After school detention - AIBU to say no

[Florasnotin]

DD and DS missed the school bus this morning. Completely my fault, I took their phones from them last night and forgot to set the alarm. They caught the public bus and were 15 mins late.

They've both been given an after school detention on Monday.

AIBU to say no. Punishment doesn't really fit the crime and it wasn't even their fault. I've always stood by the school when it comes to discipline but this seems overly harsh

Sigh. Whingeing parents are one of the most trying aspects to running a school. Nearly all of them don’t see that they are passing on their attitude to their child. Same child will grow up and whinge to their employer about it not being their fault they were late for work.

You are expected to turn up on time. Unless there is a good reason, there are clear consequences if you don’t. In this case, OP, no, there wasn’t a good enough reaason. “I forgot to set the alarm” isn’t a good enough reason in either work or school. They should do the detention. The system you have in place in the morning isn’t robust enough. Get them an alarm clock each in their own room, plugged in across the room. You don’t rely on one alarm for a whole household.

I would also be apologising to them for not running them to school if the arrangement had been that I was to ensure the one alarm was set properly and I hadn’t done that. Bolllocks to your quiet start to the morning. You mess up, and you are able to fix it, then you do it! End of

If they had each had an alarm that they didn’t bother to set, THEN you could have told them “nope, you didn’t set it, I won’t be running you to school.”

Very true on choice *bacon.
There's an element of choice in many areas, but certain basics are common in most schools. If someone seriously has a massive issue with a school expecting uniform to be followed and for students to be in on time though then they probably won't have that many alternative schools to choose from, mainly because schools are large organisations who need consistency (with readable adjustments) to run effectively.
Personally if a parent can't manage to support the school in basics and wants to spend their time being frothy about tiny things then they probably should reflect on their own attitude.

I totally agree with you on the SEND front. There's some terrible situations out there and that sort of things is where schools should be held accountable.

In my experience, parents who have serious issues and need to challenge and complain on big things are usually very reasonable to talk to and work with. The ones who froth over how unfair it is their DC was given a detention for not following a simple expectation are usually the ones incoherently frothing and taking much needed time and energy away from important things (and then they smugly miss the point by suggesting school have wasted the time because the quickest thing for school to do would be to give in to the frothy whining)

@Curlyhairedassassin, I could have written your post. Spot on.

Quite, Maisypops.

There are 5 secondary schools local to me all struggling to recruit head teachers. It is a huge problem. No-one wants to do the job. It is thankless, and wirh huge huge pressures. The amount of pandering they seem to have to do these days to appease whinging parents taking up their very limited time with such trivial issues as the OP is moaning about js just a small part of the issue. Teacher recruitment and retention is in dire straits. Absolutely dire. Parents don’t realise the half of it.

Save your rants to the school, OP, for when Ofsted condemns the school because of behaviour and progress (both of which are interlinked) and your school is sucked into a multi academy trust wirh rules of their own. And then see where that gets you.

Parents, please please back up the school even on basic rules. They are there for a very good reason. I’m sure your parents and grandparents would have expected their children to follow the rules and deal with the consequences. How have we got to the situation where I assume perfectly intelligent parents are bothering the school in this way.

Schools need to be giving their time to parents who want to discuss circumstances where a kid with ASD got given a DT by a cover teacher who wasn’t aware of the boy’s poor organisational skills (due to his ASD).

You, OP, and parents like you moaning about trivia, are the equivalent of a swarm of bothersome flying insects while the fruit farmer is working hard to just get the fruit harvested quickly and properly. You just make the job harder. They and their fruit pickers can deal with you by batting you away but they are just wasting precious time and effort doing that when all they want is to be doing a great job.

Some examples from my school this week and last:

Weather awful, snow and ice. All kids told not to push each other on the ice and throw ice balls. Many ignore this basic instruction. Many fall over and injure themselves because of their poor behaviour and lack of sticking to the rules. Some rip their coats.

Next day our poor receptionist is bombarded by parents complaining “my child got his £400 Canada Goose coat ripped, what are you going to do about it? I want to speak to the head.”

