that school should offer lunch time detentions?

[ljs22]

Regular poster, NC for this post,

Firstly, I completely agree with the concept of detentions. If my dd (15) has done something wrong, she needs to be punished. That's fine. Thankfully she doesn't get them often - just the occasional one, usually for not doing homework on time.

But (here's the AIBU). After school detentions mean that she misses the school coach, which I pay £60 a month for to bring her home. I work 4 days a week and my partner works long and unpredictable shifts, so we are invariably not available to collect her when she has an after school detention. We have no family locally who can help out.

We also live a 40 min drive away from the school and public transport is a pain as we are in the back end of nowhere and she'd need to get 2 (sometimes 3) buses, one of which runs only every hour, so if she misses that she has a really long wait. Hence why I pay for the coach in the first place as it brings her right to the street we live on.

I've been informed today by email that she's been given an hour detention tomorrow for not doing homework. I've contacted the school to request a lunch time one instead in the circumstances.

But .. AIBU to request this? I'm not sure if I am or not, but I honestly don't know what to do. I can't take time off work to collect her from school, neither can my partner, and I don't want her stranded for ages waiting for buses either when I pay a company to bring her home for precisely that reason.

@Justalittlebitfurther

But OP you are expecting staff at school to work 10-12 hours without a break so I don’t see how it’s different to you having to leave work. Step up and do the parenting after school and work and then you won’t have this problem.

Firstly, show me where I have said I expect this of school staff?

Secondly, please do not tell me to "step up and do the parenting". I do. I try my best. Parenting teens is bloody hard - news flash: they don't always do what you tell or ask them to!

This is on you. You need to impress on your daughter that she can't get detentions. Most kids don't.

We do both. Lunch is often worse because their mates are out having fun and they’re not. I’d rather not do after school as I have a life and having done break duty and lunchtime dets, I’d rather run home so I can eat/have coffee.

If you have access to her homework platform, try to occasionally log in for a check and honestly, I’d make her get the multiple buses home, tough.

@Indigofig

Just to add I had a parent email me yesterday for a 15min break time detention I gave yesterday. All guns blazing, I sent her a screenshot of the no homework submission and the mother immediately apologised and admitted having lied about checking her daughters work and instead just 'believed her version of events'. We as teachers seriously have enough shit on our plates without having to make up reasons to sanction your children. The irony is that when your children don't meet their target gcse grades it will be our fault for not pushing them more, we can't win!

That's completely irrelevant to my post. I have no issues with break time detentions, if they are of course warranted. I have an issue with my
DD's personal safety being compromised for the sake of not completing one question on her homework and making a really good attempt with the rest.

I dont agree at all with lunchtime detention.

1. Your dd needs a break to eat
2. She needs a break from the mental load of school

If she were my dd I'd charge her a portion of the coach cost every time she got a detention. That might teach her not to get them so much.

@Lesperance

This is on you. You need to impress on your daughter that she can't get detentions. Most kids don't.

Oh you sound really experienced at parenting teens.

Do you have any helpful tips on how to get them to actually do the things you tell them they need to? I'd love to hear them.

No I think the after school detentions should stay even if it's inconvenient. She needs to use public transport.

@Viviennemary

No I think the after school detentions should stay even if it's inconvenient. She needs to use public transport.

Even if it's inconvenient and potentially unsafe for her to travel home?

After school detentions, apparently @ljs22 🙄

But, once again, op, the suggestion that you're ignoring - if you don't want to compromise her safety on the buses, why doesn't she pay for a taxi?

This does sound strict. Do ask the teacher about it.

Another option if this happens again is to say you'll book a taxi for her but it will be deducted from any allowance/pocket money she gets until its paid for.

@arethereanyleftatall

But, once again, op, the suggestion that you're ignoring - if you don't want to compromise her safety on the buses, why doesn't she pay for a taxi?

Would she be any safer in a taxi?

I agree with you completely op.
Nobody gets anything from a detention, it doesn’t improve a child’s relationship with the school or their work.

