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.

In general I agree. If the intention is for the punishment to inconvenience the pupil it should do so the same to all students. Having the difficulty of getting home after be part of the punishment hurts some children (or their parents) more than others and isn’t factored in to the detention when it’s handed out. So it is unfair and unreasonable of the school.

However, in your circumstances, since none of what you have described your DD needing to do to get home by herself is actually more dangerous than normal life, I would tell her to get home herself and hope that the inconvenience was more of a deterrent than detention seems to have been so far. (Yes, very occasionally women have been abducted on the streets, waiting at bus stops etc. but girls have also been raped on school buses, killed on school buses in traffic accidents, attacked in school, etc. girls are far more at risk in situations with people they know than from strangers. This focus on fearing for girls or women outside on their own is a form of fetishization which gaslights women into narrowing their world and those of their daughters).

@trumpisagit

I think you need to support the school with regards to the detention OP (not fight it). Now you have sorted the transport issue, I can't see why you wouldn't support the school. Your daughter didn't complete her h/w, and in the past hasn't bothered to do it at all.

DS1 (13 or 14 at the time) had a similar issue and was told he had an after school detention.
He had done a piece of h/w but it was the wrong page of the maths book.
I had a notification about the detention. He was horrified (always does his h/w).
He did the outstanding piece of h/w immediately, scanned it and emailed it to his teacher, with an apology.
She chose to cancel the detention.

If your daughter feels it is unfair she could try and do the h/w (better to give it a go than write nothing) and send an apology.

I can't understand why you are taking this on as your issue - it is between your daughter and the school. She is 15, not 5.

There’s absolutely no way your son should be apologising for a simple mistake or being threatened with detentions because of it.

Some of you really need to be on your kids’ teams.

In your circumstance I would refuse consent for DD to have after school detentions and reply to that email

Explain why and that she has no way to catch transport home if they attempt to keep her after school has ended - which leaves her vulnerable as a minor who cannot then get home. I would tell my DD to walk out at home time and ignore the detention request and that you will talk with school about alternative detention time . Teachers are not allowed to physically restrain DD from walking out nor threaten them if they do, so really detentions after school hours are by consent only.

But I would suggest to school we meet (even if virtual on MS teams) to discuss alternatives to their request for after school detention - including if lunchtime detention or other options is a possible alternative.

OP. We live away from school and DD also gets the school bus home. If she misses it there is no direct bus to our village, she would have to get a bus to next largest town, go to the bus station and get another bus home. Or one of us collects her.

She was told, in Year 7 that an after school detention would mean I had to pay for a taxi home for her, and if I did that, the cost of it would mean I couldn’t afford to pay for her phone that month.

She did it once. A detention for not doing Food Tech homework. I booked the taxi and she had no phone for the rest of the month.

She never did it again.

I am doubly mean - both her father and I could have easily collected her, and I have done over the years at least once a week for the number of clubs she’s attends (one term she had something every bloody night), but I wasn’t going to do it for something under her control like a detention.

I am surprised your DD has had her homework marked and returned already if she only had to hand it in today. I’d definitely check the story tomorrow.

We were in this situation when I was a teenager - my mum just wrote to the school and said we weren't doing any after school detentions until they put an after school bus on to bring us home, and we didn't, and eventually they did. I think you're right OP.

Vipers out in force I see... You're absolutely right Op, and in any school I work with they would accommodate this.

What's that thing called, looks like a car sounds like a car.......oh yeah I've got it a taxi.

@Staryflight445

How long would the buses take op? What time would she be looking at getting home?

If there was no waiting around for buses and they all connected seamlessly, it would be around 1hr 20 to get home, so she'd be home by about 4.50pm. If she missed the window for the 3rd bus it's an hour wait for the next one, so 5.50pm getting home.

I am surprised your DD has had her homework marked and returned already if she only had to hand it in today. I’d definitely check the story tomorrow.

It hasn't been marked, the teacher just looked over it briefly as she was going around checking the students books. She noticed one question wasn't fully answered.

@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.

You are not being unreasonable at all but schools have to show their power somehow

@NorthSouthcatlady

Cool, then a staff member gets to have no lunch . The easiest fix is your daughter not getting detentions, why should the school schedule them at times that are convenient to her. That’s not the point of punishments

Because it's a safety issue.

@PleasantBirthday

But they are creating an impossible situation for me as her mother.

No, it's your daughter doing that.

Thia. Come on, OP.