“My child slid over on the ice and cut his arm, why weren’t they being supervised? I want to speak to the head?”

On and on and on, all day.

Because the pupils could not follow safety instructions in the ice and snow, the next day the kids were kept in at break and lunchtime.

What was the result? The kids complained to the teachers (who were just trying to keep them safe and appease parents who had complained about the day before), then they went home and complained to the parents who then rang up to complain to school that their child had been “cooped up all day with no fresh air”!!!

It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

THis is what the current generation of parents are creating. Entirely of their own doing.

Teachers just want to educate your child. Back them up on stuff and stop whingeing.

I would call and explain.
It's not fair to have a detention for something outside of your control, there is nothing to gain from that.
Fair enough they can start to set their own alarms but this wasn't the arrangement at the time.

It's of no concern to the school what the OP's arrangements are quite frankly. She could have taken them in, she could have taken them to the bus stop, she could have phoned to explain. All of these would probably have prevented the situation. The OP's children are not fussed about doing the detention. I find it puzzling that so many people wouldn't support the school. Save your energy for the fights that actually matter.

Dutchess - have you actually read what any of the teachers/school staff on here have posted? Like Maisypops and CurlyhairedAssassin? Having parents phoning up over every little thing stops schools from doing their job of teaching children and from dealing with real issues!

CurlyhairedAssassin - I completely agree with your post and it makes me quite sad and frustrated. Schools are in an impossible situation where whatever they do is picked over and criticised by parents. They are having real problems recruiting teachers, it is poorly paid for the amount of responsibility, hours and stress. Teachers I speak to say that the huge amount of paperwork is bad enough, but it is the parents who constantly complain and never back up the school that really make them want to leave the profession. I have heard awful stories of parents complaining about the most ridiculous things and really making life difficult for the teacher. Meanwhile the real issues, like lack of provision for SEN children, gets lost amongst all the nonsense teachers are dealing with on a daily basis.

Dutchesss
And join the queue of other people who were just 15 mins late because dad didn't iron my shirt, we had to go back because my sibling didn't pick their cooking ingredients, mum had a lie in so didn't get us up in time, we lost track of time so got caught in traffic, my brother lost his planner so we were late looking for it, I couldn't find my locker key, dad slept through his alarm and didn't get us up.

Let's have all the calls about reasons why it's not someone's responsibility.

Secondary aged students are more than capable of having an alarm clock and get to school on time. If a parent chooses to remove that responsibility from their children then the parent has to take that responsibility.

ninja it's the same old story sadly. A sizable minority think the rules don't apply to them, their child should be exempt, school should bend the rules for their child.
Often they don't actually have a clue what some students and parents are rightly battling the system over and so believe their little woe is me over non-issues is somehow worth being frothy over.

My son has just told me that the school have recently changed their policy on lateness. If you're late 3 times in one term, you get a detention. That seems better as one off late incidents like this wouldn't result in a detention and time to make any changes necessary.

Teachers can't get it into their heads that parents are customers ! They might be difficult customers but nonetheless they are customers . Therefore the nonchalant attitudes shown to parents by many teachers on Mumsnet is grossly out of step with real life where the customers concerns are addressed ...

On here teachers display certain arrogant tendencies . This meaning that I can understand (not condoning in the least ) why certain parents who have not had the greatest educations engage in verbal diatribes against them in RL.....

CurlyhairedAssassin

I would not be happy for my child to sit a detention in the situation described by OP and I've already said I've spoke to a receptionist in the past to explain why my child was late.

However I would absolutely never complain to the school if a coat got ripped by kids messing about. It's actually happened twice. Or if my child got injured because he was messing about. Also happened a couple of times. I also wouldn't complain if the teachers kept the kids in when there was bad weather.

Anyone can be late occasionally though. Things happen. I see it as very different to bad behaviour and ignoring teachers instructions which I would be in support of my child having detention for.

Teachers can't get it into their heads that parents are customers !

That’s because they are not customers. And I say this as a parent myself.

@letstalk2000 no, parents are not the customers. The person who 'pays' is the government. But anyway, education isn't like that. If it was we'd have students refusing to do subjects they found hard or difficult. That's not what happens. Rightfully so.

