Class punishments

[Brian9600]

Just wondered what people’s thoughts were on this. Occasionally teachers at my DD’s school give collective punishments (eg class detention at lunch time) if many children in the class have been misbehaving (eg chatting too much). They are Y6.

While I sympathise with teachers- I can completely see how hard it must be to accurately determine which children are responsible when a class is being too rowdy or talking too much- it does seem unfair on those children who definitely weren’t involved. My DD had to miss break yesterday for a class detention based on misbehaviour that had happened on a day when she wasn’t even at school but at home with D&V. Seems completely unfair and to make a bit of a mockery of the detention system.

Just wondered what was the norm?

I don't know, but I hated it at school and thought it was thoroughly unjust. I would complain as a parent if it was a punishment being used a lot.

Peer pressure is good for a habitual offender. They are more likely to seek their peers approval and ultimately conform.

However often, some children can promote another’s bad behaviour, actively encourage it for disruptive purposes knowing they wont get into trouble. Usually one child is cast in the role of 'trouble maker' or ‘bad’ and you'll find out many years later that there are additional needs to be addressed. We had a similar situation in DS class, a nasty little gang of boys used to love tormenting one individual, until he broke down/lost his temper and lessons were disrupted. All the mothers would complain about X as a problem child when it was actually their own children creating this situation. Later, the child was diagnosed with Aspergers. It was quite sad really, that these bullies got away with it.

TBH in your daughters case, it's a suck it up situation. You could complain, but you would be that parent. You would mark her out as different and lets be honest, even if you did fight her corner , she would be the only person having break whilst all the others were kept in. And if she’s now the different one, you open up a situation where she may get bullied or teased about her interfering mother.

Doesn't worry me particularly. Helps children realise group as well as individual responsibility and having to deal with small things in life which are unjust and unfair.

I'm more concerned about the children being singled out for bad behaviour when the teacher misses the subtle ways in which they are being wound up and encouraged.

IUGB, I haven’t proposed complaining to the school.

It doesn't bother me if it's an occasional thing at break for a short period because the class is too noisy, as with dd's Y7 class. It didn't bother me when i was at high school either. If it was for a longer period or happened regularly it would be annoying.

Most things about school are pretty unfair. It is like a farm. And I work in one so I know. The teacher will have a pretty good idea who is well behaved and if your dd is - it will be noted and appreciated.

@Brian no one said you had

We used to get class detention a lot with 1 particular teacher at secondary school. I was always good and well behaved and it was the same few kids everytime causing disruption. I enjoyed the subject but dropped it at GCSE because I didn't want the detentions and found the atmosphere in the classroom scary. Then the same teacher started teaching us in a compulsory subject (RE so IMO compulsory but not important). I just started bunking off the lessons which I think school found quite hard to deal with- straight As student, good in other lessons, drama club, but I just used to leave when it was this teacher because it didn't matter what I did I would be in detention because of some other children.
What used to really make me feel crappy is that we lived about 3 miles from school with no direct bus if we missed the school bus. If I got detention then it was a long walk home and my parents were clear that they wouldn't pick me up after a detention as it was undermining the detention. The kids who were disruptive mostly lived in the village and could be home in 10 minutes.
I felt pretty unsupported by my parents and if it happens to my children then I will at least say something to the school so that the DCs feel like I've got their back.

I'm sure that doesn't help you at all except to say that maybe the stakes are higher than you think- in 31 years time your DD could be sitting on the stairs bitterly ranting on mumsnet about an injustice that happened at school!

I do take Google's point about peer pressure being effective, and about the dangers of someone with additional needs being provoked into acting out - but in DD's case neither of those applied. This was quite a few years ago, she's long out of school now, but it still narks me a bit. There were a small group of pretty clever but very disruptive boys who totally exploited the whole-class punishment system, and they didn't care what the rest thought. At one point the behavior got so bad that the whole class were banned from going on a group residential trip. DD1 found it awful and it contributed towards her mental-health difficulties in those years because the learning environment was so combative and disruptive.
That lasted until she started the equivalent of A-Levels (we're not in the UK), and the classes were totally rejigged, some of the disruptivetypes left, and the attitude was more 'if you won't knuckle down then bugger off'. That's when DD was able to thrive, and it got even better at university. I suppose in some respects it made her more resilient, but also very determined to avoid people like that in her future career. It also made all of us extremely averse to collective punishments of any sort.

As a primary school teacher I will keep the whole class in at playtime.

I think it's lazy teaching, bad practice and I would think less of any teacher who used this method.

My mother was a teacher in secondary. She had some pretty tough groups to teach. She never resorted to this sort of thing and managed to keep order.

It is lazy teaching , absolutely disgusting. A lot of things in life are not fair , there's a time and place to learn that..Being punished for something you haven’t done is really not on

I don't like it. It's unfair and it's not true life.

I spoke to DDs teacher about this years ago in primary school. She said it was so that those naughty children realised their behaviour was affected the whole class.

Like my DD, I pointed out that this wasn't working, as the same naughty kids repeated their behavior and simply laughed that everyone else was punished.

The type of kids who are always badly behaved...don't give a damn.

The teacher said she understood what I was saying and DD said following me speaking with the teacher, punishment for the whole road seemed to stop.