Does your children's high school give demit points...

[senneeds]

Our local high schools give demerit points to kids who are late, have lost or forgotten things, have not handed in homework etc; if a child gets a certain number of points they get dentition.

I was wondering if other people's high school's do the same?

I ask because I was diagnosed with ADHD in my 50s... and I don't remember my high school giving out demerit points for these behaviours; it bothers me a lot that this happens in our local schools because a child being late, losing and forgetting things and not handing in homework are all ADHD traits.

A child can not get diagnosed as having ADHD unless they have evidence of these behaviours - so does that mean our schools are effectively punishing kids for their disabilities?

And while some schools might make allowances for the kids with ADHD and other SENs which have known executive function deficits...how about the kids who have not been diagnosed yet? It can't be great for their self esteem to be getting the message that how their brain works is so undesirable that they need to be punished or threatened with punishment.

I found a survey by ADHD UK who surveyed 800 teachers and found that 74% of these teachers did not recognise difficulty with organisation to be a symptom of ADHD and 78% did not recognise difficulty interacting socially to be a symptom of ADHD. adhduk.co.uk/teachers-and-adhd/

I also found this article about ADHD in the classroom thought provoking:
www.fintanoregan.com/fairness-isnt-giving-everybody-the-same-its-giving-everybody-what-they-need/

YANBU - yes my local high school gives demerit points to kids who are late, have lost or forgotten things, have not handed in homework etc.

YABU - no my local high school does not give demerit points to kids who are late, have lost or forgotten things, have not handed in homework etc.

Oh good lord, because if you have ADHD it is a lot harder to deal with executive control, focus, attention span, and many other things that will instantly lead to a demerit, and another demerit, and another. So many people label ADHD kids as lazy, or difficult, or disinterested, or unmotivated, and it's so unfair.

Negative points have been studied as well as very poor motivators of performance.

Then you are correct, there should be support in place or a system where demerits are not issued.

The OP seems concerned with undiagnosed students.

Most of the time it's the same kids time and time again who are set up to fail.
Organisation is a skill. What other skills that are taught in school are children punished every time they make a mistake or get it wrong?
If a child continued to find reading or a Maths concept difficult, teachers would try to identify the problem and help the child in a positive way. At no point would we consider it appropriate to punish the child for their lack of progress.

Punishment is a cheap, lazy way of "teaching" when all it actually teaches the child is that they are not good enough.
It punishes children with SEN the most.

The school I work at gives demerits but teachers make some allowances for SEN. When I was at school we got demerits. Students (including those with SEN) need to learn that actions (or lack thereof) have consequences, that’s an important life lesson.

A demerit isn't a 'punishment' in the same way as, say, a detention.

It's a logging of the negative behaviour. How do those who insist that demerits should be scrapped propose that children who need support with organisation or punctuality are identified and supported if the behaviour is never logged or reported?

It's a punishment if the accumulation of demerits leads to detention, or other consequences like not being invited on schools trips or to prom (as in the case in some schools).

I think some more sensitive children will see the chart in their homework app with all their red demerits as punishment, or at least criticism, as well.

How do those who insist that demerits should be scrapped propose that children who need support with organisation or punctuality are identified and supported if the behaviour is never logged or reported?

If demerits are used to promptly identify and support students with difficulties then that's a positive. But the way things are in many (most?) schools at the moment, and the lack of support available for pupils with ALREADY identified difficulties, I strongly suspect it doesn't work as it should.

I'm not actually arguing for demerits to be totally scrapped, but i do think they should be used very carefully for children with identified SEND, or potential difficulties/SEND, and the effect they may have on these children's experience of school should not be dismissed by staff.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply to my thread - your comments really helped evolve my thinking thank you.

I must admit I was thinking of children like PrixChoc's daughter (PrixChoc I am so sorry your daughter experienced this) but I did not consider the logging of repeat behaviours helping with diagnoses so thank you to everyone who pointed that out to me.

I don't think anyone with ADHD, or a parent with an ADHD, would disagree with the idea that ADHD children just like neurotypical children need to work on their organisation skills - in fact I think many would agree because we have executive function deficits, it is even more important that schools help these kids with their executive function deficits and lock in good routines that will help them throughout life.

