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?

It does, and it works, because she happily deals with the parents who try and derail it, and she has the time to do so because she’s not constantly firefighting.

Her biggest problem is Ofsted. They are rated excellent for pastoral care, safeguarding and exam results, but she gets in trouble for not implementing gimmicks (like pen colour). She’s managed to keep going with it this far and has never seen their rating drop, but I think eventually they’ll use her methods against her to rate them lower. Which is criminal.

For me uniform should be -

Black trousers or skirt
White or black polo shirt or shirt.
Plain black shoes with no more than 1/2 inch heel (I don’t see plain black trainers as an issue, and they are better for feet imo than the flat ballet pumps with no support so many girls wear).
Black socks or tights
Stud earrings only (how many is irrelevant, just no hanging earrings)
No other jewellery on show

Optional items -

Black cardigan or jumper
School logo’ed jumper
Tie

PE kit should be black shorts or joggers and a black or white T-shirt.

Her biggest problem is Ofsted. They are rated excellent for pastoral care, safeguarding and exam results, but she gets in trouble for not implementing gimmicks (like pen colour). She’s managed to keep going with it this far and has never seen their rating drop, but I think eventually they’ll use her methods against her to rate them lower. Which is criminal.

That does depend on the quality of teaching and learning, though. I don’t believe Ofsted care about green pens. They do care about learning.

That does depend on the quality of teaching and learning, though. I don’t believe Ofsted care about green pens. They do care about learning

They do care about green pens and gimmicks. The teaching and learning is excellent, and the fact it’s still bearing fruit in terms of results is the only reason she hasn’t been put under more pressure to confirm.

On the last inspection they got slated for the lack of uniform enforcement, even though the report says that the pupils are “happy, engage very well and have clear pride in their school”.

At some point she will be pushed though, because she doesn’t conform. Although I still have a tiny bit of hope that other schools locally will copy their ways instead of just moaning that they do everything “right” and she does everything “wrong” yet gets a similar overall grading and better exam results.

And I hope she rides it out until I can get my younger two (youngest won’t be mainstream) through school, but I’m not overly hopeful as that’s a long time

They do care about green pens and gimmicks.

I honestly don’t think so. I got excellent feedback when seen by Ofsted in 2017. The students were reading and talking. Not a green pen or gimmick in sight. The books were marked, but it was only later that our school started obsessing about pens.

They DO care about compliance with your own policies.

He complained all the way through secondary how he was bored in school, particularly in mixed ability classes; and he didn’t see why he should do what teachers, who were less intelligent than him, said

He also saw that his younger sister DD1, with profound SEN and who was in a language unit attached to a mainstream school. Entry was controlled by the LA for children with speech and language disorders; but no behaviour problems because these children are very visual and pick up bad behaviour; and they do not have the verbal or social skills to deal with bullying. There were 10 children put forward for every place.

The head of the mainstream school put the boys with behaviour problems into the language unit to get them out of the hair of his mainstream teachers. One boy indecently assaulted DD1, aged 8 in the classroom in view of all the other children; and the teacher and two TAs were in the room, but not in sight of the children, while they were chatting to each other. As it so happened, she was already under CAMHs, and her psychotherapist told me DD1 had all the reactions and emotions of a victim of sexual abuse. DD1 also told me she had complained to three teachers in the run up to this, that when she went through the cloakroom, he left the toilet door open and waved his willy at her. All three teachers told her not to tell tales! The school put him back in mainstream and assured us they would keep the boy on a separate playground in future. Except they didn’t- a month later, he and another boy attacked her again! She was screaming hysterically that night, refusing to ever go to bed again because of the nightmares! She continued to cry until 9 pm 3 - 4 time a week for the next two years, begging us to say she was sick or find her another school - but she was in a language unit; the next one was 20 miles away through heavy traffic.

The head also believed in inclusion and at the same time, spent 2 years trying to put DD1 into mainstream behind our backs without support “to increase her independence skills”. We were looking at secondary specialist language schools, and two assessed her. One head of therapy said her difficulties were so severe she would be completely lost in mainstream, while the other said DD1 was one of the most profoundly impaired children she had ever seen, and her distress at the mainstream integration was already at clinical levels! She also said DD1 had profound problems with verbal reasoning- faced with a problem she could not reason her way to a solution and all she could do was burst into tears! She later told me her life was torture at this school!

So much for a head, with no training as a speech therapist putting her in mainstream to develop “independent study skills”. We had to start High Court action against the LA, because the statement made it clear she was to be in a class of ten with a specialist teacher, etc - not mainstream!

DD2 was so affected by what happened to her twin sister, she developed an eating disorder and needed treatment from CAMHs too. I developed depression and was under the MH team.

DS saw all of this happen to both his sisters and me - all because of teachers at DD1’s school, who ignored DD1 in the first place and did not care that they put boys with behaviour problems in with her class, known to be too vulnerable; and then put their ideology of inclusion first, while ignoring a stack of professional reports on how profound his sister’s SEN were!

There doesn’t really seem much point in engaging further if you are going to discount experience as not right because it doesn’t match your own tbh

This is a school I’ve worked in, volunteered in, used as a base for a voluntary project and have children at. I was there on their last inspection. I’ve read the report and seen the “this is excellent, but...” comments that go on to talk about things that would make no difference, but are currently popular. I’ve seen the HT and staff upset by the comments and baffled about why having happy kids who are excelling isn’t enough.

Ofsted do care about gimmicks, otherwise schools wouldn’t bother implementing them.

