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?

Heculepoirot2 - You wouldn't go to prison for a something as stupid as not bringing a pen to work though. The laws of our country determine that you are sent to prison when you commit a serious offence. They are mostly common sense laws which a large proportion of the population support and are open to challenge through the correct systems if not.

Schools are implementing serious punishments for very minor issues and ignoring any one that challenges them.

The children that go to these schools are our future workforce, they will need to learn to challenge ideas and find better ways of working for the benefit of all once they reach the work place.

Yes I agree that all students should turn up to school with a pen and ready to work. An education is a privilege and should be treated with respect. Why does that pen have to be purple? Is it a magic pen that will enable them write a better assignment or actually would a black one do just as well?
Is the student going to fail their exams because as bright as they, his/her parents couldn't afford to spend £10 on one pair of socks because it has a logo on it as opposed to 5 pairs for £1.

The students should be encouraged to challenge and to think of alternative ways of solving issues in the right ways. This should take place away from lessons such as at a student council that meets once a week and gets to hold a sensible conversation with the teachers.

@optimisticpessimist01

The mental health provision you described sounds brilliant.
Is this happening in the school you teach in? Just out of curiosity does it also have the strict uniform and equipment rules?

All this handwringing is ignoring the fact that the step after isolation is exclusion.

Well, no, not when you're imposing it for stupid things like having the wrong colour pen. If schools are made to realise that they are painting themselves into a corner with these idiotic rules they might try to do their jobs and address such issues more sensibly.

Even if the isolation stems from something more serious, then if lesser deterrents won't work then it may indeed have to be exclusion. I know schools don't want to impose them, precisely because they have to do much more to justify them, and amongst other matters they have to take things like SEN and disability properly into account, so in many cases the very fact that they will have to follow the official exclusion guidance will have a salutary effect on policies and their application. Where schools are over-eager to jump to detentions and exclusions, there is the major benefit that decisions are subject to rights of review.

Ridiculous. I can understand how not having a pen might be an issue but not having a purple pen?? Why on Earth would anyone be writing in purple anyway? We were only allowed blank biro in secondary school.

I’m a teacher who is prone to forgetting things myself, I’d never expect children to remember everything every single day.

The onus is often on parents too so it’s punishing children who maybe have neglectful, very busy or extremely poor parents. Not cool.

In regards to isolation, no it is not torture and to be frank, it is laughable and embarrassing that people are suggesting it. At worst case scenario, students work in complete silence in a little booth- surrounded by other students. I have never come across a school where it is demanded that the student sits up straight the entire time.

How many schools have you actually dealt with to a sufficient degree that you have a detailed knowledge of how their isolation booths work, optimisticpessimist?

I live in fear of DD2 hitting secondary school age - her SN make organising herself and keeping track of her belongings a nightmare.

I'll happily buy every one of her teachers a pack of purple pens to give out when she loses them - you can't get a more engaged family where education is concerned than we are - but she's not going to be able to fully manage getting herself+purple pen+correct inventory of items from A to B the way she currently is... and she's so emotionally sensitive putting her in detentions and isolations would absolutely destroy her as she is desperate to do the right thing.

Hopefully we've gone back to a bit more humanity in education when she hits that age. Or funding's increased so the SN support departments aren't being hatchet jobbed to the hilt at least. Hell, at the moment the school's IT infrastructure is so bad we're currently transporting her iPad back and forward to school and organising printing all her work off at home and returning it the following day so she can actually have a chance of keeping up with the curriculum, and provided things like her writing slope and pencils she can grip ourselves to save the school some of their budget.

So don't go lumping families like us with kids who struggle to be organised into some kind of "tight arse parents can't even be bothered to provide a purple pen" blanket category as I'll be the parent who's provided enough purple pens to fill WHSmith but they've all been lost and forgotten (despite being name labelled).

I'd send my child in with 100 purple pens and whenever someone needs one I'd tell them to hand it out. Ex teacher here who taught in prisons and PRUs for 12 years.

@MsMaisel - I would neither punish nor refer (immediately). I might have a chat with them and try and find out what the issue is and act accordingly.

Asj0405

I believe the words I used about purple pens were “fucking stupid”. I agree that this is petty nonsense. I am saying that, to some extent, the issue of purple pens is incidental. The problems schools are having seem to stem from, at least in part, every Tom, Dick and Harry deciding that they personally get to decide which rules are worth following and which aren’t.

@Eliza9919 I believe they use them for peer marking or adding work in after feedback.

Our school used it's hardship funds to buy "learning resource" boxes for register classrooms, which contain pens and pencils amongst other things like calculators, breakfast bars and sanitary products. Things to make sure kids have what they need to stay in class.

Isatis

As I have said, I agree the the purple pens are idiotic. Couldn’t agree more. But like you have just said, if parents insist that they personally get to decide which rules their children follow, schools will see no other option than to exclude their children. In the end. And yes, it would have to be for something more serious than not bringing a pen once or twice. But, as should be very clear here, students not having a pen is usually the tip of the iceberg.