But I suspect the difference is some schools do use 'demerit' points as a system to recognise repeat behaviours that need to be worked on - but other schools use 'demerit' points leading to the threat of detention. One of my children's schools uses the word 'sanctions' which the dictionary explains as 'a threatened penalty for disobeying a rule'.

Although worth mentioning I am not worried about my children getting dentition - I am worried about the negative language and negative ways of trying to enforce good behaviour in all schools because I am concerned about children's self esteem. I can't imagine spending most of my week in an environment where people think my disability traits are so undesirable to have that I might be punished for displaying signs I have this disability.

I would understand if these 'demerit' points in schools were called something like 'recognition points' (ie points recognising repeat behaviours) and accruing points would lead the child to sit down with their form teacher to discuss why these behaviours keep happening and what they can do to change them. I see this as a positive way to teach all children the importance of being organised. But would be interested to hear if anyone agrees, disagrees or has a better idea. Thank you.

See I can't imagine any schools using demerit points leading to detention as a strategy to improve a dyslexic child's spelling - but it seems to be OK to do this to kids whose disability is struggling with disorganisation.

If any of you are now thinking I can't compare dyslexics with ADHD because dyslexics' brains are wired differently....than I think this is one of the reasons that people think its OK to punish someone with ADHD for their poor organisations skills. People with ADHD also have their brains wired differently - and on top of that we have low dopamine levels which is the brain chemical for motivation - there is a physical reason we struggle with some tasks and people can assume we are lazy...and I am sure a lot of people with ADHD also assumed they were lazy until they were diagnosed and understood their brains better. That's why people use ADHD drugs - they help the dopamine levels in a person's brain to help their focus and motivation.

I also think that a lot of people think the 'H' in ADHD stands for hyperactive behaviour and it mostly effects children born as boys who are disruptive in class. While the H can stand for hyperactive behaviour - it also stands for hyperactive mind and there are a lot of children born as girls with what is know as 'inattentive' ADHD and their most significant trait is being overthinkers.

It is really these children I worry about the most because while 3-5% of the UK adult population is expected to have ADHD and this is split 50/50 between the sexes...most people born as males are diagnosed before the age of 6 and the people born as females are mostly diagnosed as adults. Its thought that for every five boys diagnosed only one girl is diagnosed...that is until adulthood when as I said the statics are 50/50 split between the sexes. So that to me means there are thousands of undiagnosed girls in these statistics who are struggling silently in classes until they are diagnosed as adults.

For those of you who don't have ADHD I hope you don't mind if I quickly explain what its like to have inattentive ADHD.

If you drive, when you drive I can imagine you get into the car and your body and hands almost subconsciously start doing what they need to ie moving the wheel, flicking on the indicator, turning your head to check its safe etc.

When you feel you are driving safely at some point your mind starts to wander and you either think about something that just happened at home or maybe something in the future you are planning.

If I was to say to you at the end of the journey can you please explain to me everybody movement your head and hands made during that time...its unlikely you could because your mind had been wandering.

Inattentive ADHD is similar to this - sometimes our hyperactive minds start to get busy thinking and our bodies go onto autopilot. This means our hands might put down our phones but we have no memory of our hands doing that so we spend time looking for them.

We also forget things because we miss information. A neurotypical child might be listening to a teacher in class and is taking photos in their mind of what is being said and slotting them neatly into a photo album in their mind so they can flick back that night to remember what they needed to do for homework.

A child with a hyperactive mind might start class in the same way - but then they quickly open up several more photo albums and starts taking photos for all these albums simultaneously - not surprisingly as the class goes on they start to slip up and miss some photos - and if they miss the photo about the homework they might not fully understand the homework or they might not have any memory there was homework.

Thank you so much everyone again for your help.

If you made allowances for SEN then you are recognising that this isn't deliberate, it's a skill that is lagging.
So why not teach it in the same way as you would teach any other lagging skill? Why is this a skill that you think needs to be taught through punishment? And if punishments are such an effective way of teaching, why aren't they used for academic learning too?
If a punishment will make a child try harder to remember their kit, why would it not make them try harder to write a better essay?

