To think detention for lateness is wrong

[BelleMarionette]

My child's secondary school gives a detention for even one lateness in the morning.

My child left an hour early, for what should have been a 30 minute journey door to door by bus.

Unfortunately, 2 buses drove past them without stopping. They got very upset and anxious about being late, so I had to come and drive them (not ideal environmentally, and will not always be possible either, due to work).

My child has autism, so gets extremely anxious about the threat of detention, as rules are very important to them.

Aibu to think that detention in this circumstance is wrong, as it's often out of the child's control?

I'm a secondary school teacher - you need to contact the school.

Detentions for lateness when the lateness is not the child's fault are ridiculous and serve no purpose.

Detentions are a punishment for deliberate poor behaviour or deliberate poor decision making. They are designed as a deterrent to encourage children who make persistently poor choices to change their ways.

If a child hasn't made a poor choice but has simply been unlucky with transport, the detention is pointless and reduced to a mere 'one punishment for all no matter the circumstances' box ticking exercise, which teaches children that inflexible, totally compassionless behaviour is acceptable.

Schools with blanket policies like this are often miserable places run by idiot despots. They need to be told.

Email the Head of Year and SENCo, cc in the Head, and explain exactly why this policy is bollocks and why your child won't be attending the pointless detention.

In future you need to ensure your child calls the school when they are running late. I presume they have a mobile phone on them - calling reception and saying hello, I'm in class 7B, my bus has gone past and I'm going to be late' means the form tutor can be informed in advance and an authorised lateness box (or equivalent) ticked on the register. If your child is too nervous to do this, then you can do it for them.

I don’t really get the “real world” chat either. If I’m going to be late for work I can call my boss and explain, or turn up late and explain or utilise flexi time. Yes not everyone has these options but some do and those that don’t can choose to put up with it or look for another job. School kids don’t have the choice and dealing with normal inconveniences is a life skill. This day and age they should be able to call school and say the number 44 hasn’t turned up, me, my sister and Tim from 6B are going to need to wait for the 26. Once fine, every week not fine and consequences.

Yanbu. Detentions for something entirely out of your control is very unhelpful, especially from the perspective of an autistic child.

Very good advice from @EnidSpyton
Our school used to do this, even when it was due to lateness of the paid for school bus, due to traffic.

They had to do something about it when all the bus parents complained as Initially only one or two did, and the school didn't believe them!

Hi OP, I'm just flashing back to my own bus journey to school 30 years ago :)

We just happened to live at a bus stop that was a few stops before a rail station. So even though my journey involved getting on the bus and staying on it for an hour, then getting off near school, there were a lot of adult commuters who would normally walk to the station but in bad weather or in winter would 'just jump on the bus' to the rail station.

This meant that OFTEN, often, in winter or in the rain, I would sit waiting while 4 or 5 full buses drove past my stop - and they were all about to empty out at the station a few stops along, and then be barely full for the rest of the route.

It was maddening and in the end my mum used to agree to drive me in winter - not all the way to school, but just to the local train station! So that way I could wait there and get on the bus once the commuters had all got off.

My school didn't have a detention policy so I can't comment on that bit, but you may find that there's an obvious 'bottle neck' on the bus route that if you can bypass, things might get better for your DC? Best of luck.

Our school is a bit more lenient. Parents get a email to say if has been late.3lates per week= detention. school bus lates at excused.

My DC went to German school. The Train station used to stamp a "the XX:XX train was late today" with the date and the kids gave it to the school. No detentions for that.

One teacher did once suggest that the kids from our town all just got a later train (so at 5:35 in the morning...) but the parents all a) politely declined and b) pointed out the 6:35 was the first train of the day.

If your son feels uncomfortable calling the school reception, he could call you to call in and say he is stuck waiting for a bus.

Is it worth contacting the bus company? It does sound like bus full. Might need to get earlier bus.

What kind of a teacher/school hands out detentions to a kid who's bus doesn't turn up? What happens to a teacher who gets stuck behind an accident or their bus no-shows? Are they disciplined?

Definitely worth getting in contact with the school. Head of year and senco should be made aware at least. My DS has autism, is absolutely never in any kind of trouble, but really stresses at the idea of it happening someday. So I totally get where you're coming from.