Your daughters safety should not be compromised, she is a minor and needs to get home safely.

I honestly would tell her to go home on the coach and deal with it later. They can’t physically stop her from leaving.

Why should a staff member have to miss their lunch because your daughter doesn’t do her homework? Sure let if she’s had detention before for the same thing she should’ve learnt from it? Detentions aren’t meant to be convenient! Poor bloody teachers!

Christ @Pumperthepumper. Are we really living in a world where women shouldn't ever get a bus in the dark, or wait at a bus stop in the dark, or get a taxi?

Oh, poor adult missing their lunch due to their completely pointless consequences that inflict absolutely no positivity for kids at school at all. I feel so sorry for them 🙄. Meanwhile said 15 year olds safety is compromised and their safety put at risk.

Ridiculous

We all know the dangers being women of walking alone when it’s dark, even recently that walking in a lit area and trusting police officers doesn’t make us safe either, do you think ignoring this makes it go away?

Ops daughter isn’t even a women, she is a minor. @arethereanyleftatall

@Staryflight445

Oh, poor adult missing their lunch due to their completely pointless consequences that inflict absolutely no positivity for kids at school at all. I feel so sorry for them 🙄. Meanwhile said 15 year olds safety is compromised and their safety put at risk.

Ridiculous

Your arguments were not very strong before this. But really.

I think you are fully within your right to ask to change your daughters detention to another after school - most schools would just move it. It's not ok to ask teachers to give up their lunchtimes (which they barely get anyway). Although many teachers would for a one off occurrence but I would never for a student who said they 'couldn't be bothered' to do the work.

I think a lot of parents need to consider how many times teachers have given warnings without any consequences. I wouldn't give out a detention on the first time of anything.

To the PP who was worried about their child with additional needs - of course the school will make allowances for this! Teachers aren't monsters!

OP I am shocked at what a hard time you are getting on here about this.

To me it’s a duty of care issue. If your daughter were mugged or assaulted or even worse on the way home from this detention, there would be the mother of all investigations into what the school was thinking, forcing a child to wander around the countryside on a dark evening for hours on their own.

Luckily the school knows that too which is why they have readily agreed to let you change the date.

(I can’t help contrasting this thread with the one a few months ago where the parents wanted their DC to walk home alone a few hundred yards from primary school but the school wouldn’t let them for safeguarding reasons. According to MN the school was 100% right about that, but now according to MN, for kids just a few years older the school has no duty of care once they leave the school gates and there are no safeguarding issues at all.)

@arethereanyleftatall

Christ *@Pumperthepumper*. Are we really living in a world where women shouldn't ever get a bus in the dark, or wait at a bus stop in the dark, or get a taxi?

We are, I’m afraid, yes.

Hardly an "impossible" situation. When I was at high school my I had to get two buses each way, one of which only came every hour. Yeah it was inconvenient and annoying but so are a lot of things.

There's no need for your daughters detention to affect you and trying to get the school to change the rules for you is super entitled and not the example i'd want to set for a teenager. If its the money you pay for the bus that's the concer see if you can get them to pro-rata it and ask for your £1 back

Schools need to get with the times and change their consequences that do not inflict even more negativity/ compromise students safety.

@FrippEnos

My arguments are not strong, in your opinion.
My arguments are safety based.

‘ There's no need for your daughters detention to affect you and trying to get the school to change the rules for you is super entitled and not the example i'd want to set for a teenager.’

It’s not entitled to be concerned about your child’s safety, if you think setting an example for a teenager where their safety isn’t first priority I’m not sure your children will go far either.

@PleasantBirthday

She could do her homework. If she doesn't, then she does the detention and waits for the bus. Seems like her choice, really. I mean, the relationship between cause and effect isn't unclear here. I don't think school punishments are designed with convenience in mind.

Perish the thought that the prodigy of an MNer should be inconvenienced! Maybe, instead of thinking that the world revolves around her, she could show more respect to her mother and teachers and do as she's told.