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.

It was your choice to move miles away from her school, you weren’t thinking about her safety then!

@Soontobe60

How dare you. This is where my patience ends. Don't you dare insinuate I put my child at risk by moving areas! I arranged for her to travel by coach to and from school when we moved further away, I didn't leave her to fend for herself ffs! Get off my thread if you're going to make comments like that.

@Bellie710

Our school do lunch time not after school detentions for this very reason. We live in a very remote area and there are only about 4 buses a day so if you miss the bus after school your only option is a lift or taxi that will be a minimum of £40.

Your school sounds very sensible, and I will ne suggesting this to my DD's school and referencing the fact that other schools clearly do it.

I totally agree with OP on this...and I am a teacher who does give detentions! With students who would then be unsafe on the way home, my school schedules the detention the next day. Yes, schools are INTENDING to inconvenience the student. No, they are NOT going to see endless waiting in the dark as safe for that student. We kind of like our students to be safe as well as do their hw!!

@Wheelz46
Are you seriously saying you've never seen a 15 year old out at 5pm before?

@ljs22 Again. This is on you. So if your child isn't reliable about doing homework, you have to check it. Do it with her. Yes, you shouldn't have to do this at 15, but clearly, your child didn't understand an exercise, presumably didn't ask for help, and now has detention. If you don't want detention for your daughter, check the work is done. Let's face it, you are the one complaining, so if you cannot get your child to take responsibility or perhaps your child needs more help, which is fine, then either live with the inconvenience of the detention or else help with the homework.

[quote ClaudiusTheGod]**@ljs22* I don't care what she wants. It's about how it affects my own day.*

Parenting 2022 🙄[/quote]

Thank god you showed up to make an intelligent contribution to my thread.

@arethereanyleftatall are you seriously telling me you haven't watched the news lately?

Your daughter is getting so many detentions and is still persisting with the same issue. It clearly doesn't fix the problem, so I can't fathom why the school keeps handing them out to be honest. Your daughter clearly thinks the detention is worth not doing the homework.

I’m shocked at a lot of the responses on here. You’d think your DD had done something really naughty and spiteful and deserved proper punishment!

There’s a big difference between choosing not to do homework because you cba, and normal teenage procrastination because it’s a subject she’s not keen on. She’ll have so much going on at that age that it must be easy to forget to do one little thing that’s not a priority to her.

To risk her safety and put her through all that messing about seems way OTT considering the ‘crime’. I vote that if the school won’t compromise with you, tell DD she has permission to skip detention and you’ll sort out a suitable alternative with the school. If they’re ridiculous about it, then maybe they’re on a power trip and need standing up to anyways 🤷‍♀️

At my school we can't offer lunch detentions. It's a rolling break and we'll be teaching while pupils in other subject areas are on lunch - this is both a pragmatic and behavioural strategy. If I give a detention it's got to be after school. The solution is to toe the line.

Are any of the ranty people above teachers? I kind of doubt it.

This thread is a great example of the truism that parents want a school with strong discipline right up until the point it affects their child.

Plenty of schools do same-day detentions. The compromise agreed on this occasion seems reasonable.

Your school sounds very sensible, and I will ne suggesting this to my DD's school and referencing the fact that other schools clearly do it.

What you need to be suggesting is that when your daughter can’t answer homework questions, that she contacts the teacher and gets help so she can. Before the homework is due in. Stop blaming the school and get your daughter to take responsibility.

@Wheelz46 of course I have. A women was attached in broad daylight. Your inference from that is that women should never ever be out alone?

[quote Lesperance]@ljs22 Again. This is on you. So if your child isn't reliable about doing homework, you have to check it. Do it with her. Yes, you shouldn't have to do this at 15, but clearly, your child didn't understand an exercise, presumably didn't ask for help, and now has detention. If you don't want detention for your daughter, check the work is done. Let's face it, you are the one complaining, so if you cannot get your child to take responsibility or perhaps your child needs more help, which is fine, then either live with the inconvenience of the detention or else help with the homework.[/quote]

Or, option number 3: Get the school to work collaboratively with me on this and meet in the middle, by (a) giving after school detentions proportionately, and at least offering some clarity to a parent on the reasons where they aren't clear, and ( b) factoring student safety and welfare into after school sanctions.

You can keep repeating "this is on you" all you like. But ultimately, there should be an effective working partnership between parents and their child's school - support and give and take in both directions. Anything else is setting everyone up to fail imo.

And lunchtime detentions are not difficult. I have great fun eating egg sandwiches whilst marking, pausing to slurp tea whilst child sulks in corner.

@SunshineArtist

Your school sounds very sensible, and I will ne suggesting this to my DD's school and referencing the fact that other schools clearly do it.

What you need to be suggesting is that when your daughter can’t answer homework questions, that she contacts the teacher and gets help so she can. Before the homework is due in. Stop blaming the school and get your daughter to take responsibility.

Indeed, I have also spoken to her and told her to do this.

@ThanksItHasPockets

This thread is a great example of the truism that parents want a school with strong discipline right up until the point it affects their child.

Plenty of schools do same-day detentions. The compromise agreed on this occasion seems reasonable.

No. I'm happy for it to affect my child when it is warranted and it meets her need for personal safety. Anything else, I won't support.

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

Here is your solution! How many detentions before she gets fed up and puts the work in so she doesn't get put in detention?

Actions have consequences.

Apologies if this has already been posted but the school didn’t have to give you any notice at all, and it was a courtesy that you they not only notified you but also gave you 24 hours notice.

But you aren't doing your part if you aren't checking the homework are you? You are trying to negotiate a win win situation, but you want both wins. You want her to have detention when it suits you. The school DOESN'T want to give her detention, they want her to do her work. Meanwhile, your daughter gets nothing out of the whole thing, and certainly no help with her homework apparently. Just help her.

Good grief, at 15 she should be able to get 2 buses home from school. I was getting 2 buses to and from school from the age of 11.

And if she finds it tedious and dull, she might be more motivated to do her home work on time. And if she isn't, you can tell her that you'll cancel the paid-for bus altogether if she keeps getting dententions that mean she misses the bus.

@StellaGibs

Your daughter is getting so many detentions and is still persisting with the same issue. It clearly doesn't fix the problem, so I can't fathom why the school keeps handing them out to be honest. Your daughter clearly thinks the detention is worth not doing the homework.

She isn't getting "so many" detentions. She very rarely gets them. Where on earth did you invent that from?

@TonTonMacoute

Did you even read the thread? Or at least the OP's posts where she explains why this is a problem?

Yep, thanks for reinforcing my point, OP.