AIBU about school imposing new sanctions?

[BumbleBeef30]

Today DC came home and said they had assemblies today in which they were told about new sanctions for issues such as having your shirt untucked or missing equipment, e.g. a purple pen.

I don’t mind it when a school has a sudden outbreak of enforcing uniform issues or ensuring all children have the right equipment using the original sanctions because, no matter how silly I may think it is to give a child a detention at break for a missing pen, those are the rules which were on the home-school agreement and I signed up to it.

I didn’t sign up to these new sanctions, which seem overly harsh and likely to punish only those children whose parents can not afford to replace items which break or go missing unexpectedly.

An occurrence of missing a pen now gets you sent to detention for three lessons; two occurrences get you isolation for three lessons; three occurrences get you sent to isolation for a whole day; and four occurrences earn you a fixed term exclusion. Theoretically a child could go to school on Monday without a pen and be excluded by Wednesday.

Before anyone says, I know pens are cheap and fairly easy to replace, but some people are forced to live hand to mouth at the moment, and the same new sanctions apply if you don’t have exactly the right type of shoes. Whereas before it might be a phone call to parents reminding them that shoes need to be lace-up, now it’s an immediate detention followed by isolation.

What’s more is that the school hasn’t sent home any information to parents, apart from an email containing the letter they give all new Year 7s about the standards they expect. No mention of sanctions at all - just a basic “we want every child to succeed and because of this we expect skirts to be knee length, all students to have the correct equipment, etc”.

AIBU to wonder what the fuck is going on at that school? Can schools just change sanctions whenever they feel like it? And should they be introducing these new, much harsher sanctions without letting parents know about them?

YANBU. It never ceases to amaze me that schools will fine you if your child is off sick too often but will happily isolate the same child from lessons for the smallest of reasons.

That makes it nice and easy for the kids who want to get excluded to get excluded I remember at my school if you were caught bunking off/skiving/whatever you called it as a kid the punishment was.......being excluded for a week 🤣

As an ex teacher and deputy head, I’d suggest that the children keep a very close eye on their teachers and report them if they come to lessons without a working board pen or if they forget their photocopying. It’s amazing how fast this ‘purple pen’ detention bollocks will disappear.

Yes, children need to remember equipment and dress with some pride but these sanctions sound utterly ridiculous.

Children from Y7 should be expected to be capable of relaying messages to parents, and should be capable of turning up to all lessons with the right equipment.

It is disruptive to a lesson and to other students when some people don't have what they need, so it's fair enough to punish when they don't, or when they have not followed uniform rules.

The rules haven't changed even if the sanctions have, but maybe the school felt the need to make harsher sanctions because parents and student soldiers weren't respecting the rules as they were and previous sanctions were proving ineffective. Don't be that parent who treats their child like a snowflake, just follow the rules and support the school.

Teacher here. Obvs tell your daughter to toe the line as far as possible. However I’d be asking them to explain how they’re gong to fill in the inevitable gaps in your child’s knowledge if she’s out of class and tell them that you’ll be keeping a record of time out and monitoring her progress carefully (as of course you would be). It seems to be a regular flexing of pastoral slt at the moment in many schools.

Sounds like overkill to me.

Ours have to bring a pen. That's it. We provide everything else (& pens if need be)

No pen = teacher initials debit. These are logged on credit card sized report cards they all carry.
Poor uniform = teacher initials debit

Three debits in a week = detention.

If there's a money issue we can hand out stationery to kids anonymously so they have the right kit if need be.

We also use them to add credits for raffle tickets for lunch queue passes, and other privileges and small prizes.

Seems to work.

Naturally there are some for whom nothing works but the majority seem to be ok with this system.

Completely bonkers and counterintuitive. Clearly the teachers have too much time on their hands.
I would be sending the school governors a strongly worded letter and encouraging other parents to do the same.

I think the sanctions are a bit extreme, but we have serial pen breakers, who then need to go to the bathroom to clean their hands up. Parents may ensure the Dc has a pen everyday but 'hey the pen broke it's self'

Taking kids out of lessons and into isolation does not sound good to
me.

Sounds absolute madness.

I was at a meeting for my eldest’s new school this week and they are very strict about having the right equipment. If you don’t have it you have a same day after school detention. Which is fair enough I think. But a detention to miss lessons?? That seems daft to me and I think I would question that rule.

