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.

Some of the comments on here seem to suggest that being run over for not doing homework is a reasonable punishment

Kids copy answers off another after class to try to avoid punishment. Happens all the time. I have worked in secondary schools for many years...

@deeplyrooted

Our school doesn’t do detention. They put a huge amount of work into building the school culture, supporting the students, providing extra help for struggling students, find all the positives and involve the parents as much as possible.

Strictly speaking there is a mechanism for detention, exclusion and suspension but they do everything they can to avoid getting to that point.

Getting a black mark in your journal that has to be signed by the year head and parent is the first step.

DS’s school doesn’t either.

The new head sat down with the student council to discuss it and then said it basically didn’t do what it was set out for so they have said it’ll only ever be used in extreme circumstances.
The mark in the journal is there starting point as well.

Detentions were a big issue because the vast majority of kids are bussed to school because of the location and there aren’t other buses.

They also haven’t gone back to full uniform since covid and the atmosphere in the school is much more pleasant and relaxed since they weren’t getting pulled up for ties askew and going by DS’s books they’re learning better.

There is a meeting after half term to start a consultation on making the current uniform (black or grey trousers or skirt, white T-shirt or polo shirt and black, grey or red jumper cardigan or hoodie - all plain and unbranded (so basically supermarket/M&S school wear) the standard uniform going forward.

@BrambleRoses

Some of the comments on here seem to suggest that being run over for not doing homework is a reasonable punishment

Ah now, they aren't proposing to run her over.

I would wager a guess it's not 'just one last question that she didn't understand' but 'the straw that broke the camels back'

Make her get the bus home after her detention, maybe if she has the inconvenience it’ll make her more likely to bother to do her homework next time. A 15 year old should be more than capable of using public transport.

Should also have said earlier, I wouldn’t be making my 15yo get three buses in the country in the dark and I’m amazed there are people who think it’s an acceptable punishment.

@sicklycolleague

Should also have said earlier, I wouldn’t be making my 15yo get three buses in the country in the dark and I’m amazed there are people who think it’s an acceptable punishment.

It’s one of those things that if the OP proposed to let her teenager do that so the OP could go out then she’d be blasted as a neglectful parent who wanted her child to get murdered. Yet because it’s detention it’s perfectly acceptable

Are you able to upload a photo of the homework as is and ask if your DD's account of why she has been given a detention is accurate? If she didn't understand the last question, arguably staying after school for an hour isn't going to address that gap so it would be good to know how your DD is going to be supported to change that.

I do think it's good the school was sensible about rescheduling the detention for a day your family could manage. No-one likes to think of a teenager standing in an unsafe location for ages after school when there is an alternative.

@sicklycolleague
It's called public transport, with a person maximum one year away from being allowed to live alone/marry/have a child, in a country which is dark from 4pm...not a particularly unusual occurrence.

@Askawayyyy

Could to instead ask your dd to stop getting detentions… seems the easiest option to me

Not helpful Some schools are ridiculously strict and give detentions for every last infraction.

Virtue signally parents whose kids don't ever put a foot wrong don't need to post on these threads.

I think that safe transport home from school is a safeguarding issue, especially for a girl, and therefore the school needs to impose some sort of other (proportionate) punishment.

@sicklycolleague

Should also have said earlier, I wouldn’t be making my 15yo get three buses in the country in the dark and I’m amazed there are people who think it’s an acceptable punishment.

They don't, they'd be up in arms if it was their kids and just like to come on here and post rubbish.

[quote arethereanyleftatall]@sicklycolleague
It's called public transport, with a person maximum one year away from being allowed to live alone/marry/have a child, in a country which is dark from 4pm...not a particularly unusual occurrence. [/quote]
All technically true and yet we have no problem accepting that adult women can be at risk at night / in remote locations / on public transport, but so much trouble extending a minor courtesy to a 15yo so they don’t have to be put at risk

@arethereanyleftatall

If you live rurally it's not regularly or reliable. At 17 most kids pass their driving test and get an old banger for freedom. Until then it's generally parent lifts in a rota.

