Any secondary school teachers/parents? What would you think to this?

[Cosygreythrow]

Ds was given a detention today, for tomorrow.

It's the first time he's had a detention and he was loving being back at school and I thought he was behaving so both he and I are pissed off.

Of course he claims it wasn't fault.

His teacher rang me and at first I thought it was a praise phone call because the teacher started off saying how well ds was doing and bright and enthusiastic he was and good at the subject. Then went on to say ds had been given a detention for talking and being disruptive in class and was given 3 warnings. Could I have a word to make sure it doesn't happen again. To which I obliged. My heart sank.

Ds says. First warning someone was talking to him and he was asking them to be quiet but the teacher caught him saying he quiet, second warning he says he was having a sip of water and bashed his hand on the desk and said ouch (teacher apparently wrongly accused him of making silly noises), final warning resulting in detention he said the answer without putting up his hand, which he thinks was the only thing he did wrong, but claims he forgot himself because he knew the answer.

Oh and apparently there's a boy sitting on front of him who keeps climbing under the desk trying to pull ds shoes off, but the teacher never does anything.

What would you make of that little lot? No flaming please, I am NOT saying ds was innocent. I'm inclined to think ds is making excuses for his crap behaviour. Just asking for opinions.

I would tell him sometimes these things happen and to do the detention. I wouldn't raise it with the school as they have enough on their plates right now and it's a minor thing really.

Oh I hate these things. Children can make excuses, and also teachers can be wrong.

I'd very gently ask the teacher for more info about what the talking was I think.

I'd tell him to take the detention on the chin this time.

Yep year 8. I just hope he doesn't make a habit of it. Thought it was unlikely he was unlucky 3 times. He's been warned. After missing so much school he has got to knuckle down and get on with it.

"Oh and children this age lie like crazy. Dd has had a lot of issues over the past few months. 12 year olds are masters of telling the story in a way, which makes them look the most attractive and leaving out the bad bits."

Can be so true. They can be very convincing too

He was probably a bit unlucky, but just remind him that there will be times when he does something wrong and doesn't get caught!

I am pretty certain there won't have just been three incidents. I will give a number of low level warnings before making them 'official' warnings which start to build towards a detention.

I would suggest get the detention done, then get him to go and speak to his teacher and see if he can move away from the disruptive influences/co disrupters.

All our detentions are now after school as we have shortened lunch breaks and we need to make sure the students have a chance to eat.

I think you’re very realistic about it!
There is absolutely no need to say “ouch” loud enough to be disruptive from banging your hand - that’s just bullshit piss about behaviour!

Lol. He's playing you and attempting to play the teacher. 1) It's not his place to tell others to be quiet. If they all did that you'd have a whole class arguing. 2) Bashing his hand on the table. Saying 'ouch' loud enough for teacher to hear is disruptive and not necessary. 3) he has been in school long enough to know you can't shout out answers.
A few years ago I had a parent shout at me for giving a detention to his child. The child was in Y10 and had left his seat 4 times to put something in the bin next to me while I was annotating a poem on the board. First it was a tissue, then a water bottle, then pencil sharpening sas, then more pencil sharpenings. Each time disrupting the class. The dad's take was that his son was being punished for attempting to keep the classroom tidy lol. Kids know how to play this game. Seemingly innocent actions that are actually part of a bigger picture of disruption. If all students engage in this kind of attention seeking crap, it's a mess.
He is well aware of what he's doing. I've met thousands like him unfortunately.

I work in a school. The kids side of the story about why they got detention is rarely unbiased.

I don’t think some kids realise how disruptive their behaviour can be, even when it seems small to them. Also please don’t forget that secondary teachers are having to manage the behaviour of 30 pupils from a safe zone at the front of the classroom. Where in the past they would have been able to employ all sorts of techniques to manage behaviour, they are having to adapt and as a result may be less tolerant of low level behaviours.

Maybe he was innocent, maybe not. I'd just tell him to suck it up tbh and be more careful next time.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a parent whose son I'd given a detention to.
"He says all he did was blow a piece of paper."
"Well, yes, that's true, but what he failed to mention was that the piece of paper was cut into 20 pieces, which the girls behind him had just succeeded in matching up correctly."