I've never met a secondary teacher at my sons school who hasn't listened to me as a parent. I do think some teachers on mumsnet seem very inflexible, I wonder if they are like that IRL. I like to think I'm quite a reasonable parent though and my kids would be classed as good kids by teachers, not troublesome or disruptive, so maybe that's why I seem to find teachers helpful and reasonable.

But catspaws there will be a whole raft of parents who would complain about a ripped coat and another lot who would not accept their child was messing about but would probably be ok about a late detention. It never ends. In a community of 500-1000 students (and their parents) you have to have someone will overall control and of course there will be rules whether you like them or not and consequences for breaking them.

I do listen to parents actually. I and most other teachers I know often give up our time to meet with teachers to address situations and support student progress. That's what we do.

there will be a whole raft of parents who would complain about a ripped coat and another lot who would not accept their child was messing about but would probably be ok about a late detention. It never ends

I can imagine it's a total nightmare. I think school staff have very difficult jobs and I don't envy them. However parents can't really say that there child wasn't messing about during school hours with any certainty as they are not there. My son is genuinely a really good lad but he still messes about with his friends at break times. However I can say he was late through not being naughty or behaving badly because I'm around in the morning to see what happens. Sometimes alarms are slept through or a younger child falls over on the way out to the car delaying us leaving on time. That is why I feel I should be able to explain to the school what has happened and for my son not to be given a detention in such circumstances. Luckily our school seems to give the receptionist the power to use her judgement. Also the school has now brought in a 'no more than 3 lates per term' rule which helps in situations like the OP describes.

Curly I agree with your sentiments entirely. In the end it depends what sort of attitude and work ethic that you want your kids to grow up with.
In this case and in others, a parent could 'refuse' permission for their kid to sit in detention. This will give them the message that whenever something unpleasant happens then mum will write a letter or make a phonecall to sort it out.
Who is going to do that for them in the big ugly world of the workplace?
Life can be unfair- deal with it.
In life you have to share responsibility for your actions- in this case getting to school on time.
Parents who undermine the schools in this way are encouraging their kids to stick two fingers up to authority. No wonder society is in such a dire state.

CatsPawsAndWhiskers
I generally find that reason breeds reason.

E.g. a parent who has a query, wants to discuss something, see if it's possible to move a detention, wants me to have a word with a teacher who hasn't been dealing with a SEND need ideally, has a concern about a member of the team, or thinks I've made a mistake and wants to talk, who calls up to have a polite and reasonable talk will be met with a friendly and reasonable discussion. Those parents will tend to find most of their interactions with schools (even where the outcome is to agree to disagree) are generally positive and governed by mutual respect.

The types of parents who call up schools demanding meetings, fuming and frothing their child has been expected to follow school rules, think that they can pick and mix from school expectations will probably report that schools are horrible places and how people expect them to bow down to teacher gods etc are probably going to find their fuming engagement with school (usually around why the rules don't apply to their child) are met with inflexibility and a calm reinforcement of the school stance. They then take this as more proof for their school conspiracy because it's easier to seek conformation bias than consider if wanting endless opt out a for your child might be the cause of their poor attitude and behaviour.

where are the thanks

Erm the 70k and up wages you get paid a year? Believe it or not, thats how most of us get thanked, with money.

Fortybingowings

I don't agree. I've never worked anywhere, where being late once results in discipline. I hope my kids don't either. Obviously persistent lateness is a different matter.

I think you can respect authority without going along with things that make no sense. School rules should be fair, then the problem doesn't exist. Luckily the schools my children attend seem to have sensible rules in place.

My children both know to respect their teachers, listen, do as they are asked and I'd be the first to tell them they were wrong if they didn't. But that is because the rules make sense. Saying life is not fair, deal with it is very unhelpful for anyone.

Pascoe who are you quoting?

Why did you take their phones away (sorry if this has already been said, I haven't read the whole thread), if it was because of their behaviour, then it is absolutely their fault and they should do the detention. What message are you sending them other wise?