There doesn’t really seem much point in engaging further if you are going to discount experience as not right because it doesn’t match your own tbh

I think that’s harsh. I am very familiar with the Ofsted framework. It’s possible that the school to which you refer got a duff inspector, but Ofsted - in terms of their actual inspection framework - don’t back “gimmicks”. But if you don’t want to engage, that’s alright, of course.

Ofsted do indeed say they don't back 'gimmicks'. It genuinely is the SLTs who are interpreting Ofsted's words (and, to be fair, some of their feedback) and swallowing consultant's advice to produce 'purple pen diktats'. they are honestly dropping this kind of nonsense from huge numbers of schools, partly because of excessive workload. teachers should always query things which increase workload.

Ofsted's big -and irritating- thing is 'consistency. So, unfortunately, if one teacher, or several, use purple pens, the school hoists itself by its own petard if they all don't. hence the bullying behaviour from some SLTs , which is then passed down to students in this way.

All of that is separate from (usually male) students not having a pen at all, ever. Who, in MN terms, have been 'enabled' by teachers constantly lending them pens every lesson.

Ofsted's big -and irritating- thing is 'consistency. So, unfortunately, if one teacher, or several, use purple pens, the school hoists itself by its own petard if they all don't. hence the bullying behaviour from some SLTs , which is then passed down to students in this way.

Exactly. It is perfectly possible to get “outstanding” without stupid coloured pens.

I was tearing out my hair last year when some idiot SLT insisted we all start using a particular colour pen for a particular pointless reason but did not make it part of core equipment or buy any.

Having probs with so called sanctions at academy , my 9 year old ds has been denied morning break time and lunch time play since before Easter thanks to form teacher for minor quite petty things . He is not allowed around indefinitely.His moral is at all time low also he’s put on a stone in weight in the past 3 months getting concerned now about his physical and mental health . Teacher in question also has a timer for the class and denies them all time of PE lesson . Wonder if any of this is even legal .

“Having probs with so called sanctions at academy , my 9 year old ds has been denied morning break time and lunch time play since before Easter thanks to form teacher for minor quite petty things . He is not allowed around indefinitely.His moral is at all time low also he’s put on a stone in weight in the past 3 months getting concerned now about his physical and mental health . Teacher in question also has a timer for the class and denies them all time of PE lesson . Wonder if any of this is even legal .”

Go into the school and challenge the teacher face to face. These people who are so brave when picking on children always shot themselves.

Tell your child not to cooperate with these punitive measures any more and tell the teacher that you have told the child this. Make sure the teacher is aware that if he uses any form of physical force or any form of shouting, threat or intimidation then you will involve the police and local authority.

minor quite petty things

What sort of things would cause the teacher to remove your child’s play indefinitely? That sounds very extreme.

Have you spoken to the school about the “minor petty” things he’s getting kept in for? Tbh I wouldn’t have let this drag on as long as it has - either there are rules he needs to be supported to keep, or a discussion with the school about why he’s struggling to do what he needs to avoid sanctions. I’d not allow my child to have no playtime at school for over 2 months.

Tell your child not to cooperate with these punitive measures any more and tell the teacher that you have told the child this.

The child is 9, this is for the adults to sort out in a measured, reasoned way - I wouldn’t be encouraging disobedience and disrespect for authority in a child so young, especially not when I can work things out in his behalf.

We don’t know what the sanctions are for, the behaviours need to be addressed first I think.

Make sure the teacher is aware that if he uses any form of physical force or any form of shouting, threat or intimidation then you will involve the police and local authority.

This is awful advice for the PP.

I have to say no primary aged child of mine would be being denied their right to breaks and outdoor play and socialising - more than say - once - without me knowing the full detail of the situation.

They said it was a silly reason to send her in the first place

Cornishgorl44

Here is the bit that I don't get.

Internal exclusion isn't something that the teachers decide on.
No school that I know of has a policy where teachers just send kids to IX.
It has to go through the management system and match the policies.
Further to this the people that staff IX (mainly teachers) do not have the power to be able to override the policies or SLT/management, so they can't just send someone back to the class.

I can think of several scenarios that could be turned in to this. but I think that your DD's friend isn't been entirely honest with what has happened.

I think this has got side tracked from the OP. I recognise this as my children’s school. The issue is not that the children should abide by the rules but rather: this was implemented without the parents being informed. We met with the deputy head who said the decision was made not to give parents full details in order to avoid challenges. Teachers were informed on Monday with implementation on tue. It is claimed to be a policy yet it is not documented anywhere. No risk assessment was done so on Tuesday the records were not up to date, they were not aware which children were in there causing a potential risk in case of a fire. There is no 1st warning system so any misdemeanour, no matter how small, means the child misses 3 hrs of lessons. Other punishments are ongoing so a child can get 3 hours RRD and still have after school detention for the same issue.

Actually the parents and children are the stakeholders, no children = no school

Stepmumandrubbishmum

Yes the school on the hill.

This sounds horrendous and I would definitely ask your DC to take note of when teachers don't have all their equiptment
And i'd be asking for a full written break down of these bew sanctions. You have the right to have this laid out.
I'd Also be buying a massive supply of purple pens and giving to DD to give to any pupil who is about to get sanctioned for not having one
"Oh sorry I borrowed Ben's pen- here it is"
"Oh sorry I borrowed Tom's pen- here it is"
"Oh sorry I must have borrowed Mary's pen too. Oops"
They'll be like th Robin Hood of the school!

I'm sure this has already been covered in the thread but where do you buy purple only pens?