemail may not have indicated that to the OP.

Also I am not one of those mothers who complain every other week about everything. I have never complained to the school about anything at all since he's been at high school and he is now two thirds of the way through year eight.

I'm with OP. Kids don't get to resit their SATS, do they? What about GCSEs? A levels? Job interviews? etc.
Yeah they can retake their GCSEs and A levels (often under a different title though) but I got lower than expected in my AS for one subject and had to repeat the year, not just retake the test after some more revision.
This makes sense to me, I struggled because I didn't have the knowledge and understanding, I had a better more involved teacher and put more effort in because I didn't want to waste another year... All he's learning is if he doesn't get it right first time (assuming from lack of effort, not ability) he will be given another chance at no cost. Unless he doesn't achieve on that one either and then gets punished... I really don't get the teachers throughts.

Now if she phoned the parents and said a few kids struggled, this is an important area because of x, y and z and she is happy to run an after school session (or a block of them) followed by a new test if parents agree then I'd call that a bloody good teacher.

You seem to have the reasons for going to school all skewed, oddbin. An assessment is basically to make certain that the child has understood what they have been taught so far. It may well be used for other purposes as well, but that is what they are about. If your son has not understood, he needs to study it more, because education is like building blocks, if the foundation isn't there, there is nothing to build on.

For example if a small child does not understand 2+2, they cannot be taught multiplication, can they?

As for detention, be glad that your son has a teacher willing to put in the extra time that a detention signifies. I live in Mexico and there is no such thing as detention but they call the parents in to talk to them for the slightest misdemeanour. And I say that as someone who was forever getting detention in school

Giving them more time is appropriate. It doesn't motivate any student to hone their skills if they also work under very strict exam question timings from the outset. Perhaps the teacher has realised she needs to go back a step with the timings to allow them to be successful, see what it looks like and feels like and then she will reduce the time.

An exam style question that should take 12 minutes is often given 25 then 20 then 17 and so on - I've seen great success with this method.

I think any parent is being unreasonable to say that their child isn't doing a detention for ANY reason. Presumably you wouldn't follow instructions if the teacher called you and told you that the child would be going to bed at 8pm that night rather than your preferred time? Or perhaps you'd also refuse should the teacher tell you that you need to feed him fish each night. Exactly.

First, how would you propose the school checks that he has learned the material if they don't do another tests? Second, why do you think a detention for bad work is wrong? Different schools have different policies about detention but not paying attention in a lesson, failing to hand in a piece of homework and two or more poor pieces of work have all been reasons that my children have got them. They don't get many detentions but it's usually for that sort of thing. I don't mind detentions as long as they are used for doing the work they should have done in the first place.

“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.”

Good luck with that. It is very common to resit assessments and tests at school to make sure that the child has revised the topic properly. DD (year 12) says they have to resit tests if they don’t reach their progress grade. It is the only way they are going to learn. It isn’t cheating at all.

“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.”
“The point seems fairly straightforward; the teacher doesn't think they've revised the topic sufficiently so wants them to learn it again. I don't think it's about getting 100% - it's about making sure they've learned it well enough.”

I agree Trifleorbust and Ontopofthesunset. It was an assessment to see what he knows and has revised. Clearly he hadn’t done the revision and didn’t know the topic, so he is being made to learn the topic properly this time. There is no point in going on to the next topic if he doesn’t know this one. I don’t understand your objections.

“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”

That’s a contradictory statement. Giving them another opportunity to revise what they should have done in the first place is exactly the right thing to do.

I think it is an important lesson to learn now before your son starts GCSE courses – that revising thoroughly is very important. DD is good at geography. In year 11 she achieved a C in a test because she didn’t revise. The teacher knew she was capable of better and she had to stay behind after school one day and redo the test. This time she only dropped a couple of marks and got an A because she had revised properly. She eventually achieved an A in her GCSE. It was a valuable lesson in what happens when you don’t revise.

Buck3t:

I started off pretty reasonable, Buck. Yes, my language has probably, now, got the OP's back up, but that was after several pages of trying to help her to understand what the teacher is probably trying to achieve and why it makes sense. I'm obviously suffering from a 'superiority complex' rather than coming from a position where I have seen this done and seen it work, and from a position where I have seen some very indifferent teaching as well.

I'm out.

OP, if your son fails his driving test because he hadn't prepared properly would you just rebook his test and expect him to pass the next time or would you expect him to have more lessons and practice his manoeuvres?

Trifle - you've forgotten something; the customer is ALWAYS right.

Seriously I'm not going to re-type all my previous responses to the same questions. Anytime anyone writes a post about anything to do with education it always turns into "poor teachers always being bashed, why can't everyone just think like me, me me me me ME!!!"

Bore off