Yanbu. Although I find it annoying when kids don't have the right equipment, those sanctions seem unduly harsh. My school is currently on a crusade against chewing gum with incredibly strict sanctions which I find so odd because chewing gum has never caused that much (any?!) disruption to any of my lessons and the sanctions for said offence now outweigh swearing and defiance. Bizarre. So even us teachers are often left bemused at these changes!

Sounds badly handled. I would like to say it sounds unnecessary but I do believe providing your child with a pen for school is within reach of all but the absolute poorest families. If the school knows it serves a demographic where the children can afford pens (and before anyone says anything, I know they can only ever be 95% sure about this) and aren’t bringing them, or probably is worth cracking down. It is a disgrace for anyone who can afford a pen to rock up to their free education without one.

Poorly equipped students were the bane of my teaching life. I wasted so much time giving out equipment and so much money buying multipacks of biros each week at the supermarket so they could particpate in lessons. Even so, this does seem a draconian and likely to be unsuccessful approach. The best systems I knew were when students had to go to a particular member of staff to get the missing equipment; inconvenient and immediately solves the problem.

Will there be any leeway for students affected by SNs?

I also hated petty rules about uniform. So much teaching time was wasted in crackdowns triggering pointless arguements. It's not like an untucked shirt rots the brains. I had a skirt from y7 to y11. It was bought mid-calf length with growing room and finished up a couple of inches above the knee. I did very well at school despite the presence of a bit of thigh in the final years

YANBU that's bloody ridiculous. I've forgotten to bring a pen to a meeting before, if I didn't have time to pick one up I might even forget the next day too. Yes by all means have some sanction for repeat offenders who have no reason (e.g. executive functioning issues) but this sounds excessive and is just going to cause kids (particularly those with chaotic home lives) to miss school and become stressed.

I appreciate the intent on standards but this seems like a spectacularly poorly handled change.

An occurrence of missing a pen now gets you sent to detention for three lessons; two occurrences get you isolation for three lessons;
This doesn't make sense to me. Being out of lessons and out of circulation is isolation. Detentions are break/lunch/after school and not in lesson time.

As an aside, it's most odd and unusual for any school to suddenly bring in new approaches with 4 weeks to go if I'm honest. I'd be curious to hear more about this decision from the school's perspective.

My DC are unlikely to be affected as they are generally neat and always have full pencil cases.

However I can see a school disintegrating around them and it’s worrying. Teachers have been leaving “unexpectedly” in the middle of terms as well as at the usual points for the past two years and DC regularly have cover supervisors instead of actual teachers. So it’s not a surprise to me that HT feels the need to clamp down hard on one of the few bits of school life she can control. It’s the severity and potential injustice of these new sanctions which unnerves me.

I’d much rather the SLT concentrated on stabilising the drift of teachers than on missing pens.

I’d much rather the SLT concentrated on stabilising the drift of teachers than on missing pens.

How do you suggest they do that without making sure the kids have pens? Pens are not just pens. They are symptomatic of disengagement and low standards. Get them bringing pens and you have a better chance of getting them to do some work.

DDs school is strict - get a behaviour point for such stuff as not having right stationery, being late, real pisstaking with school uniform, phone seen in school, answering back. 2 in a day/3 in a week and its detention; 3 in a day and isolation. Slate wiped clean each Monday. I'd find that really stressful. Thankfully the teachers seem to be human beings in terms of implementation.

Well, the absence of a pen is symptomatic, not the actual pen.

LolaSmiles, detention happens in an empty classroom where all the students having detention are sitting down doing work on tables within sight of each other.

Isolation consists of isolation booths where students face the wall and have no way of knowing if there are any other students around unless they lean back to look outside their booths - which would incur further punishment.

DC1 has been in isolation and said it was one of the worst experiences of his life. It’s a kind of mental torture.

Yet another example of schools punishing children for their parents failings.

If children don’t have the right equipment it’s generally not down to them and their choices. They don’t control the household budget

DC1 has been in isolation and said it was one of the worst experiences of his life. It’s a kind of mental torture.

Please. Please stop saying that.

Ok so detention (odd name from school) is working in a silent classroom where they're trusted to get on.
Isolation they work in study booths just like university libraries or offices and get into bother if they lean back to disrupt others.

Both seem reasonable steps in a behaviour policy as long as the rest of the policy makes sense (though this one sounds like it needs some work)

How do you suggest they do that without making sure the kids have pens? Pens are not just pens. They are symptomatic of disengagement and low standards.

You've missed your own point there. Not having equipment can be symptoms of disengagement but you don't solve disengagement by massively over reacting to the symptoms. If anything this will make students more disengaged.