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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DS punished for class prank

301 replies

upsideup · 26/10/2018 16:07

DS1 is 9 and in year 5.
Last day of school, the teacher left the room for a couple of minutes and DS suggested that the class should all draw back circles on their foreheads and then act normal when she comes back in, he thought it would be a good halloween prank that she would find funny. Most of his class did it, I don’t know how many didn’t but it was only a few.

She didn’t find it funny which is fair enough, it’s not. They were asked whose idea it was and ds eventually owned up, he had to stay in a break to go and speak to the head teacher. I was phoned to be told what he did and that as the ringleader he will have to stay in every lunch time the first week back.
Obviously in the less than five minutes the teacher was gone ds wasn’t able to bully/force 20+ kids into doing it not that he would do that anyway, he mentioned it and they all decided it was a good idea to draw on their own foreheads.

AIBU to think it’s not really fair that he is the only one to get such a harsh punishment from this? And that everyone else who did the same thing is basically let off?

OP posts:
BoneyBackJefferson · 27/10/2018 22:49

Lizzie48

We are not going to know if the others got a sanction as the school won't say. I suspect that the OP's ds will find out when he gets back.

Lizzie48 · 27/10/2018 23:10

I agree. But that goes with the territory where MN threads are concerned. We only know what the OP tells us, so we debate what we think should happen in the scenario described.

MidniteScribbler · 27/10/2018 23:55

I would have thought isolation from the classroom doing schoolwork with a TA would be a good way of handling this?

Sure, schools are just overrun by TA's hanging around with nothing better to do than supervise little twerps who think they are funny.

Thisreallyisafarce · 28/10/2018 06:36

I think a lot of posters think "prank" and imagine Mallory Towers or something, where pranks were presented as a harmless way to get one over on the French teacher.

Which is fine, but...

  • if the girls were caught and identified, they were always punished
  • if they punished, they never complained about it
  • neither did their parents
  • the main pranksters we're not expected to receive extra help on teachers' own time when they failed to achieve their 'target grades'

They accepted that they had done something wrong and had been fairly punished.

Thisreallyisafarce · 28/10/2018 06:36

Were

Urbanbeetler · 28/10/2018 07:19

If you take the number of child hours of learning time lost for a five minute prank in a class of 30, you’re looking at hours of lost learning time. If she’d laughed and told them to wash it off - probably another 300 minutes of child learning time lost by the time they had taken ten minutes each to do this.

Every five minutes lost is lost to every child. It may have been that they were doing independent work which was a vital component of consolidation of a learning aim.

Tell him to use his ‘leadership’ qualities doing something nice for someone out of lesson time. Because it isn’t very nice or funny to distract 30 children and make a teacher’s difficult job of teaching a specific learning aim to a class of very differently abled children even harder.

Lweji · 28/10/2018 07:32

How many actual leaders are known for having been the class clown?

I'll make an exception to Boris Johnson, but his leadership skills are, well, disputable at best.

And comedians, but circles is so lame that I can't imagine this child to be the next Rowan Atkinson.

LeNil · 28/10/2018 08:25

Just as an aside Lweji, Rowan Atkinson was a very serious student who hardly left his room, according to dads friend who was at uni with him.

Lweji · 28/10/2018 08:30

Exactly. :)
I'm also thinking Stephen Colbert.

TeeJay1970 · 28/10/2018 08:38

When I was at school I really hated dickheads like the OP's son. I wanted to learn and to work and became so fed up with pricks own felt it was their god given right to disrupt my education. To make matters worse their parents backed them up when the school complained.

Thisreallyisafarce · 28/10/2018 10:57

Being funny and being a clown are two very different things. You don't go to Oxford off the back of twatting about in class, wasting everyone else's learning time. The next Rowan Atkinson is unlikely to be currently drawing circles on his forehead and persuading his classmates to ape his behaviour.