I don’t think that is unreasonable. My daughters school have a high % bussed in and don’t give after school detentions for that reason

@MissMaple82

FYI schools don't need a parents consent. They can enforce detentions

Not with physical force, they can't.

4.50pm?!? 😂😂 it's still light then!

And still, no response from the op about a taxi....

At 15 she can get the bus home. Tough shit if it's 2-3 buses. She shouldn't be getting detentions in the first place any maybe it will teach her to start doing her homework.

@arethereanyleftatall

4.50pm?!? 😂😂 it's still light then!

And still, no response from the op about a taxi....

What response are you looking for? She’s fifteen, a taxi isn’t exactly 100% reliable or safe and if it’s a forty minute drive it will cost a fortune, maybe they can’t afford it?

In a similar situation many years ago (dd 1 is 24) in refused my permission for them to give the detention on that day giving them a number of other days to do the detention. I made it clear it was the day and lack of ability to find anyone with less than 24 hours notice.

School returned with an offer of a teacher we knew would drive her home (lived in same village) we accepted this as a compromise that made everyone happy.

I think the punishment should be given to fit the level of the 'crime'. Missing a bit of homework and getting them to stay after school when they are rural bus students is OTT and a long or late journey home can make them miss time to do other homework. If they've bullied someone or damaged something then yes, it's worth getting the parents involved in having to do pick ups etc.

I'm in a similar situation. It's a 40min bus journey and the buses stop early about 5.30. I wouldn't be able to pick up until I finished work which could be near 7 by time I got there. Means they'd need to have someone to supervise her until then. Luckily she hasn't ever had one but it is a worry.

I think a lot of posters are being extremely harsh on the OP. Granted her daughter should be complying with the school rules and she should be disciplined accordingly.

If detention means OP daughter is wandering about alone close to darkness then the school need to think seriously about the safety aspect. What if something happened to her? What would everyone be saying then? Oh well she should have done her homework! 🙄

OP, I would message them and tell them under no certain terms is your daughter attending detention, they have a duty of care afterall.

I think you need to support the school with regards to the detention OP (not fight it).
Now you have sorted the transport issue, I can't see why you wouldn't support the school.
Your daughter didn't complete her h/w, and in the past hasn't bothered to do it at all.

I won't support the school on this occasion because, having seen her attempt to compete the homework I was informed she didn't do, I don't feel it's an appropriate punishment to issue an after school detention. I don't think punishment of any type is appropriate in this case, I think the teacher needs to support my DD with the question she struggled with and help her understand how to answer it, as per her job role.

What my DD has or hasn't done in the past is irrelevant because she has already been appropriately punished for that.

Similar school set up here OP. They're as Draconian as they come - refusing to let pupils wear coats in the winter, obsessing over the length of skirts, blah blah.
School have had to abandoned after-school detentions. In part due to the fact they're unenforceable in the face of parental refusal and lack of transport. And union refusal to cover them too, I suspect.

Push back. She's too old for this kind of punishment anyway. They need to work on her intrinsic motivation.

she has actually completed the majority of the questions asked of her, and attempted one but not fully completed it because she didn't understand it. I'm now questioning whether a detention is even proportionate.

She should have contacted the teacher before the homework was due in and got help with the question she didn’t understand. At my child’s school this can be done through Teams or they can find the teacher before school starts or at break. Failing that she could have talked to her form tutor who could have emailed the teacher and explained the situation. Instead she just gave up. Hopefully she’s learnt her lesson and will make the effort in future. The school have been reasonable by moving the date so your daughter can be collected after the detention. It seems very fair to me.

@arethereanyleftatall

4.50pm?!? 😂😂 it's still light then!

And still, no response from the op about a taxi....

Did you read my answer fully? 4.50pm if she makes the 3rd bus. If the timings for bus number 2 (which are in the local town and come every 10 mins) are slightly out, then she's waiting an hour on a secluded country road for bus number 3. Sunset has tended to be around 4.30-4.45 recently. I'm not happy for her to be standing on that road alone when it starts to go dark.

Taxis would be expensive, and I already pay £60 a month for a coach.

@MissMaple82
No they can't

We would have a safeguarding if a school teacher tried to physically restrain a child or lock them in past the end of school day. Pupil can leave as Detention is by consent and if parent says I refuse consent for you to keep my child after end of school day because it leaves her in a dangerous position unable to safely get home. .

If parent should be discussing alternatives but school rules have to be proportionate and give priority to children's safety