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?

“solation 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. ”

If a teacher ever does anything like that to my kids, they will find me waiting for them after school, every time.

Surely if a child doesn't have a pen (or book or homework or whatever) that is not the teacher's problem. You borrow one off a friend

Borrowing from others in the class can become a form of bullying, where a student quite capable of bringing equipment chooses not to do so. If a student comes without pen or books to my class I give them pencil and a piece of paper, and it all has to be written up in the book and in ink by the next day. It really cuts down on the chancers.

If a teacher ever does anything like that to my kids, they will find me waiting for them after school, every time.
Just in case people were wondering what sort of parental attitude might lead students into thinking they can behave how they like.
Yes. Welcome to 2019. If my child messes around and any teacher expects my child to work in another room in silence then I'll wait after school for them in a threatening way.

“My ds went to toilet the other day and returned to find his calculator missing. Had to pay &30 for new one as maths gcse 2 days later.

Pens go missing from desk. He's had 5 missing in one day. “

I’m not saying that theft isn’t a bad thing (and theft in schools is another thing getting worse every year, it’s just another sign of increasing selfishness and a loss of respect for others) but if this is KNOWN to happen Have you thought of telling him to not leave anything unattended? I don’t recall leaving my stuff lying about when I was at school. You didn’t get out your seat. You got took your seat, got your equipment out, listened to the teacher, and wrote in your book. Your things went back in your bag at the end of the lesson and you kept your bag with you while you went to your next lesson.

You wouldn’t leave stuff unattended in a public place as an adult so children really need to learn that schools are effectively a public place.

What a depressing thread by the way. I don’t know why I start reading these. To the people complaining about strict sanctions for not having a pen, you want to go and spend some time in schools these days and just see for yourselves the complete lack of effort in ANYTHING that a lot of kids display. Don’t care if they turn up to school and lessons in time or not. DOnt care if they have carelessly tossed their timetable away despite a very patient member of staff having printed it off already that week, so they don’t even know which lesson they are supposed to be at. Don’t care if they have no school bag and therefore no books or equipment. Don’t care if they disrupt others’ learning by being an attention seeker. DOnt Care enough to write ANYTHING on the page apart from 2 sentences in an hour. Don’t care if they swear at the teacher. Dont care if they get a detention because they won’t bother going anyway.

They DON’T CARE FULL STOP. And in the midst of this you have teachers who desperately do care for these kids, trying to get the back up of parents who DON’T CARE about school and its rules either.

I don’t know how we have got to this situation. It’s not poverty alone because there has always been poverty, and even the most poverty-stricken kids could manage to do the most basic of things like ensure they took something to write with to school and turn up to the right lessons without abusing the teacher.

The basics are just not happening in many schools these days and it’s about time that parents realised that if schools are bringing seemingly harsh sanctions in for things like not having a pen, then there is a bloody good reason for that. Sanction systems take a lot of staff time for effort, schools don’t use them for lolz, for god’s SAKe!

“If a teacher ever does anything like that to my kids, they will find me waiting for them after school, every time.”

Nice. Very nice. Threatening the very people who are trying to drag your child up to the basic standards required to be a competent member of society, because it seems their parents couldn’t be arsed to.

StreetwiseHercules

If a teacher ever does anything like that to my kids, they will find me waiting for them after school, every time.

Keyboard warrior, very fucking brave.

Make with you want to leave the country in fact. Does anyone know of a country where all members of society still respect and value free education and are happy to uphold that which is necessary to maintain those values and standards?

CurlyhairedAssassin

There are several that I can think of, but in those cases education isn't a political football, the media doesn't trash the profession and parents respect the school and the teachers. All of which means that the ethos of the children is to do well in school and respect the system.

Not quite curly because almost every time I've had a parent with that attitude on open evening, every other parent who witnessed them was muttering, eye rolling and started their appointment by telling me how out of order such a rude and abusive parent was and how the other parents were just saying how they find it disgusting. Some even reported a parent to senior leaders and senior leaders came to see me the next day to tell me they spoke to aggressive parent on the way out following parental words to say they will not tolerate abusive or threatening conduct towards staff.

Just like students who eye roll and don't respect the disruptive and defiant students.

The vast majority of people are polite and reasonable.

Yeah, I remember that time I was a deeply disaffected teenager struggling with a chaotic home life. Then someone mindlessly applied a set of hyper-strict rules about inconsequential matters and shut me alone in a room and suddenly I felt really seen and began to see a way to engage in my learning, in society, to finally dare to care about things.

Oh wait no, of course I didn’t because this ‘flattening the grass’ nonsense is devoid of modelling any care or humanity

Can't the school just provide the pens? If it's such a big issue.

They provide the paper.

Can't the school just provide the pens? If it's such a big issue. They provide the paper.

I provide pens/pencils/sharpeners/rulers/erasers.
Unless they are counted in and out they disappear after a few lessons.

If a teacher ever does anything like that to my kids, they will find me waiting for them after school, every time.

Don't worry, if your DC are placed in isolation for persistently breaking school rules, disrespectful, disruptive or abusive behaviour,
you will be expected to attend a meeting to discuss your child's attitude. Every time.

If a teacher ever does anything like that to my kids, they will find me waiting for them after school, every time.

Where you will do what?

So, take all the kids with SN or domestic troubles or past traumas and lock them up?

I would like to come back to Reanimated about this. No, I am not suggesting this. There aren’t jol

Not sure what my phone is playing at today.

No, Reanimated. I am not suggesting that. I am auggesyi

Oh well. 😂

Schools are run for children. The children are the 'customers'. Parents don't get to agree to new sanctions but have the option of changing school if they are really not happy. Parents have no idea how learning is disrupted by 8 kids having no pen, 6 no calculator and 13, no protractor. Schools are hugely sensitive to poverty OP and spend vast amounts of time supporting poorer kids. They will NOT be punished for not affording stationary. Kids need to develop responsibility for having the right stuff. Some kids need to be shown that constantly forgetting everything is not ok. Parents invariably think we are harsh, but the kids who show up with equipment and don't want their learning disrupted are fully supportive of this kind of thing.

Let me try again.

To be clear, I’m not talking about removing all children with SN, or all children with behavioural problems. At all. I have worked with lots of children with SN and most needed very little from the teacher by way of individual input. Some, though - and I think most state schoo

I think most state school teachers would agree - aren’t coping in mainstream. The inclusion agenda is failing them. Sometimes this is because their SN are to

SN makes

Aaaah.

Anyway.

Schools should just provide the required equipment and doing their jobs. Punishing children with “isolation” for petty things like not having a pen isn’t educating and it isn’t preparing children for the real world.

If teachers don’t like teaching they should go and do something else. If a school disrupts my childrens’ education with “isolation” for crap like not having a pen to hand I will make like very difficult for that school to the point they will wish they hadn’t bothered.

StreetwiseHercules
Schools should just provide the required equipment and doing their jobs

The easy out, it won't work for the many reasons stated on the thread, and if you are expecting (as many do) the teacher to provide equipment out of their own pocket, then as with schools providing the equipment, pupils should receive appropriate sanctions for damaging equipment.

I will make like very difficult for that school to the point they will wish they hadn’t bothered.

How are you going to do this?

I refuse to accept that schools can not afford to provide pens.

“How are you going to do this?”

By being an epic pain in the arse.