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?

@NCPuffin definitely sounds like an ARK school with Slant

maisy I think there is a very large difference between having clear rules and enforcing these and marching children through school corridors in silence like prisoners. There has to be a better balance somewhere in between the prison approach and utter anarchy. Most schools in the UK seem to manage it. Schools like the OP's seem to operate on the assumption that the default for all children is that they are bad and require punishment. That's a terrible principle on which to run a school.

I see they make them "say the pledge" at the start of every lesson. The rules also seem to be notably short of any recognition whatsoever of a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disability.

Pengggwn

Thanks this makes a lot more sense.

I would love to see the Sen’s stats on these schools .

I'm absolutely horrified at what I've read OP. Your poor child is clearly not fitting in and you should definitely move them to another school. Just because a school has outstanding Ofsted results (like the one they're at), doesn't mean they're always a good fit, and a school that has poor Ofsted results, isn't always a bad school. I'd definitely look into moving your child so that they can make a fresh start in September.

@Imustbemad00 you say you chose the school because

thought it would do them the world of good as they had a tendency to mess about and be a bit chatty in class.

So your child had a propensity for poor behaviour before starting there.

Also I'm a secondary schoolteacher and we have an isolation room. I'd be very surprised if your child was put in isolation for just looking out the window or just making eye contact. A decision is made to do this after several minor or a single more serious incident.

I do wonder if you're being blinkered by your child's version of events ?

OP has already said she has been called in to school and told what her DC’s supposed misdemeanours are.

Your child's well being and mental health at the end of the day is much more important than the schools Ofsted results, it does not sound a good fit for your child, moving schools definitely would be the best option.

@Imustbemad00
If it's the school I think it is, they do have extra support via Place2Be and there is support for SEND. I would also read their Behaviour Policy and Exclusions Policy as that may help give you the criteria when framing any response or enquiry as to your DC.

I would like to reiterate that my child is not verbally abusove or disruptive. I said my child had been chatty in primary school. As in, happy and chatty, which was generally allowed in the primary school classroom. I had never had a teacher tell me my child had been disruptive or rude in primary.

The first 6 months or so of secondary, my child was in trouble for silly things all of the time. The rudeness is devolving out of frustration at the teachers for being on their case constantly for silly things.

I have also said several times. There is next to nothing on the website or policies about the isolation room. It also doesn’t make clear, what misdemeanours would put a child in there. I feel it’s deliberately kept off of the website. So I didn’t choose the school knowing this. My issue is not just the fact they have this room, but the reasons they use it.

It is very much sensory deprivation. Kept in there for lunch and breaks too. For up ten hours (usually 9). Sometimes two days in a row.

Thank you for the great advice.

And the people basically saying my child must be really disruptive so probably deserves it clearly haven’t read all my posts.

@Pengggwn the point of the list is to show that different children learn in different ways. If I gave you the example of the 10 children in my dc's classrooms who weren't being taught appropriately it wouldn't mean anything to you, so I used examples of famous people.

Going back to @Greentulips' ds. I have two highly gifted children with learning differences. My ds would stare off into space for ages in elementary school. Not because he's naughty or stupid or "deliberately ignoring them" or anything else his teachers liked to think about him, but because he has absurdly slow processing and needed the time to process. He also didn't need to hear the material more than once to learn it. So while he was quietly staring off into space, the other children were being given the material repeatedly until they had all taken it in. Some of his better teachers just let him be and then the worse teachers felt the need to punish him. Ironically, putting him in the equivalent of isolation (sending him to the principal's office) made him very happy as it was quiet and he could get on with his daydreaming/processing, but I wasn't happy because he was excluded from the learning environment. The bullying that ds' teachers did left him scarred for life with regard to learning and a love for learning.
Dd on the other hand has some sort of odd dyslexia (tested a few times, but couldn't quite put their fingers on it) which meant that certain tasks were difficult for her (spelling and arithmetic). But she was so bright that it didn't significantly affect her ability to learn, but because she's so bright, she got bored in class and wriggled and chatted. Her better teachers would let her get on with moving ahead in the textbook and gave her things to do with her fingers which calmed her whole body, and her worse teachers would point to her atrocious phonics and spelling and insist she would never be able to read fluently (This as DD was working her way through the Twighlight series (minor parental fail on this one) at age 7) and tell her she was no good at maths because she couldn't add 1+1 in her head. Dd was punished over and over again for "not paying attention" or even for "reading ahead in the textbook." It certainly didn't help her education or inspire a love of learning. When I finally (OP, I waited way too long to move both my dc's and regret it) moved her to a progressive school and she was allowed to work at the level that she felt comfortable with and in the manner which she needed, she flew ahead (and surprise, surprise was so busy learning, that she stopped wriggling and chatting). She is now 15 and taking university classes along with an absurdly complicated and full high school schedule. She is off to university in a year and planning to double major in popular music and marine biology (with a fallback career as a trophy wife). Perhaps if her teachers had let her move ahead and learn as she needed, she wouldn't have struggled so much in her early years (and might not have been so disruptive in the classroom).

