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?

I'm pretty sure 99/100 parents in other western countries would call the use of "spaces in which children sit in silence for hours as punishment for breaking school rules" torture in an only very slightly hyperbolic sense

I very much doubt that. Most children don’t find working in silence that difficult.

Herculepoirot, your attitude is far worse. We need to raise children to question authority and resist tyranny, not to submit to a 'rules are rules' mindset. Because authorities behaving in ways that are either useless or harmful need to be pushed back at until they change. So, with a school management team behaving like this, you need parents complaining to the governors and explaining why the policy is shit and shoudl be scrapped and, ultimately, the majority of students and parents to engage in a mass refusal to comply. They can't exclude the whole lot of them...

We need to raise children to question authority and resist tyranny, not to submit to a 'rules are rules' mindset.

We really don’t.

If we dont expect our darlings to follow the rules RE equipment and dress we end up with young adults going into the workplace unable to cope

Nonsense. If pupils learn anything by pointless rules around dress and colour of equipment, it is that some adults are petty mindless bureaucrats who put in this type of rule as a substitute for doing their jobs properly.

If people can't cope with the workplace unless they've spent their childhoods wearing polyester blazers and hideous ties, how do you account for the fact that the vast majority of schools in other countries don't have uniforms yet they apparently manage to turn out a fully-functioning and successful workforce population?

Most children don’t find working in silence that difficult

herculepoirot, the problem is that in a number of schools that use isolation booths the children are not given work. They're expected to sit there for hours at a time without looking round, staring at the walls of the booth.

" herculepoirot2 Tue 18-Jun-19 08:39:34

I'm pretty sure 99/100 parents in other western countries would call the use of "spaces in which children sit in silence for hours as punishment for breaking school rules" torture in an only very slightly hyperbolic sense

I very much doubt that. Most children don’t find working in silence that difficult."

If they are simply working in silence with appropriate breaks, fine. I had understood that to be "detention". The posts on here and in the newspapers gave the impression that "isolation" meant they were forced to sit still for hours without any occupation.

Isatis

That is time wasting and sounds dull, but it is not torture.

Schools have a legal right to implement their behaviour policies.

Not when the policies themselves or the means of implementation are unlawful.

I’m really amused by the idea that if Johnny doesn’t have a purple pen, or if Sally isn’t wearing the right shoes their chance of being a useful member of society is totally diminished

Not when the policies themselves or the means of implementation are unlawful

And when that law is passed, let me know.

Christ. Are you sending them to school or a detention centre for criminals?

I loved school, but it doesn’t half feel like a legal prison at times, those are ridiculous. School is supposed to be fun, not intimidating.

I find your attitude very damaging.

Good thing I don’t really care about how you find my attitude. In all honesty I find the attitude of “don’t question, don’t engage in discussion, don’t compromise, don’t pick your battles and whatever you do, don’t question the schools right to treat your child any way they please in the name of discipline” way more worrying.

My children have no risk whatsoever of being excluded from school, the school don’t insist on petty rules and don’t seclude my children during the school day. They do have high standards for behaviour and work hard to maintain positive relationships with parents and pupils and to engage children in education. I wouldn’t have thought those were particularly onerous standards for schools to meet. If anything the children have a greater sense of community and an awareness of the need to work cooperatively than they would turning up to school with a purple pen because someone thought it was a good idea and because they’d spend the school day in a booth looking at a blank wall if they didn’t have one for whatever reason.

If they are simply working in silence with appropriate breaks, fine. I had understood that to be "detention". The posts on here and in the newspapers gave the impression that "isolation" meant they were forced to sit still for hours without any occupation.

Typically not. There will be work set by teachers - most of the time - and books to read. By “sit still”, they will be expected to stay in their chair and not talk or try to gain the attention of others in the room. Sometimes there won’t be work, but that’s not torture, it’s just being bored.

herculepoirot, for a child with known mental health difficulties and/or special educational needs, staring at three white walls for 6 hours a day is certainly torture - as proved to be the case in the report I cited earlier. That case really is not a one-off, you know. In the nature of things, where schools have rigidly imposed behaviour policies that ignore the reasonable adjustments duty - which again happens far too often - a disproportionate number of children with such difficulties end up in isolation rooms, or excluded from school either temporarily or permanently.

Good thing I don’t really care about how you find my attitude.

And you are not required to. Your children are required to follow school rules, though, whether or not you agree.

Isatis

I have already said that it looks like the policy was applied badly in that case. But being asked to sit quietly for a few hours really isn’t more than can be expected of most children, and I won’t pretend otherwise. There’s a lot of hysteria here.

‘If we dont expect our darlings to follow the rules RE equipment and dress we end up with young adults going into the workplace unable to cope’

I also think this is nonsense, schools seem stricter in the last 10 years than they ever were and from what I’ve heard from employers in 2 different sectors of work is that 18 year olds now are more entitled and not as eager to work than their 10 year counterparts.

I went into work thinking ah this isn’t going to be as laid back as school I best get my professional head on.

People these days ‘oh this is breeze over the strictness of school, I can chill out a bit, I can get another job if needed’

(Obviously not the case in 100% of people, but it is something I’ve been approached about a few times now).

The idea that children in isolation rooms are given work to do or books to read is unfortunately over-optimistic in many cases. I've heard of cases where, if they were lucky, they were given one worksheet but, because the child had learning difficulties they couldn't do it; or were given a book but, due to dyslexia, couldn't read it.

In one case the child was given a laptop and told to do powerpoint presentations, but not told what they had to be about. The school got its just desserts, however, because when an inspector turned up and looked in he discovered the child happily hacking in to the school's IT system.

Stricter than they ever were- of course I mean recently (in the last sort of 20-30 years!)

The idea that children in isolation rooms are given work to do or books to read is unfortunately over-optimistic in many cases.

Sometimes. But if sitting a child in a room and asking them to be quiet and not disrupt anyone by talking/tapping/sighing/rocking on a chair is torture, a textbook isn’t going to make it okay.

And you are not required to. Your children are required to follow school rules, though, whether or not you agree.
Again, my children have no behavioural issues at school, despite not using a purple pen, having a less than knee length skirt and not spending hours in isolation. I don’t need to submit my children to unreasonable rules or inappropriate discipline measures for them to gain a good education.

I would strongly challenge the use of isolation to enforce routine discipline in schools, and the effective exclusion of my child from education without very good reason and due process being followed. I’m not sure how that equates to feckless, lawless children at risk of being excluded from school.

We always had to record in their diaries if someone (often a third of the class) did not have a pen.
Lots of students added an "is" to the note 'no pen'

jellycatspyjamas

I think we’re at an impasse here. You think you’re right, I think you’re wrong and vice verse. Luckily we don’t have to work together.

@jellycatspyjamas you sound a well balanced reasonable parent who would stand up to the tyranny of over zealous heads unable to control their pupils (it's never their fault). I'd work with you. @herculepoirot2 are you the assistant head struggling to implement this policy? Do you think if this fails we might return to the cane for unruly students with a pen that's the wrong shade of purple?