To tell my DD's school she isn't doing a detention for this?

[Krank]

My daughter leaves for school every day at 7.30am to get the bus to school. Today unfortunetly the bus was late, and she ended up being 10 minutes late. They've given her a 30 minute detention for tommorow. I am going to phone her school tommorow, and have a calm word, apparently even her tutor thinks its stupid!

AIBU?

Then whether you are unreasonable or not depends on whether she’s getting a bus that would make her late 20% of the time or 2%.

If she’d be better off getting a bus ten minutes earlier but chooses not to then you are being unreasonable. If they are hourly and normally get her there twenty minutes early then you are not.

I've never heard of children getting detentions when their bus is late.

That’s just mean.

Of course she isn't.

Sorry that was not finished. I was going to say she isn't in control of the bus so doesn't deserve the detention, she could not and cannot correct her behaviour so what purpose does it serve. None.

Call the (lovely) attendance team politely and explain. If your DD was late on a school bus, then others would probably be late too.

I say lovely - I am Data, not attendance but work in the same office. A good attendance team cares. They really do. They will listen when a parent cries down the phone that they cannot get a Year 11 lad out of their bedroom without physical violence; that a yr 7 child has such anxiety they cannot get out of the drive without being sick; that a student has had an operation (that no-one else at school knew about), that a grandparent has died etc etc.

There are attendance rules - there really are strict rules and enormous focus on attendance. But keep talking to the attendance team. Be polite though! Some of the calls from parents are foul. Really unpleasant. An attendance officer is probably not paid much more than minimum wage, term-time only. That's tough to live on at the moment.

Firstly, I agree, school are wrong. Treating kids like this has no benefits at all, and I'm a headteacher (albeit primary!).

They'll justify it by pointing out that they're preparing kids for the workplace (all the shops/factories I worked in as a student had a policy that if you were not clocked in on time, to the minute, you lost half an hour's pay; in one supermarket, you were expected to have clocked in 5 mins before your pay started because you were expected to be on the shop floor when your shift started). Excuses about buses made no difference.

They're also reasonable in that once they've let it go once, every kid will use the "late bus" excuse and they can't spend all day phoning the bus company to find out who is telling the truth.

Personally, I'd pick your battles. Both you and her have probably spent more than half an hour of your lives getting worked up about this, posting on Mumsnet, phoning the school. If you want to do something about it, write to the headteacher and ask that the policy is changed to allow 3 lates per year or something, rather than fighting the detention.

Ridiculous.

Id be telling my DD to do the same and just leave at the end of the day.

Some teachers are not fit to be teachers. A girl in my daughters class got told off for scratching her face the other day. I know who the child is and she really is a goodie goodie. Everything my daughter has told me about him indicates he’s a horrible teacher that has little patience and wants to rule with a iron fist. So he’s now called Mr Asshole because he is one.

Did you take it further? That seems really unfair of them (and beyond their power?)

My child catches 2 buses to/from school.
We have major issues here with half the services not running, late buses, buses not turning up, buses not stopping etc.
The bus garage is understaffed and drivers are struggling.
As such, buses are all over the shop. It's been this way since the pandemic. Not sure some posters understand these realities.

@Magnanimouse both of those scenarios are likely illegal

worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/pay-and-contracts/pay/if-we-are-only-few-minutes-late-work-we-lose-30-minutes-pay-can

worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/pay-and-contracts/pay/our-employer-asks-us-turn-15-minutes-work-starts-doesnt-pay-us

All I am doing here is stating the facts, I am not providing an opinion either way.

Schools have a legal right to keep a child for an after school detention; are not legally required to inform parents beforehand; and are also not legally required to give a reason for the detention.

Parents do not have a legal right to refuse a detention, meaning that a school is well within its rights to escalate the sanction according to their behaviour policy if a child does not attend.

If parents feel a detention is unjust, they can file a complaint with the headteacher, or governors.

www.gov.uk/school-discipline-exclusions

Now, that being said, I imagine most schools will both inform parents and give a reason for any after school detentions that have been set as that is in the best interests of both parental engagement and support.

In OP’s case, I imagine what will have happened is that the student was marked late on the register (which is totally understandable and necessary as the attendance register needs to be accurate to comply with safeguarding requirements), and an automated detention set without anybody knowing the reason for the lateness. I am sure that once the school are made aware of the reason after a conversation with parents, the detention will be cancelled.

This was meant to be in reply to @AMindNeedsBooks but I must have forgotten to reply to their post!

That is rather confusing as given that legally children do not have to attend school at all, I can't see how it could possibly withstand a court challenge.