The problems schools are having seem to stem from, at least in part, every Tom, Dick and Harry deciding that they personally get to decide which rules are worth following and which aren’t.

That often happens because schools have stupid rules like purple pens.

Once you have rules that teachers think are stupid (and in by experience therefore implement inconsistently) you put other rules up for debate.

If schools stick to simple, clear rules then there’s no debating anything by pupils, teachers or parents and life is a lot easier for everyone

If schools stick to simple, clear rules then there’s no debating anything by pupils, teachers or parents and life is a lot easier for everyone

Unfortunately that isn’t true. There seems to be a widespread absence of common sense that has taken hold over the last few years, with people arguing:

• Why should Johnny be quiet when the teacher is talking? He had something he wanted to say.

• Why should Ellie have a pen (blue/black)? She lost it; it’s not her fault.

• Why should Callum speak to the teacher with respect? He has anger management problems.

• Why should Jack be on time for school? He got up late.

And so on.

Ds is likely to have some SEN - the diagnosis isn't through yet but all the signs are there. These threads are bloody scary, frankly - god knows how he'll manage once he gets to senior school. He'll be ground to powder.

Like you, Pantsy, I'm just hoping the pendulum will have swung back towards a more humane system by the time he hits that age!

Pens, rubbers, pencils, rulers, sharpeners all counted out and in each lesson. Waste of everyone's time. Much easier if pupils bring a pen and look after their stuff.

The pens issue and staff leaving are, I suspect, connected.

Is the school is bother with OFSTED?

Is it a new head trying to make his/her mark on the school?

Purple pens sounds like someone has read a book. It’s rarely the complete solution to a schools problems. Solid, united and fair approaches to teaching and discipline are better.

These top down Tiananmen square discipline movements are usually the work of someone in SMT ( note not SLT!) They don’t always see the havoc and upset they have created. As opposed to many of the staff who are obliged to go along with it.

And it can be a lot worse than that.

Molly doesn’t see why she should put her bag on the floor.

Aaron doesn’t agree that he shouldn’t be drawing dicks on his History book.

Harry sees no problem with the word “kike”.

Letitia cannot do detentions.

Emma doesn’t want to do PE.

Kyle thinks talking on his phone on the way into assembly is fine.

Billie wants to call her mum between Maths and Spanish because the Spanish teacher makes her sit at the front.

It is ENDLESS.

And parents are encouraging it. Not all, but enough.

Herculepoirot2

Apologies, you did. I also agree people cannot just cherry pick rules and should not be encouraged to argue with everything the teacher says, especially in lesson time.

I do however think that schools are concentrating more on ridiculous things rather than actually teaching and are doing their best to hammer children (and parents) down into blind obedience. Some of the policies are absurd and there should be a constructive way to challenge ideas that do not seem to be benefiting the school. Maybe if kids were actively engaged in trying to find solutions to problems the schools experience (Such as not having 30 pens each lesson to hand out) then they may start thinking of these things more for themselves.

Molly doesn’t see why she should put her bag on the floor

Aaron doesn’t agree that he shouldn’t be drawing dicks on his History book

Harry sees no problem with the word “kike”

Letitia cannot do detentions

Emma doesn’t want to do PE

Kyle thinks talking on his phone on the way into assembly is fine

Billie wants to call her mum between Maths and Spanish because the Spanish teacher makes her sit at the front

Every single one of those is a different issue and should be handled in a different way.

The majority of problems schools have (outside those caused by individual petty bullies being put in charge of them) could be solved by more money. Better funding for equipment and buildings, for SEN support, and for teachers' pay, so fewer schools are having to do that thing of 'encouraging' the most experienced staff to move elsewhere so they can be replaced with NQTs or TAs who cost less - and, of course, more money for the poorest families.
Also, never mind this wanking on about how children need to learn craven submission in order to 'get on in life' - if they live in the more deprived parts of the country where they'd' be lucky to find an unskilled, low-status, badly paid role on a checkout or in a burger bar, stop being so surprised that they see school as something to be endured rather than engaged with. Economic equality is the root of every single problem we have at present.

Maybe if kids were actively engaged in trying to find solutions to problems the schools experience (Such as not having 30 pens each lesson to hand out) then they may start thinking of these things more for themselves.

True. The answer looks pretty obvious, though: everyone should have something to write with. But actually it isn’t that obvious.

What about pencil?

What about pale pink and felt tip decoration?

What about crayons?

If a teacher asks you to make a comment in green pen so they can see black, or not to write in red because their marking is in red, are you entitled to tell them you’ll do what you like?

And so on.

Adults need to lead schools in a child-centred way. We don’t need children to lead us, or we shouldn’t.

JacquesHammer

Well, I have asked you, haven’t I?

craven submission

I don’t want anyone to learn craven submission. That isn’t what doing what you’re asked to do at school is.