School detentions

[FU81]

I have a real dilemma with my daughters secondary school. She doesn’t often get detentions (in 3 years just 2) but she got kept behind after a lesson last week for 20 minutes and she was late for the lesson. my daily school run is to collect youngest from primary then collect her & her sister from secondary, drop them to my MIL about 12 miles away then onto work. My husband then collects them from his mums when he finishes work. We’ve had the same routine for last couple of years & it works well providing all the kids are on time.
The day my daughter was kept behind messed up the routine & I was ultimately late for my shift by over an hour. I complained to the school who basically said that they can pretty much detain the kids without notice & it’s too bad for the parent if they’re late for work (not their problem effectively). I explained that unfortunately life doesn’t work as simply as that & if it affects my childcare arrangements and work schedule then detentions need to happen during lunch breaks which I have no problem with. The teacher is question was very rude & just sent me cut/paste text from school policy & told me if I don’t like it maybe I should find another school that has policies that fit in with my work schedule but good luck with that. On Monday she was given a 60 minute after school detention (for tuesday) by the very teacher I’d been having these email exchanges with which seemed such a coincidence the reason being that she was late again to a lesson, she explained that she was kept by her tutor after registration for a few minutes so she was running late for a lesson, so I feel an hour is an excessive detention time for the infraction. I called the school & explained that she couldn’t attend attend after school due to our schedule so could she have it during a lunch hour and that I feel the time excessive. Yesterday I then received an email from said teacher telling me that as it was missed she now has a 90 minute detention after school tomorrow, which I have responded that she cannot attend for reasons that I have previously explained, I also explained that I work at a hospital about 40 minute drive away & I’m on a strict schedule & I cannot just turn up late for my shifts otherwise I could face a disciplinary. AIBU to fight against this, I feel the school is being unreasonable as I’m not refusing she have a detention just not after school plus I do feel the teacher has deliberately given her the detention because he doesn’t like my opinion on it.

I teach (albeit at a university) and I can't for the life of me understand why some teachers (this applies to universities as well) seem to be on a power trip. There are students late to my class too from time to time. They walk in, sit down, I continue talking.

Sorry, but university isn't the same as school. In school, students' whearabouts needs to be kept track of and accounted for. If they are late with no evidence of a proper reason, there is a good chance they have been truanting or up to no good.

Expecting students to be on time and questioning where they were or why they were late is not a 'power trip'. It's part of our job, and it helps cut down on truanting from lessons, damage to school property and equipment, smoking, vaping or drug taking on school premises etc. Even letting them out to go to the toilet often results in some of these things happening.

My first line punishment was to memorise a Shakespeare sonnet - fail to do that and then you'd be in detention until you'd learnt it. I had a number of pupils who knew quite a few by the time they left school grin.

Like the protagonist in ‘A Patchwork Planet’

[quote Bingbong21]**@CorvusPurpureus* Breach of behaviour contract = invited to find a new school.

If a parent didn't want to support the school behaviour system, obviously we are not the right school for their child & we would advise them to consider other options.*

Well that's off rolling and illegal[/quote]

Sorry - you're right, it would be in the UK & I thought I'd added at the end that I'm not. Phone occasionally decides it's ready to post before I am.

The point is that it's not usually 'mean Mr Bloggs unilaterally decides to give OP's dd an after school detention & it's up to him whether any leeway is given'.

As OP explained, she received a copy of the sanction policy when she initially contacted the school.

So OP's powers to equally unilaterally decide that her dd doesn't attend detention are similarly limited. The likely outcome will be that the school will shrug & add her dd's name to Monday's list for the isolation room.

Most dc hate being in isolation, so if the dd is normally a sensible, punctual, well behaved type as described in OP, she will then take care to be on time in the future. Sorted.

At my school where parents don’t support detention (for legitimate infringements) we escalate to isolation. A day in isolation has different hours from a normal school day. It finishes an hour later if the issue is failure to attend detention. The pupils don’t have the option to walk out of isolation. It is secure. Someone has to teach youngsters boundaries.

Most dc hate being in isolation

I've known quite a few kids deliberately misbehaving to get taken out of lessons and put in isolation!

@FU81

I have emailed her tutor & have yet to receive a response

Tutor is probably teaching.

@Newrumpus you can't hold a child in that manner. You are a school not a prison if a parent arrives to collect their child you can't just refuse to hand them over. It is literally false imprisonment

There's also a difference between refusing to support a legitimate DT and this ludicrous one.