I assumed it was a typo/ autocorrect, but you have used the word 'dentition' in both of your posts. I'm not trying to be pedantic but I'm hoping you're not using the wrong word IRL 😉

Thanks for letting me know especially since I just googled it’s meaning! Weird my computer missed it. Thanks again

The number of children in a secondary school who have ADHD Is small. The school can't be run as if all its students have a disability, it has to be run to fit the majority. There are plenty of NT children who are disorganized and forgetful too, and how are teachers meant to know, if a child might have a condition? To try to run a school on the lines the OP is suggesting would lead to chaos.

Girls are far better at hiding their behaviours, mirroring and attempting to fit in when not NT especially on the milder end of the scale where they can hide. I was sent on a course when I became responsible for all students who had declared a disability. What shocked me to the core was that I was very obviously not NT myself. I remember desperately trying to fit in as a child and copying behaviour. I remember being given the max reading age when I was still at primary school and questioning my nursery worker with clarity at age 3. I knew I was different but this was the 1970’s.

I do have one friend who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, we met singing in the same choir together though it turned out we worked in the same University. She is a massive over-thinker as am I.

Educationally we did really well, socially she has quite big struggles. I became very good at hiding my oddities.

As long as staff are trained those points will show a pattern of behaviour so they will hopefully get help.

Hungryharriet - sorry you might have missed this in my last post because it was so long - I am suggesting we change the penalty of detention to just meeting with the teacher to discuss why these behaviours are being repeated.

Also, although ADHD children are only 3-5% of the student population - its not just ADHD children who have executive function deficits - other SEN like autism and dyslexics also do to name others. Plus children's brains develop from the back to the front of their heads - their executive function skills take longer to develop so even a neurotypical child can have trouble being organised because their brain is underdeveloped.

This was my suggestion for all children not just ADHD kids - I would be interested to see if you still disagree.

"I would understand if these 'demerit' points in schools were called something like 'recognition points' (ie points recognising repeat behaviours) and accruing points would lead the child to sit down with their form teacher to discuss why these behaviours keep happening and what they can do to change them. I see this as a positive way to teach all children the importance of being organised. But would be interested to hear if anyone agrees, disagrees or has a better idea. Thank you."

See I can't imagine any schools using demerit points leading to detention as a strategy to improve a dyslexic child's spelling - but it seems to be OK to do this to kids whose disability is struggling with disorganization.

Well o was with you until I read this!

Dyslexics also struggle with time keeping, organization and memory problem and spelling, reading, grammar. Individually to different degrees.

And those saying ‘I drop my kid off’ good for you, but the late marks are for each class not the minute they walk into school.

And yes teachers need to understand disabilities, they get little training.

DS - Dyslexic has been punished for all of these things, being late, forgetting homework, not being focused, put on report etc and it destroys their self esteem, which meant we spend longer working of this then dealing with strategies to help with the deficits.

Then!! School decided to have a dress down down for those without May behaviour points, he’d already been punished with detentions and now had to suffer a further punishment.

I was proud when his sisters refused to dress down and when asked by teachers ‘what they had down wrong’ clearly told them how they felt about the new policy on double punishments.

@senneeds

I don't think I missed the point of your post. Even including all children with a disability such as ADHD, autism or dyslexia, they still, hopefully, make up a small proportion of a school.

Where did you get the idea that children's brains develop from the back of their heads to the front? Children's brains are developing throughout their childhood and into early adulthood.

"I would understand if these 'demerit' points in schools were called something like 'recognition points' (ie points recognising repeat behaviours) and accruing points would lead the child to sit down with their form teacher to discuss why these behaviours keep happening and what they can do to change them

Changing the name of a demerit wouldn't change anything at all. In most cases, when children do accrue a lot of demerits this often does lead to a discussion, usually with the head of year. Giving a demerit or a detention has the effect of signalling to the child that their behaviour is unacceptable and needs changing. It's a clearer signal than a cosy little chat.

As I said previously, schools can't be run on the kind of lines you are suggesting. How are teachers meant to know that X, who forgets his pencil case, just might have a condition? The probability is that X is a neurotypical child who needs to get himself/ herself organized.

