Aibu or is school, regarding discipline?

[Imustbemad00]

Would like any information anyone can give me regarding secondary schools and discipline procedures.
My child’s secondary school is strict. I knew it was strict, partly why I chose it. However, in reality, it is causing so many problems. My child has changed so much since starting there, unhappy, suffering with mental health and has developed a bad attitude problem and I will admit is being quite naughty at school and at home. Im worried.

This brings me on to the school rules and discipline. The school penalises children for looking out of a window, or anything viewed as a drop in concentration or messing around. Even dropping a pen. They have to move through the corridors in silence and not make eye contact with anyone and can’t even mess about at break time. They have to sit and chat and be sensible. It’s like they can not have personalities.

The sanctions for bad behaviour are extreme. My child has spent a lot of time in isolation, which means out of lessons. Not learning. Not talking to another person all day. Not great for a child already struggling with mental health.

The school also give them double detentions, meaning my child is was in school for 9 hours and 45mins today without talking to another child or being in any lessons, arriving home at 6.30pm.

I try to work with them as I know my child’s behaviour is the cause of punishments, but honestly feel they are way over the top and their approach is making things worse. They say that those are their policies and that is that.

I’m thinking of moving schools but worry my child’s behaviour could worsen if boundriers were relaxed. But equally they could flourish if not so unhappy and stressed.

So Aibu to think the schools policies are over the top? Is it normal?

I have honestly never read such guff in my life. Sensory deprivation? Please.

It most definitely is sensory deprivation. It’s a white room, withbwork stations seperated into sections, no windows ect. Not allowed to talk to anybody all day. No break or lunch break. They eat in there.
Start at 8 and dismissed at 5 and sometimes 5.45.

If they can tell the walls are white, that they have no windows to look out of and that there are other people, that is NOT sensory deprivation. I don't think you know what that term means, OP.

When isolation happens often for prolonged periods of time, in this case 9h is far more than 1 or 2 periods, then it does start to become sensory deprivation. People who are excluded or denied normal human contact, when not their choice, may experience heightened distress, hallucinations, anxiety....

They are not in solitary confinement. They have to sit without talking for a few hours. People are talking to them - teachers and support workers. Please do not compare the this to extended periods in solitary confinement or sensory deprivation - it is deeply insulting to victims of torture, and it makes you look daft.

@Imustbemad00 isolation/ inclusion is an alternative to external fixed term exclusion ( being suspended). Which is neither of benefit to the child or the schools stats (although would be a damn sight easier for a school just to suspend A student for a couple of days like they used to do, rather than find staff to supervise the isolation/inclusion room). Fixed term exclusions were so difficult for working families as they had to find supervision etc. With isolation/ inclusion the supervision is arranged for you. So surely a more suitable sanction for just families? I'd be interested to know what you would suggest would be the most appropriate sanction for your child's persistent rudeness and breaking if the school rules.

I was a well-behaved, introverted, academic child but had a personality and opinions, which some teachers didn't like and would have freaked at spending 8am-5pm in one room. I still would, can spend hours on my sofa reading but it's my choice. Totally unacceptable. Can't believe some posters are defending this. These academies definitely manage out certain kids. They want to create nice little worker automatons. Certain comments that anyone with talent should be crushed so that the rest of the kids can get 5 GCSEs to be good worker bees are chilling - of course a good teacher won't need to be a controlling ogre and will be able to discipline without damaging kids and bring out the best in them all, but the teacher brigade here who clearly hate both students and parents would deny that.
The 'if you leave you'll be a loser' comments from teachers are sinister and cult like. OP, get your child out of there.

Totally unacceptable. Can't believe some posters are defending this. These academies definitely manage out certain kids. They want to create nice little worker automatons.

I defend the use of an isolation/inclusion facility because I think it is preferable to temporary followed by permanent exclusion, for the children. It allows others to learn, teachers to teach and it doesn't go on any sort of 'permanent record'. If the student is ending up in isolation - in abnormal school - repeatedly, more often than not it is because they have been patented poorly. That unfortunate reality can't be allowed to stop others from achieving.

*in a normal school

You can't learn like that ..move schools asap

I do definitely support the use of inclusion rooms as an alternative to exclusion. For many reasons. However I agree with PPs for you to withdraw your child from this school. Not because I disagree with the schools sanctions, but as I'm pretty confident you will find you have similar difficulties in another school and what will the common denominator then be??

I really should not be posting before I open my eyes properly: parented poorly, not 'patented'!

I have read quite a lot about these schools where you have silence in the corridors, need to track the teacher at all times etc and they sound like a boot camp. There is no way I would subject my child to it. I would move him. They are not going to suit all children. I was a shy and sensitive child - very well behaved and it would have been a nightmare for me even when highly unlikely to have broken the rules. Find a school that cares about the individual pupil.

My worry would be that you don't always get a choice with school admissions. What would you do if this was the sort of school your child was assigned. If I was called and told my child was in isolation for glancing away from a teacher or having an untucked shirt I'd probably just laugh at them.