I’m quite shocked that schools don’t have to give parents notice of after-school detentions, or tell them why a detention has been given.

I thought schools and parents were supposed to work in partnership and seriously inconveniencing parents won’t foster a positive school/parent relationship. Also, if parents don’t know why a detention has been given they can’t reinforce the message at home (I appreciate that in this instance the OP does know the reason for the detention), which strikes me as a missed opportunity. Many children don’t go straight home after school and so parents wouldn’t notice if they were an hour late and would be unaware that their child had been sanctioned!

It seems to me that detentions are fairly pointless unless they’re used to address the underlying problem. I should imagine that this sanction often creates resentment between the pupil and teacher, which inevitably makes matters worse.

The schools my children are at/went to must use this sanction very lightly as they’ve never had a detention and I’m fairly certain that they’re not angels!

[quote Bingbong21]@Newrumpus you can't hold a child in that manner. You are a school not a prison if a parent arrives to collect their child you can't just refuse to hand them over. It is literally false imprisonment

There's also a difference between refusing to support a legitimate DT and this ludicrous one.[/quote]
Schools can hold pupils in this manner. The parents have sent them to school under these terms. If the parents were then to renege on that agreement we would obviously release the child but the isolation would be failed and would need to be repeated. This has never happened. If things got to this point, the relationship would be so badly broken that we might have to suggest alternatives. As I said, it has never happened. Most parents in real life are nowhere near as difficult as some of the mumsnet extremists.

My Dad told the school I couldn't do detentions as I had a paper round to be do before it got dark and they agreed that was a legitimate reason.

Did the tutor ever get back to you OP?

Two perspectives (from a primary head, so no detentions here!).

In some secondary schools, there is a culture at the moment of giving out detentions at a drop of a hat because they think it's good for the kids. My view is that's wrong, but equally sorting out 30 teenagers five times a day and understanding which ones were late for an unavoidable reason and which ones were taking the mick is nigh on impossible. And yes, basic respect means that they should be listened around why they were late and not kept in detention if that's not their fault. Challenging the reason for the detention would seem to be fair enough.

Ultimately, you signed up for this though by choosing this school with this policy. Detentions are part of school life and have been for a long time. In most schools, most kids will very rarely get a detention. It is realistic to assume that on some (hopefully very rare) occasions, your daughter won't finish until later and that there needs to be a contingency plan for this.

The school are very likely to stick to their guns. If they don't, then all the kids whose parents just don't care about school rules will be phoning up. Have you discussed with your daughter how much grief/isolation she wants to get at school, because digging your heels in is likely to cause this?

By all means, challenge the overall policy if it impacts unfairly on parents. But until the policy is changed, your daughter will have to stick by this (and hopefully avoid further detentions).

Not recommending this, but my parents used to refuse to pick my brother up from detention until a time that suited them (it meant he missed the school bus). So he'd have to sit waiting until 5.30/6 or whenever they could come and get him. He used to help the caretaker sometimes since he was so bored.

@lazylinguist

Most dc hate being in isolation

I've known quite a few kids deliberately misbehaving to get taken out of lessons and put in isolation!

Well...yes, that's not unheard of! Hence further escalation if isolation happens again.

We don't just keep sending the same kids off to the Iso every week - if problems continue, & other intervention & support (including parental involvement) isn't working, we obviously aren't a good fit for that child. Probably best all round if parents look elsewhere.

But it's certainly true that UK state schools have very limited powers to just say 'sorry, this isn't working - neither you nor your dc are happy with how we do things, so let's help you arrange a transfer'.

Which is why they do tend to be fairly rigid about enforcing low level sanctions like detention & internal isolation in the face of parental push back. It's all they've got.

These threads always depress me . What sort of society do we live in where we talk so blithely about ‘isolating’ children in schools . Where the assumption is that children are like animals and need to be locked in and herded about and always always must be assumed to be lying. . Where a medical professional in the middle of a pandemic cannot expect a little understanding of her circumstances ( she did contact the teacher to plead for help but got a pretty dismissive reply by the sounds of it.) It’s perfectly possible to put a flag on the pupil management system to say ‘no after school detentions , parent is a medical professional .

Other countries do not treat their children like this, and their young people do not run riot. We need to take a long hard look at the way we treat our young people and at ourselves. They are our future.

Unless I have missed something, there are two parents here, both with cars. So why can't the dad change his working arrangements to pick up his dd?