Ooh, Tarsia? Love that.

I’m afraid I think excuses too, OP. I get a lot of crying emotional Year 7 boys and I’m utterly sympathetic, but when I untangle the story, it’s often something they’ve done themselves (called another child the n word, made a puking noise when the word gay was mentioned, I had a very serious chat re both issues, I absolutely will not tolerate predujice)

I have a Year 7 boy. He would most definitely downplay (possibly outright lie) what he had done to deserve the detention. I would tell him he should have been careful not to make any noise after the first warning. Also, he’s lucky to get notice. My kids’ school gives detentions for the same day and they absolutely must be attended. Parents get an email to tell them but often it doesn’t give a full reason, just that your child has got a detention so will be late out/home.

They can be very convincing too

Yeh, can’t they just. I call my dd out when I catch her doing this of course. And she’s quite a truthful child. It must be a nightmare for teachers with the children, who purposely want to piss them off. It sounds as if your ds is not in this category and hopefully the detention will fix any issues. Schools have to be ridiculously hard otherwise classes would quickly descend into chaos.

I'd say he needs to do the detention and you need to back the teacher bit your son otherwise you will make a rod for your own back. He needs consistent messaging

He was given warnings. And the teacher has been fair by mentioning some ways in which his behaviour has been good.

I am a teaching assistant and we can't just keep giving warnings, because then the kids just ignore us and we look as weak as water. We have to draw the line somewhere. Three strikes and then you get a punishment sounds fair to me. And just because there are worse things that he could be doing doesn't mean that the teachers shouldn't pull him up. If you pull them up on the minor things then it often prevents them acting out in more major ways.

Loads of good points.

I've told him how annoying and disruptive it can be when you're trying to teach 30 children and you've got 5 that are being downright disruptive, 10 that are being good and want to learn, and the rest may be just chatting, just doing this, only doing that.

He had 3 chances.
Nip it in the bud by supporting the teacher with the detention.

I think the rule is overly strict but would say to my child he knew and broke the rule so the detention has to be completed. It's sad schools are like this, though. I really feel quite miserable about the current trends in classroom management and school discipline policies.

Did you not ask the teacher? I'd say your sons making up excuses. Though my son did get a detention for whistling in class last year and I know for a fact my son who has a speech disorder cannot whistle so I rang and they took it away.

Mine also sat a detention once when it wasnt him it was a boy he sat next to but the teacher said he did not know which one had done it and they both said it wasn't them. He sat the detention, I'd have kicked of if was me 😂

DS was in a class that got a whole class lunch detention, I could not narrow down why but it happened

If now DS gets a detention after 3 warnings he will be told use the time wisely to think how he can minimise getting any more

DS is in a class of a certain amount of kids, there is only one teacher, the teacher will not get it right 100% nor will DS but DS is fully responsible for his own actions so needs to play his part to behave in class.

If I genuinely thought there was an issue where DS was 100% in the right I would contact the school if I felt I needed to, going with the OP my son would ear the detention and that would be it

Having once been a child and having had experience of teachers phoning home, I'm going with like me he lied to try and get out of troubble

On the plus side lying is correlated with higher intelligence

I have a kid a detention yesterday for something that our school deems to be a 'straight to detention' punishment, no warnings. Kid did it right in front of me, and surrounded by 20 other students.

Cue call from parent that I'm targeting their child. Nope, your kid screwed up in direct and plain sight of a teacher.

Pinch of salt op, and hopefully lesson learned for your ds.

If this happened with dd I'd probably point out that interrupting a lesson 3 times is quite a lot when you think that if the other class members did similar it could be 90 interruptions in one lesson.
I try and remind myself that a teacher wouldn't have the time or motivation to make my dc look worse than they really are, but my dc may have the motivation to put a positive spin on things! Sounds like you have the right attitude anyway op

Hah, kids are always just telling someone else to be quiet. It's strangely never them doing the talking!