DS punished for class prank

[upsideup]

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?

I regularly have children working outside the class, either on their own or with a TA. They are in an area just outside my classroom. There are many reasons why this happens. I am still responsible for the progress of those children, so I may have to go outside the classroom and check in with them/explain tasks/mark what they have done etc. It’s not a safeguarding issue - the OP made it clear the teacher was out for less than 5 mins.

The “prank” pulled was, I’d imagine, hugely disruptive as every child in the room would have been unsettled and giggling, catching each other’s eyes, completely unable to carry on working. That kind of disruption can lose hundreds of learning hours across a year - if it’s not squished. It doesn’t mean the teacher has “a stick up her arse” or is “weak”.