If it happens as rarely as you say, make other arrangements for this once in a blue moon event.

Or find another school that suits you better.

Interesting one.

Absolutely the OP should find out more information from the tutor. If the tutor did keep her for 20 minutes then I would challenge the detention.

However, if not, then the OP needs to remember that they chose this school. The school will have their behaviour policy on their website.

I’m all for standing up for what I believe for but the OP should try to work with the school. They appear to just be saying, “No, that won’t work!” for everything rather than trying to find a solution. Ultimately, this won’t go away.

I hate this stuff about choosing a School. In huge swathes of the country there is no choice . There is one school, that’s it . In other parts of the country you are allocated a school, yes you can express a preference but mostly you have to accept what you are given .

I've known quite a few kids deliberately misbehaving to get taken out of lessons and put in isolation!

We used to purposely start arguments with different heads of years so we could get put into isolation (especially if we hadn't done our homework for a certain lesson.)
Isolation was actually quite fun in my school

I’m quite shocked that schools don’t have to give parents notice of after-school detentions

This. What about kids who get a school bus home? If a detention is considered necessary why does it matter if it takes place one day later.

I have a DC in Year 7 and I'm quite shocked about how they hand out detentions willy-nilly. Apparently you get one if you don't remove your coat before you enter the building.
Sadly it doesn't seem to actually have any impact on the kids that continually misbehave who have now just become used to getting detentions. All it does is make the majority of the kids anxious.

I agree that this is a thoroughly depressing read - respect is both ways, you should respect a child as a human being. Schools should elevate children and remember they're there to provide an education not a prison. The teacher sounds vengeful by upping the time for the detention - not exactly a great attitude to model to pupils. This obsession with isolation is deeply disturbing particularly after children's mental health has been harmed by the isoaltion and upheaval experienced in the pandemic!

Absolutely ridiculous that the parent gets inconvenienced, so punished alongside their child.

@Nowomenaroundeh

I'm shocked by this. I'm a teacher but not in the UK. I can't believe they are allowed to behave like this. We would always give notice on detention.

I'm a secondary teacher in Scotland and I'm appalled at some of the things I'm reading here! There's absolutely NO WAY we would get away with holding kids back after the end of the school day! I've only worked in one school that tried after school detentions - they required parental consent and so many parents refused consent due to school buses, pick ups etc they scrapped it.

As for the suggestions that a 14 year girl should be walking home, alone, in the dark, down country lanes for over an hour - are you all fucking mental?

@FU81

I have a real dilemma with my daughters secondary school. She doesn’t often get detentions (in 3 years just 2) but she got kept behind after a lesson last week for 20 minutes and she was late for the lesson. my daily school run is to collect youngest from primary then collect her & her sister from secondary, drop them to my MIL about 12 miles away then onto work. My husband then collects them from his mums when he finishes work. We’ve had the same routine for last couple of years & it works well providing all the kids are on time. The day my daughter was kept behind messed up the routine & I was ultimately late for my shift by over an hour. I complained to the school who basically said that they can pretty much detain the kids without notice & it’s too bad for the parent if they’re late for work (not their problem effectively). I explained that unfortunately life doesn’t work as simply as that & if it affects my childcare arrangements and work schedule then detentions need to happen during lunch breaks which I have no problem with. The teacher is question was very rude & just sent me cut/paste text from school policy & told me if I don’t like it maybe I should find another school that has policies that fit in with my work schedule but good luck with that. On Monday she was given a 60 minute after school detention (for tuesday) by the very teacher I’d been having these email exchanges with which seemed such a coincidence the reason being that she was late again to a lesson, she explained that she was kept by her tutor after registration for a few minutes so she was running late for a lesson, so I feel an hour is an excessive detention time for the infraction. I called the school & explained that she couldn’t attend attend after school due to our schedule so could she have it during a lunch hour and that I feel the time excessive. Yesterday I then received an email from said teacher telling me that as it was missed she now has a 90 minute detention after school tomorrow, which I have responded that she cannot attend for reasons that I have previously explained, I also explained that I work at a hospital about 40 minute drive away & I’m on a strict schedule & I cannot just turn up late for my shifts otherwise I could face a disciplinary. AIBU to fight against this, I feel the school is being unreasonable as I’m not refusing she have a detention just not after school plus I do feel the teacher has deliberately given her the detention because he doesn’t like my opinion on it.

YABU.

You named this thread "School detentions" when it should have read: "My DD's school detention".