About School and detention?

[Recallclock]

Prepared to be flamed.

Dd has sen and is according to schools own safeguarding team 'vulnerable'
Because of bullying and lack of options when we moved her her new school is out of Borough.

There has been a few times she has been kept back as a whole class detention because someone else wouldn't shut up talking and missed her connecting bus and got home very late leaving her waiting forty minutes alone at a bus stop and walking through the door at 6.30pm. (her school finished at 4.10pm but even keeping them back twenty minutes means she misses her commenting bus.)

I had a lot of involvement with the old senco who was brilliant and was in contact regularly but a new one has started and I have little involvement with her however I spoke to her on the advice of Mumsnet and asked for dd to be not kept back if she had not been involved due to her issues getting home and if she had to be given recall for herself if it could be done at lunch or if it had to be after school with notice so I could sort collection. She's never had individual recall.

I have just had a phone call now to say she is being kept back tonight as she hasn't done her homework. I'm not impressed she has not done her homework (she does have organisation issues as part of her sen) but she's not done it so fair enough.
I'm miles away with no car and can't get hold of my Dad to get her so my sen child will be on detention until 5pm and isn't likely to walk through the door until 7pm.
She also doesn't know the buses at other times so is going to be in a right state.

Aibu to have expected them to give a sen child 24 hours notice particularly when I have asked and they agreed or keep her in at lunch?

Or do you mean the teachers sending things to parents... Sorry

Call and send things to their parents... Sorry, it sounded as if you were saying that the children doing those things was part of a reward system or something, which made it seem to me like they weren't allowed to contact their parents in their spare time whenever they wanted to.

*are part

I never gave an after school detention when I was a teacher. And just a couple of lunchtime ones.

School ethos seems to have changed so much. There s a "no excuses" school near me where it's detentions/isolation for everything, Each time which we will certainly be avoiding.

Pengggwn is the same on every thread about idiotic rules in schools and parents complaining quite rightly that their children have been unfairly treated. She especially stands out on threads about SN children. She gives teachers a very bad name and I find it worrying she is in a position of authority over anyone, let alone children.

Ah I didn't know her history, thankyou.

And yes tertifying! I know the ethos exists though. There a a fair few "no excuses boot camp academies leaving destruction in their wake .

Pengggwyn, you do know that posters are baiting you, right? You're OK with that?

Most schools have at least one jobsworth plank-headed teacher who can't engage with pupils or parents beyond spitting out chunks of school policy. It's the pedagogical equivalent of "computer says nooooo". Luckily the other staff and SLT in the school generally know this and it's not difficult to just go around that teacher and find somebody with a functioning brain to talk to instead. The real problems come when the Head or SLT are of this type - in that case, if you have a child with any kind of additional needs, it's best to just move schools if you can.

Generally, students like to know where they stand with praise and sanctions - either one being inconsistent is a recipe for disaster. Apologies if this was not your intention but your post comes across as generalising that strict teachers (you know strict teachers can also be fair?) have awful classes and fun/happy/easygoing teachers have great classes. Absolutely not the case across the board and I do get the impression that you direct experience with your DC has lead to very sweeping statements from you that don't necessarily help the OP.
I took it that way too. It read (perhaps unintentionally) as studnets misbehave for strict teachers and behave for teachers who are softer or they like.
My experience is like yours. Students do appreciate strict teachers with boundaries as part if a bigger picture of 'i have high expectations because i care'. They love consistency for all things positive and negative, although being teens they grumble about how unfair you are on the negatives.
It is about consistency and fairness.

For what it's worth, I teach some very opinionated students who are very open about which teachers are a joke and it is almost exclusively 2 types of teacher:

1. Teachers who are lax on discipline, are inconsistent and try to be cool or matey. Soft ones (abd usually the ones they hold up as examples 'But Mr So ajd So lets us..')
2. Teachers who consider themselves strict but really are inconsistent with their discipline or are utterly unreasonable.

I have my own silly quirks and expectations (like wanting full dates written and underlined, no short dates etc) and students accept them because 'that's just what Mrs Pops is like'. We joke about how obsessed I am with rules (eveb ones that get a slating on MN) but it'll all good natured because they know I'm fair and I care. That and the fact that I remind thrm that I may not personally choose to have all our rules but when I sign up to work here, I am signing up to a package - just like they are.
If i nagged them how I do but was inconsistent or they didn't think I cared then they would probably be PITAs.

That was not my intention, I hope I clarified that in my later posts

Shedmicehugh
I missed that bit. Thought you were replying to a different poster/idea on the thread.

My post was to Peng. I was trying to say generally children want to do well and respond well to positive reinforcements, rather than negative.

That is if you are teaching from a perspective of motivating children, rather than a do as I say or else approach!

I’m not saying sanctions should not be used, just dishing them out like smarties, does nothing but cause resentment and break relationships and trust.

I'd be unhappy with a school where there's instant detentions every time homework is forgotten but I can see it suits some children and the strict schools are popular!

I think students have more respect for a teacher who has the intelligence to distinguish between a "flimsy excuse" and a genuine reason, rather than one who simply chirrups "No exceptions! I said Monday! Detention!" without bothering to listen or consider the other human being in the equation. And if the excuse is flimsy, and the detention is given as promised, I think students respect that too, even if they grumble about it.

Consistency and fairness are hugely important, but one should beware of implementing blunt-instrument policies at the expense of using one's judgement, because that becomes unfair and undermines the student-teacher relationship, imo.

Why as a parent, would I have no idea of what I’m talking about?

I know what works for my children...

Nobody knows your children better than you.

But in schools, nobody knows how kids operate in groups better than teachers. Managing a child on their own is very different to managing a child in a small group. And that is very different to managing kids in large groups.

An effective teacher knows that you can still be warm and pleasant with a large group, but you have to have an edge of intolerance as a teacher or everything ends up being accepted.

You have taken part of my comment out of context.

My dd prefers the strict but fair teachers. She actually complained last year about how fed up she was that her lessons in one particular subject were being disrupted by behaviour on more than one occasion to a staff member.

Her report says that she always does her homework.

The only situation we have now is a broken relationship with a teacher and a pupil. Dd is black and white and very literal and holds a grudge. She responds massively to teacher praise and if a teacher praises her she will work her socks off for them.

The problem is now
She doesn't think it was fair that she was given after school detention immediately when she usually hands it in.
She doesn't think it's fair because she is 99% sure that she handed it in to the cover teacher and cannot check so it isn't 'right'
She doesn't think it's fair that the teacher ignored senco as again it's not 'right'

So now all I have is a kid who doesn't like her teacher anymore and won't work her hardest for her.

I appreciate this is dds problem not the teachers but it is still incredibly frustrating because nothing I say will change her mind.

Your DD isn’t to blame. The whole situation was handled very badly. It was not fair, your DD is right!

Arrange a meeting with the teacher, with your DD, let her voice her concerns and let the teacher explain.