He was in actual tears one weekend because he hadn't done his homework correctly (hit 'send' on a Forms assignment when he was only done with one page, so no way of bringing it back to finish it). I found him in his room with tears in his eyes, looking at the map in his school planner "to find the room where detention is held" because he was sure he'd be sent there. I contacted his form tutor and they were absolutely fine and understanding about it. It turned out most of the class had done the same thing. anyway.

(only giving that as my example! Hope you have luck speaking to them!)

No, I don't think it's wrong as such. I bet you'd otherwise get loads of kids hanging around before school and getting in late. But they should listen to the reasons why and where outside the control of the kids' let them off.

My DS uses the trains, I take a screen shot of the trainline app or of the info screen on the platform and email it to the school, he isn't then punished.

Do you have live bus tracking where you are? Ours usually shows it a bus is busy or full? His old school were less reasonable though and after the first time would say get up earlier.

Definitely talk to the school and find out what the right thing to do is when something like this happens. Provided the child's route/timings can be reasonably expected to get them there on time, they shouldn't really be punished if very occasionally it doesn't.

There two options for the bus from near us to the next secondary along - one theoretically gets there 2 minutes before the bell, the other 20/30 minutes earlier. Those who get the later one are frequently late, and get late marks and whatever sanctions follow from those. On one occasion the earlier bus just didn't appear, so they were all on the later one, which of course was running late because it had twice as many passengers. One mum rang the school to let them know what had happened, and when they arrived, they issued late marks to those who regularly came on the later one but not to those who normally caught the earlier one!

What great cooperation from the station. I can't see Stagecoach doing that!

I used to get Saturday morning detentions for the bus not arriving or getting in late. This was 50+ years ago, so nothing changes ☹️
The fact that I left home at 7am to walk 2 miles to the bus stop, 50 minutes bus ride then a further 20 minute walk counted for nothing.

I would as well. I'd email in, explaining the issue with the buses and saying that I would not support a detention for something that was outwith the child's control.

I assume it's not an academy. Academies have unreasonable rules and limited accountability.

I don't think SN are relevant here, it isn't fair to punish any child for public transport failures.

My mum used to get caned for being late. And she had to go to Mass every morning and that was often why she was late for school, because the priest overran!

It's unbelievable what parents used to put up with from schools for their kids. There's an argument the pendulum has swung too much the other way, but on the whole I'm glad parents have stopped doffing their caps to teachers.

It wouldn't surprise me - there seem to be some very toxic SMTs in some schools.

Quick question - have you taught your child how to ask the bus to stop properly? Just being at a bus stop does not mean the bus has to actually stop. You need to request it. Some stops are request only, some aren't, so just request everything.

Step forward to be near the kerb, look directly towards the bus driver, put arm straight out.

It caught my dd out when she first went on buses by herself but since she started putting her arm out all buses stop (unless full).

They said they did request it, and lots of others did. It is a 'request only' bus stop. This bus goes to major stations, so quite likely it was just full.

I have looked at other routes and there are other buses they can take just a short walk away, but they didn't know this, hence the panic. Luckily, since I drove them in, there was no lateness today.

I'll have a discussion on how to hail the bus, and alternative routes today.

Parents and the school need to be speaking to the bus company about lack of buses and not stopping for the children. Blaming the kids won't solve the problem.

I'd say that many people expect schools to take pupils word for this, perhaps because posters, or friends they knew at school, would not usually be late.

Once you get an overview of a whole school population you can get lots of kids avoiding coming in for registration, going to local shops, Macdonald's etc so there has to be a late policy.

Usually emails will go out for amnesty for the day for tram problems, accidents on major roads the motorway whatever.

There Will also be exceptions where the school knows the pupil is late due to safeguarding issues e.g parent routinely refuses to get out of bed on time and will work with the family.

In almost every other case, correspondence from a carer vouching for a reasonable reason will cause a late detention to be cancelled.

Thats good. Not everybody knows that. Its also good to know there are alternative routes they can take. If there are several buses is there one thats possibly 10 minutes before the one they want to get? If school, colleges and workers all aim for a short time period just getting the slightly earlier one can make all the difference. Worth trying maybe?

If thats a bit garbled. Everyone knows rush-hour starts at 8am, so leaving at 7.55am can mean not getting snarled up in a traffic jam. Its strange how those few seconds can change everything.

(Yes, I am ignoring your title, I'm trying to help with avoidance of future situations )

sometimes in life you just have to suck it up

Not if it is an injustice. Why would you ever teach a child to serve a punishment for something they did not do?