I wouldn't want to stand at a busstop alone, in the dark on a quiet lane for an hour. As a woman I'd feel extremely vulnerable in that position.

The idea is to punish her for not completing homework, not leave her in a vulnerable position where she would be prey for an assault or a hit and run.

Others are right in saying if OP had said 'AiBU to tell DD to make her way home so I can go to the pub' she'd have been told she was wrong immediately.

Let's not pretend everyone lives in the city of suburbs with a bus every 10 minutes and streetlights everywhere. We don't even have a bus shelter. Just a sign.

I think you need to strike a balance here. If you’re paying for the school coach then I think if a detention means that she misses it, then the cost, plus the bus/taxi fare home should come out of her own pocket.

But I think there’s a couple of other issues here. Firstly the school coach offers a degree of protection, which at 15 I think she needs, and I wouldn’t be too happy with her making such a long journey alone. Secondly why was she given a detention for simply not understanding a homework question and leaving it out - how is not understanding something considered not ‘being consistent’ ? Surely the teacher could have taken time out to explain things to her and to make sure she understood, rather than meting out punishment and sending entirely the wrong message. I think you need to talk to someone at school about these issues because at the very least I don’t think her safety on dark nights is being taken into account. Rather than detention, wouldn’t extra homework be more productive ? Given that you say most of her detentions have been for not handing it in on time, maybe that would concentrate her mind a bit more.

Could she not just get the multiple buses home that take a long time and she has to wait for? At 15, I was taking 6 hour trains across the country by myself and long haul flights unaccompanied. I also often had to find my way home from school as my mum worked til 6pm and there was no school transport and no local public transport so I had to walk regardless of the weather or dark.

I wonder how many of the posters on here calling for this child to take the bus, involving a long wait alone in the middle of nowhere would be happy to take the same journey alone in the dark…

On another note, threads like these make me utterly dread DS moving to secondary school in a few years time. He has ASD and I think he’s going to find organising himself really hard. I think he’s going to spend half his life in detention

Surely the school must realise that by refusing her to do lunchtime detentions they are leaving her vulnerable with no transport.
I dont understand why the school think that by making it inconvenient for parents they think they are then going to have them supporting them is odd.
Surely your supposed to work together to get the best for your child?

No sympathy.

Make her feel the wrath at home if she's getting detentions for not doing her job (do her homework). Make it hurt ... grounding, no phone, cancel outings, etc. And make her do extra chores to 'pay back' what it cost you in fuel and lost coach fare to collect her at an inconvenient time.

To be honest I thunk she needs to learn and she'll just have to deal with the consequences of not doing the homework

When I was at school I received an after school detention for not wearing my uniform properly. I lived 12 miles from school in a tiny village that was only served by public transport on a Wednesday and a Saturday. This particular bus went from village to town at 9.10 am and returned at 3.10pm so basically inside school time.
Parental figure at the time was working shifts and was on the evening shift so was not able to collect me after school.

It took a very large argument between school and parental figure to get them to alter the detention date to fit in with shifts.

So I feel your pain.

As far as I am aware, after school detentions are more serious than lunchtime detentions.
So maybe if she is slightly less naughty next time, she would only get a lunchtime detention.

@ButtockUp

You're concerned about your daughter's safety but , to use your words , you live in the' act end of nowhere.' Did you not think about this before moving there?

I did, yes. Hence my researching and booking her place on the school coach before moving.

Perfectly happy to @Spudlet . Along with the millions upon millions of other women who use public transport. Even, in the dark.

I'm a teacher in a rural secondary school where the vast majority of pupils are reliant on the school buses to get home- there's no other public transport really, other than booking a taxi I suppose. We do run after school detentions but if it's not possible then we are open to moving them to break or lunch. Due to the location of the school, we are quite used to having to be flexible with anything that falls outside school hours. In my opinion, yanbu to ask.