Lizzie48 · 28/10/2018 11:16

I really don't think the OP is coming back, which isn't surprising really. I think she has been unfairly represented by some posters. She didn't say that he shouldn't have been punished; in fact, she agreed that the prank wasn't funny and agreed that he deserved to be punished. She also said that her DS agreed that the punishment had been deserved and had taken it well. She has supported the teacher in front of her DS.

Her contention is that it's unfair that he appears to be the only one who was punished, and there she has a point. Children do need to learn that doing something naughty simply because someone else has suggested it doesn't make it okay. Criminals don't get let off because they're easily led, after all.

Some posters have made daft comments, about how teachers should have a sense of humour, and that the boy in question had shown leadership qualities.

I do think there is an issue about the teacher having left the class attended, but I accept that it isn't really relevant to this thread. It would be of concern to me, though, in the OP's DS's case, because of the potential for something serious to happen. One child of 9 left alone for a few minutes is fine; a class of 30 9 year olds, isn't a good idea IMHO.

But I reiterate, because of the tendency of some posters to jump on anyone who suggests that any criticism of a teacher means we're justifying a child's behaviour, the boy in question clearly has been a pain in the backside.

hollyhzd · 28/10/2018 11:16

Oh jeez guys, he's 9 years old.

I can see why he's miffed that the others didn't get punished but I guess that's the risk you run when you pull a prank. Make sure he knows why the teacher was pissed off (undermining her authority, lost learning time for everyone) and support the teacher in this one, even if she is apparently a humourless misery.

BoneyBackJefferson · 28/10/2018 11:48

hollyhzd
Oh jeez guys, he's 9 years old.

And at 9 years old he should know better. Posters excusing this behaviour are the ones that are causing the issues with low level disruption in schools.

HarveyNickNacks · 28/10/2018 21:28

I don't give a shit about him being 9. He is stopping his classmates from learning due to his stupid pranks.

The 9 year old me would have been very pissed off with his actions. And I'd have been very pissed off that he'd stopped my 9 year old from learning.

OP - you might see your DS as the class clown and joker. But many of us do not. You need to talk to him.

Lizzie48 · 29/10/2018 07:22

The OP has not said that it's funny, she's always said that he deserved to be punished, and she's said as much to him. Other posters have said this, hence why she's being berated for it.

Anyway, she's left the thread, so no point in continuing to go on at her about it. 

Fairenuff · 29/10/2018 10:59

If that happened to me, I would have praised all the children who didn't take part for making the right choice and not doing something that they knew they shouldn't be doing. And I would give them a consequence such as extra playtime, house points or whatever their reward system was.

BathshebaKnickerStickers · 30/10/2018 07:18

Slightly missing the point but what the bejabbers is a "Halloween prank"....

Do we now do Easter Pranks....St David's Day Pranks.....17th of September pranks....

MidniteScribbler · 30/10/2018 07:26

"Prank" is the new parent lingo for "misbehaving".

BathshebaKnickerStickers · 30/10/2018 07:28

Ah that makes more sense now.....

HellenaHandbasket · 30/10/2018 07:32

Is it against school rules to draw on yourselves? I don't really think any of my teachers bwould have paid any attention.

BrownCowStunning · 30/10/2018 07:37

That's a really excessive punishment for a prank that caused no harm or damage.

Russell19 · 30/10/2018 07:46

As the few posters above have said what does the prank have to do with Halloween? Could it possibly have been red pen to look like a wound or bullet? It just doesn't make sense to draw a circle on your head with no meaning..... if it did resemble a bullet it makes the punishment seem more acceptable.

SillySallySingsSongs · 30/10/2018 08:06

@BrownCowStunning the DS has already repeatedly been in trouble this term. This is just sonething else.

MaisyPops · 30/10/2018 08:11

no harm or damage
But yet again let's ignore the lesson disruption and the fact learning time had to be wasted so some clown can feel hilarious.

I still want to know how happy all the 'no harm' 'hardly a big deal' people would be if their child's learning was repeatedly interrupted and disrupted by a class clown, if their child couldn't get help because the teacher was yet again having to talk to the clown.
It concerns me how many parents on here (sizable minority) seem to think lesson disruption is fine and funny as long as it's the right child.