Children grow up and get jobs. It's doing them no favours if they are not taught to be organized when they are young.

I don't think I missed the point of your post. Even including all children with a disability such as ADHD, autism or dyslexia, they still, hopefully, make up a small proportion of a school

Get real a lot of classes have 50% SEN

High School not so much as most of them are thrown on lower ability classes or ‘extra’ support classes so you know the others are disturbed.

@Threelittlelambs Nonsense. This is from a local government site:

Neurodiversity refers to the different ways the brain can work and interpret

information. It highlights that people naturally think about things differently. We

have different interests and motivations, and are naturally better at some things

and poorer at others.
Most people are neurotypical, meaning that the brain functions and processes

information in the way society expects.
However it is estimated that around 1 in 7 people (more than 15% of people in

the UK) are neurodivergent, meaning that the brain functions, learns and

processes information differently.

So, 15%. Schools can't be run as if most children are neurodivergent.

Try working in poorer schools, the SEN ratio is very different.

Sorry ThreeLittleLambs I was not taking a pop at dyslexics so sorry if you thought this - it is well known that ADHD, autism and dyslexia all have executive function deficits so elsewhere in my posts you will see I am suggesting this change for all kids to avoid exactly what you are saying unfortunately happens to you son. I was also wondering if you have thought of getting your son assessed for ADHD? if you look at the crested website which list schools who have specialist dyslexia training crested has recognised its quite common for dyslexia to also have another SEN like adhd, austim etc.

I have a child with ADHD but he's learned to deal with school because I've supported him at home.

His school is 2000 students and make adjustments for kids with SEN. Eg his friend with autism was allowed to leave class a few minutes early when he was in the younger years because the busy corridors would be overwhelming and make him late for his next class.

I know that it is luck that my son has support at home and has persevered with learning skills that others find easy but it is what it is. He has behaviour points for forgetting stuff/being late but he's not bothered by them and says that teachers don't treat it as a big deal as he's apologetic and the reality is the kids are all sharing equipment anyway.

Hungryharriet if you google developing teen brains it says all over the internet children’s brains develop from the back to the front. Their decision making process is one of the last areas to fully develop at the age of 25 which is why car insurance companies lower their premiums at this age.
but here is a link if it’s helpful to you
raisingchildren.net.au/pre-teens/development/understanding-your-pre-teen/brain-development-teens

I think Im also uncomfortable with the constant labelling of behaviour

Children are children first, who may have any number of disorders

And as they are children and still learning, and going through puberty and other developmental stages, sometimes they will behave badly, sometimes they might forget something, sometimes they cant be bothered, sometimes they just dont want to do something if they dont enjoy it, sometimes they push boundaries

That is the same for all children, disorder or no disorder

Sometimes there is too much focus on 'that behaviour is because they have x disorder' which means that them just being a child is overlooked. Sometimes kids are just kids

There will be countless examples of an child who has an ND disorder being given a punishment unfairly because their behaviour was caused by their disorder. There will also be countless examples of a child who has an ND disorder being given a punishment because they were just being a kid and misbehaving.

This is a HUGE frustration of mine. Our school is totally inconsistent as to where information is shared. Some teachers use teams for everything, some use Teams sometimes but not always. Some get kids to write in their planner, some tell the kids verbally but don't expressly ask them to write it down (yes it's obvious to you and me but not to a child that is both very literal and very distractible.
So I, as a parent with ADHD myself, find it really stressful trying to help my DC keep on top of things and also find it difficult to help them learn strategies because there are too many different options to consider.

@PrixChoc

Likewise, a parent can ensure a child arrives in school in time, but cannot ensure a child arrives to each lesson on time. So if they're regularly faffing around with their stuff at their locker and then arrive to class late, support needs to be provided by school, and if this isn't available then it is unfair to issue a demerit

What support are you thinking of? Teachers are there to teach. They're not there to waste their time standing by a locker to see if little Jimmy is capable of getting his books out on his own. These are secondary age children, not toddlers.

@senneeds
Thank you for the link, it's very interesting. It doesn't change my opinion on the issue of demerits though.