All of this is to say that different children need different types of teaching and you have to recognize what it is that your child needs. Aren't teachers supposed to know how to differentiate in their teaching?

The rudeness is devolving out of frustration at the teachers for being on their case constantly for silly things.

Well, can you provide an example? You say the isolation is for very little, but how rude is he being?

My DS received detention for failing to tick his shirt in - slightly out - during lunch time.

The teacher called shouted twice and DS didn't hear as he was chatting to friends

Had the teacher caught his attention and then asked him to tuck his shirt in - he would've done so. He didn't hear, so didn't comply, so was isolated.

It's a form of discrimination

*My DS received detention for failing to tick his shirt in - slightly out - during lunch time.

The teacher called shouted twice and DS didn't hear as he was chatting to friends

Had the teacher caught his attention and then asked him to tuck his shirt in - he would've done so. He didn't hear, so didn't comply, so was isolated.*

So, no detention he didn't attend, no rudeness or answering back? He was isolated on the spot? I'm so sorry but I find that almost impossible to believe.

My ds was punished for sucking on the sleeve of his shirt (at age 5) while thinking of an answer to a question the teacher asked. The teacher (who was very young and inexperienced) gleefully told me that she had confiscated his shirt (it was an over shirt) in order to get him to stop sucking on it. And then proceeded to complain that he continued to "daydream" even after that. Ironically, that same teacher now (12 year later) calls me up for advice for getting her own child (who also has learning differences) accommodated in high school.

But greentulip not all dyslexic people have the same issues, and even where they share difficulties it is not to the same degree. Add in that different personalities deal with those problems differently and so on, I don't think you can say "dyslexics can't do x".

I think your posts were quite dictatorial and suggesting that "all dyslexics" can't do/have difficulties with. I know from experience that this is simply not accurate.

No he was given a ticket - a copy is sent to the office - the office text to let us know

He had to attend 'the next available isolation' which is listed time/place as they use spare classrooms with which ever teacher has a 'free' slot

My child does see a councillor and is on the waiting list for CAMHS

I didn’t say my child was in isolation for rudeness. Maybe sometimes now, but has been in it since the start of school for sillier things. The rudeness is a new development and is for answering back and questioning authority.

@GreenTulips how do you know your child 'didn't hear'? Cos they told you so? Fact is kids lie. All kids lie. Often kids embellish the truth to make themselves seem 'less bad' if theirs been an incident. I'm not saying your child lied on this occasion - I'm saying they might of. Hopefully the sanction will teach him to keel his shirt tucked in in future

I think in that environment some children feel they can't win - they are constantly getting negative feedback on everything but nothing positive is forthcoming. So why then bother to try? That is where these super strict schools get it so wrong.

@GreenTulips

Why wasn't his shirt tucked in? It's his responsibility to know the uniform rules and ensure he complies with them. He'd have got an instant after school detention at DS's school with no warning.

Sensory deprivation is one of the most horrendous things a school can do to children. It can lead to all sorts of paranoia and hallucinations which can end up being long-term ailments. Get your child out of there, because keeping them there will be the tipping point for their mental health.