SnuggyBuggy

I would home school my child rather than send them to a Michaela-type school.

BUT I will never make excuses for rudeness or disruption. My child will not be responsible for others being unable to learn, and I would tell her, if assigned a school like this in a situation where I was unable to home school, that rules were rules, until we found an alternative school.

I don't think laughing at them would get you anywhere! I agree the lack of choice is a problem. 81pupils have the left the Great Yarmouth Charter School in less than a year, it is run on these lines. 81 pupils!! It ought to ring alarm bells for Ofsted. Many are home educating because no other choice.

I read an account of a Michaela school trip. She thought it wonderful - I thought it was utterly dreadful.

FreshHorizons

That definitely rings alarm bells. I think a sensible approach to managing behaviour is key. Ofsted should definitely be able to penalise the sort of 'zero tolerance' approaches being discussed here, by which I mean 'zero tolerance' of normal child behaviours like momentary inattentiveness. I don't mean rudeness or disruptive behaviour, because I completely support a robust approach to that.

I see a lot of normal school trips when I am out and about and they have all been a pleasure to see.

I am all for a robust approach but it doesn't take a sledge hammer to crack a nut!

Is the school unreasonable about discipline? No, assuming it's clearly explained what the expectations are and what it's ethos about behaviour is.

Are you unreasonable for moving your child to another school? No!, if your child is unhappy to the point it affects their mental health, firstly ask them if they want to move (with them understanding that you support their decision whatever the outcome) and then work from there.

You surely must have understood what the expectations were when you started. A school that strict would have surely made its opinions on behaviour obvious?

FreshHorizons

Obviously people will differ on what constitutes a sledgehammer, won't they? Isolation rooms wouldn't be what they are (essentially ubiquitous) in secondary state education unless school leaders felt they were necessary. And I absolutely believe they are necessary when behaviour is defiant or extreme. Students in our isolation room might have done anything from touch someone inappropriately to telling a teacher to fuck off, to damaging school property, to skipping multiple sanctions for a lower level issue. The alternative is exclusion.

I'm not anti putting kids in isolation but surely it should be reserved for serious things like throwing a chair or swearing in class. I've been in chaotic classrooms where the teachers had no real disciplinary powers and wouldn't want that either.

By 11 I think a child is old enough to learn that there are rules for safety and social cohesion and rules that are just a power trip.

SnuggyBuggy

But there are many less 'serious' things that are still extraordinarily disruptive. For example, a student who comes into school at 9am, goes to lesson 1 and decides that, come hell or high water, he isn't following the seating plan. He gets up, walks around, leaves the classroom to fill up his water bottle, takes his phone out, sings a few verses of a football chant, swings off the doorframe, play fights with a friend, etc. By 9.30 he has ruined any chance anyone had of making progress that lesson. By 3pm, having done the same things in 5 lessons, he has ruined a day's learning for everyone.

What should the school do?

They want to create nice little worker automatons.
Nope.
We want classrooms to be learning environments where all children can achieve. That can't happen if we're busy negotiating with Child A about why they will/won't so the work for the 5th lesson running.
Children deserve lessons where they can be taught and where they can learn free from disruption.
In my class students get a mixture of teacher input, paired work, group work, written tasks where they can discuss as they work, whole class discussion, creative tasks, debates, quizzes, revision lessons, film, extended silent writing. There's support for SEND children and extension prompts for highly able, both of those require me being free to support to maximise their potential.
They are encouraged to debate and question and are taught how to challenge ideas and articulate themselves. They are certainly not being drilled into being worker bots.

But for all of that to happen and for them to learn there has to be clear expectations of behaviour, so I do challenge low level disruption, i do make sure strategies are in place to support those who need it, I don't accept people messing around. Why would I? I want to offer the students the best education I can.
As a student I used to get endlessly pissed off at how often the majority ended up having to miss out whilst miss/sir dealt with the same child over and over again, or work was set to hook those who couldn't be bothered and the rest of us coasted. When I trained as a teacher I said I'd teach with the majority of diligent students in mind. If isolation means that 29 other children can learn for an hour then so be it.

^This! Having spent years of my own education trying desperately to learn whilst some pratt pissed around disrupting the class, I am really sick of the "automatons" arguement. Need to express your creativity by constant backchat, talking, dropping your pen 30 times an hour - try home ed.

I chose a strict school for my kids exactly so they wouldnt have to deal with this sort of shit. Interestingly its very popular for children with SEN such as autism and dyslexia precisely because lessons tend to be calm and quiet. Really we should have a school selection system based on behaviour - except of course the disruptors wouldn't like that either. Not enough attention when 29 others are at it too.eing

Mumsnet like to think schools and teachers can do no wrong which is why you get these posts insisting that the child was in the wrong and all punishments are justified.

Personally I wouldn’t want to send as child to a school where you get detention for not having your shirt tucked in.

OP, your child is resentful of this strict environment because there are so many silly rules they can’t see the use of the sensible ones. Move them somewhere they can breathe.