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?

My DC go to this school, there's bound to be teething problems with stricter rules and unfortunately some 'good' kids may be initially upset, but they will enjoy the outcome eventually which will be a better environment to learn in.
It is very much needed, there are a lot of disrespectful, rude, entitled children at the school and I think this is a way of the school doing a 'reset'
If you are in trouble for breaking the rules for the small stuff then it follows that serious rule breaking will incur more serious punishment. My DC told me the high number of kids (they estimated 400) in trouble the first day plummeted overnight as the 'good' kids who want to learn made sure they stuck to the rules.
The parents who have a problem with it tend to be pretty entitled themselves in my opinion and can not see or don't want to see how badly behaved their children are

I have no illusions about my children’s behaviour. They can be monsters, usually at home not school. I don’t even have a stake in the game as my kids are too young for this school... yet.

I am perfectly happy to be entitled if that means I protect my children from wearing blazers in the summer heat which will be the next joy at school next week. Also happy to be entitled if it means making a stand against purple pens which seem to have been deliberately chosen as they are difficult to get hold of and difficult to get cheaply.

Loads of kids came out crying this week. In secondary . I saw children openly crying in the street and also crying in the primary school when picking up siblings which is unusual for teenagers. Awful.

Plus the MAT involved is renowned locally for sucking the life out of teachers and schools and for ignoring parental concerns.

To be fair if your DC are not there yet you are working on hearsay.
If children are upset that's a shame but at the end of the day children do cry sometimes, we as adults have to make unpopular choices sometimes but it's only tears ....wait until your DC come home in tears both frustrated and upset because they can not even hear the teacher over the back chat and bad behaviour. Wait until they are upset because favourite teachers leave because the behaviour is too much.
If your children are well behaved and respectful of the opportunity of a great education they will flourish, you are lucky the endemic behaviour problems will be a distant memory when yours get there.

I’ll have to name change after this anyway so... I have direct experience of this MAT as a parent. My DC is at a (primary level) school managed by them. I know for sure that both staff and parents have not been impressed by them. They are very corporate.

But this isn't at a primary school, it's the 'school on the hill' the behaviour problems are at this school, don't know about others who come under the same Trust, what I do know is there had to be a huge change, it really was not possible for my DC's to even hear the teacher in class- can I let that sink in - they didn't have the power to immediately eject pupils for gross disobedience! Of course purple pens etc is a nonsense but you are missing the point, the behaviour is what they are finally sorting out.

That of course is unacceptable and behaviour needs to improve. So crack down on what matters and leave what doesn’t. Purple pens do not matter and just make everyone look stupid. Even people on this thread supporting strictness do not seem to actually agree with purple pens.

We are probably best to agree to disagree. I can only hope that when my DC are older it has the desired effect. Otherwise parents will vote with their feet and enrol their children elsewhere if it stays this strict, which has been the playground discussion in primary and junior school round here this week. Especially the parents who have seen the way the MAT trampled all over the primary level school and staff.

If you want to take a holiday in termtime just send your dc without a pencil case for a few days

Secondary school children crying in the street !!!! FFS what are we breeding ?
When i was in school we sat in heavy wool blazers with the sun shining on us through 15 FT high windows that and neither blinds or curtains, we were not allowed drinks in the classroom, no child ever fainted, died or cried, we sat in soaking wet blazers in the winter, we may have all smelled like wet dog but we didnt die or cry.
We had to run over a mile along the beach (even in winter storms to get to the playing fields, we wore t shirts and gym skirts, we didn't cry and we didnt die.
Why are todays children wrapped in cotton wool ?

omione

Let me guess you walked 2437383 miles to school then stopped to do a day’s work at the mine on the way home?

All this “in my day” guff is so nonsensical.

Woody .

It’s a race to the bottom is it omione? I want a bit more for my kids than to smell like wet dogs or to spend the summer dehydrated or overheated. We are talking about basic care here.

