DD has not settled into secondary school

[winterstail]

I feel the happy, outgoing and loving little girl from just last summer has vanished.

DD has always been fantastic. Keen, polite and affectionate. She was so excited to go up to secondary but it has all gone wrong.

For one thing, DD has struggled with homework and recording it. The teachers mostly give out worksheets and DD lost a couple and got an after school detention for one hour. I've no issue with the detention but the problem is the after school detention seems to serve all 'crimes' - homework and fighting and smoking and swearing and refusing to hand a phone overeviews. So DD was in after school detention with older kids who intimidated her and frightened her. This made her cry in the detention and the teacher told her that it should be a lesson to her. The other kids then followed her home chanting abuse. I complained about this to the school which made them make concerned noises but they were very keen to talk about what led DD to get a detention, not an eleven year old being frightened by 14/15 year olds.

Anyway, as she has now had 3 after school detentions she had to spend a day in isolation which really upset her and also means she can't go on the pantomime trip.

DD feels the teachers think she is a 'naughty' student, she is often singled out in assembly which humiliated her.

She has been self harming, and tried to throw herself down the stairs last night to break her leg so she wouldn't have to go in Monday.

What can I Do? I can't send her back can I?

Then I think you maybe need to withdraw her permanently op, she can’t stay in a school where all the teachers are singling her out and bullying her and basically admitting it. That’s just awful 😔

I'm also a teacher- the strict kind- and my school is fairly strict too. All the things in your first post would be non issues at my school. Speak to her head of year and contact the governors. Do not send her to school. Can you start looking for another school?

No ones suggesting forgetting a few worksheets or shoes is out of the ordinary.

Think we all agree the school are holding a tonne of bricks above it which they drop if the kids dare be - well kids!

But your DD reaction to the strictness and punishment is extreme. It's not the right environment for her. So either the school are strict and support her to manage there or she's moved.

I'd consider keeping her off and saying she absolutely cannot manage that environment and seeing if the school will go a managed move. Schools would rather do this because it's a mutual arrangement and looks better on their attendance etc.

Btw winters I really do know what your DD is going through. It happened to friends DD. She does have a bit of an attitude but handled well she's a hard working student.
After one day where the HOY walked down the corridor outside science and singled her out for punishment for rolling blazer sleeves up (34° outside and were told not to remove them) she actually absconded from school.
Meeting with HOY she was basically told she was singled out because she was "on their radar" because she was one of the students who'd had the most detentions. (3 and this was 2nd term!). They wouldn't discuss why they'd not pulled up the other students who had done the same and wanted to focus on her DS and what she did.
Friend basically said "arrange a managed move to X school or i'll pursue this much higher".
She moved in 3 days and hasn't looked back.

Good luck with school today

Was thinking about you. How was today?

DS1 is in Year 7. He has just been invited to "Get organised" one-to-ones because he is so disorganised - weekly 5 minute meetings with a teacher to help him get to grips with remembering things and being on time - no detentions so far. Your school sounds awful.

My DT1's school punishes for similar. He's in yr 7 but has avoided detention so far.

After school detentions were even given in week one for forgotten PE socks. They only email parents on the same day and I have pointed out that I cannot access email at work so would not know if he had detention until it was too late.

Don't do a button up or forget homework and it's detention after school. Bully my son and physically harm him equals a little chat with HoY.

His twin's grammar is much more relaxed. I see it as our comp's has something to prove by being extreme over stuff it could let go of.

It completely devalues the point of detention, which was for serious issues when I was younger.

I really dislike this petty approach and had no idea schools differed so much until it was too late.

A ridiculous school. Year 7s need help getting used to organisation and homework and at any school I’ve worked at, we would still be focusing on being understanding and certainly not putting them in detentions with the hardened ne’er do wells of Year 10.

It’s this kind of ‘zero tolerance’ nonsense which in my opinion has been caused by the influence of academies and their educational (or controlling) philosophy and is making children dislike school with more and more reason.

For the self harm alone, she needs to be kept off until they deal with this differently. Chair of governors and taking it high up in school is the way to go but I’d advise you to look around for alternatives if at all possible so you have somewhere else to go if they carry on being so idiotic.

Dd's comp is quite strict as it needs to be, but it isn't lacking in compassion and common sense like this one. The teachers are reasonable people. They wouldn't do the day in isolation for three very minor offences and dd has always felt safe, as have others judging by the annual questionnaires they do. It's awful that they implied your dd had somehow brought the intimidation and bullying on herself by getting a detention! Ridiculous.
How is it going op?