Secondary school children crying in the street is shocking. I have never seen anything like it. We are talking about kids that would usually blank their parents in the street like normal teenagers. These ones were coming to find them in primary school playgrounds. Awful.

Well my two didn't come home and cry about it, but disgruntled re some good kids getting sent to RR but CRYING! Attention seeking behaviour and a bit of hysteria thrown in I would bet, and who can wonder when the parents get so get up about school rules 😂

Het up obviously!

Schoolrules

I am not getting het up about rules being rules but rather about the safety issue as the didn’t have an up to date register resulting in a call to me to say child was not in school resulting in a rather stressful time trying to ascertain her whereabouts, in fact she was in RRD but they didn’t realise. And the fact that parents were purposely not informed as so to keep them from challenging this sudden change in policy. If expecting the school to have an up to date register, being involved and caring about being informed makes me entitled then so be it.

Why should you be informed about any change in behaviour policy ? Not your circus, not your monkeys. Surely we need to trust the teachers to get on with their job without consensus! The parenting is your job, the schooling is their job - or home educate if you don't like it.
I am incredulous you have said twice how 'awful' to see teenagers crying in the street..do you not see how indicative that is of spoilt brat behaviour that is! Crying because of rules they don't like! Well I say tough, I am sick of my kids telling me the naughty kids ruin lessons for everyone else, I suspect the kids who were crying were the ones who's bad behaviour is finally being stopped.

"not your monkeys" um, I think by definition they kind of are..

Not when they are in school they aren't

There's a difference between being strict, having high expectations of pupils and building a culture of respect; and brutalising the school environment.

There's a difference between being strict, having high expectations of pupils and building a culture of respect; and brutalising the school environment.
As a teacher I totally agree.
Some heads get it wrong in my opinion, and equally some parents need to stop equating 'sanctions for rules I don't like' with being some awful human rights abuse (as in my experience the latter over entirely reasonable rules increases the likelihood of the former happening).

Well this school has definitely gone down the brutalising route.

As for not being your monkeys when they are in school, last time I checked we don’t get to check parental responsibility in at school drop off and collect it at school pick up.

I was the one who said it was ‘awful’ and yes I do think that. Teenagers can be a lot of things but they usually don’t cry when other much younger children will see them. Sure, some of it might be manipulative but some of those crying will be the ones who were good on the whole but ended up spending most of the day in sanctions because they didn’t have a purple pen, forgot their planner and then were upset about it, perhaps pointing out the absolute madness of the purple pen rule and got sanctioned for that too. And yes it is about purple pens. Numerous posters on this thread have pointed out why a child might not be able to get hold of a purple pen.

I also think it is awful because these students have spent years nurtured in primary schools with supportive heads and teachers, in a happy environment and then get the shock of their lives when they realise how shit life can be in secondary.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter really as I can’t win this argument, both in real life and on an Internet forum. The people who want students with an inability to think for themselves and a school that current year 5 6 students are asking not to go to the stricter rules have one. The MAT / school will do whatever it wants anyway.

What are the purple pens used for? Ours need red, green and black or blue which are available anywhere.

I’d have no problem with different colours needed if they were sensible or their was logic. Using a colour that is not widely available is just a power play. Apparently it is for their corrections.

Apparently it’s for corrections.

Cordyline1
The purple pen is a bit of a gimmick that is popular at the moment for students to do editing or corrections in another colour so that when a non-subject specialist inspector (or even a member of SLT who doesn't really understand learning processes properly) flicks through the book without any context of the curriculum or scheme of learning, they can say 'well done teacher! Your children have done corrections and we can tick something off on our form to prove you've taught something'.

Different coloured pens can be helpful for students (e.g. redraft in another colour so when they come to revise they know where their best work is), but sometimes it's a silly box tick for senior leaders (and dare I say it, seems to happen more in schools where senior leadership have been teaching less than 5 years).

Thanks.

Cordyline1
Happy to help, though on reading it back I sound so cynical though.