To think secondary school rules are harsh and missing the point

[craxyrulebraker]

DS has just started secondary I just think it is all too much and the focus is all wrong.

You have to ask to take your blazer or jumper off
warning about the 'wrong' type of PE shorts, etc
Not allowed to drink water in lessons
Cautions for forgotten kit
Detentions for homework not complete - even when its not clear who/how to hand it in

Meanwhile very little nurture or pastrol care; poor communication so children don't know what is always expected of them, but scared they will get a detention; hardly any SEN support; very little staff presence at break/lunch times or in corridors; problems with bullying. Schools can't do these basics but tell the kids off for wearing the 'wrong' grey trousers!!

Makes for an obedient and compliant work force.

Deal with it how? Tell them to stop, go clean up their spill? I don't see how it's any better. You presumably have more kids asking for a drink than you do spilling.

It's a totally miserable environment for everyone involved. If I was at school now I simply would not go. I wouldn't work somewhere like this, nor would a lot of people and yet we force our children into it. I am dreading my child going to secondary school.

Not allowed to wear a coat shouted at for dripping on the floor unable to take there soaking wet blazer off so they sit and drip in it

Academy school near me allows no coats at all and all children are to be outside in all weather's for breaktime and lunch

You cannot take your blazer off even in a heatwave without permission ds nearly fainted twice this year I had to collect him from school because he was feeling sick and dizzy first thing i said take your blazer off drink some water I can't I don't have permission headteacher noticed me collecting him the second time and told the teachers to allow the removal of blazers (he is decent the teacher ds had was not)

Some rules are ludicrous dd was put in isolation for wearing boots under her trousers as her lace had snapped at 7am and I didn't have a spare set of laces I wrote a note explaining one teacher said it was inexcusable and accused her of lying then told me I should have just got her laces...from fucking where? I didn't drive the shops were shut anyway 😒

Exactly, everyone saying how hard can it be to turn in homework, lucky you if it's straightforward at your school

There are 4 different ways for my son to turn in homework and the teachers don't always specify.

Another teacher here. Nothing as annoying as water bottles. You are in full flight explaining/ holding everyone's attention and decide to ask Tom a question. Tom, in his moment of desperation decides to take a big gulp from his water bottle before he can answer. Class sense a break in concentration and your class is disturbed. Having that happen a few times each lesson is enough to have you begging the Head to ban bottles.
I don't give two hoots what uniform they appear in but NO to bottles.

Yep

I think we have a very odd slightly masochistic attitude towards children in Britain

Most of the rules are bollocks, it doesn't create respect, it creates resentment.

And No, strict uniform rules don't stop poor kids being bullied 🙄

People always say, wearing a blazer etc 'prepares them for work'... Nope.

My ds tucks in his shirt every day. One day he didn't notice it was untucked, the teacher could have just given him a warning but no, straight to detention

Is that really reasonable? They're not robots. Small mistakes that don't hurt anyone shouldn't be punished.

Exactly. This is why workplaces have policies for this sort of thing. Ie, verbal warning, written warning and so on and so forth. To stop dickheads punishing people for the sake of it or because they don't like them.

Schools should be the same. Why not a verbal warning, a written warning and then a detention?

A detention for an untucked shirt is ludicrous and will do absolutely fuck all except for make that child think why the fuck do I bother making effort with my work etc if i get shit for an untucked shirt.

YANBU. We felt compelled to give up in state education and pay for private and the main reason was that the private school teachers are simply nicer to the children.

I shouldn’t have had to pay thousands of pounds to enable my child to get an education without being picked on by power-trippy adults obsessed with uniform.

Deal with it how? Tell them to stop, go clean up their spill? I don't see how it's any better. You presumably have more kids asking for a drink than you do spilling.

I think if you did a poll of teachers and asked them whether they would prefer kids asking for a drink (and they'd mostly find that if their bottle is out of sight, they don't actually need to drink all the time) versus the endless tedium of dealing with kids pissing around with bottles, they'd pick the asking for a drink.

I don't give a shit about blazers, I tell my classes at the start of the year not to bother asking and just take them off (my classroom is boiling in the summer), I'm lenient with things like homework for Y7 as they've got a lot to get to grips with but I could really get behind the water bottle thing.

I mean fair enough @noblegiraffe I couldn't get het up about it personally but we are all different.

I would like there to be a “promotion” type of system, whereby good behaviour and effort moves you up to a higher level of pupil with better benefits. Things that would actually improve their lifestyles so they enjoy working up to them.

Or maybe we could scrap high school and get them working different civic and service roles throughout their teens, spending all their wages on “cool” things and boosting the economy. Then with actual real world experience, they could start mandatory education in their 20’s, full of questions and ready to be educated!

Bet you could if you were surrounded by crinkly water bottles all day too.

Seriously. Nails on chalkboard.

@Catfordthefifth I set it out as one of my expectations in the first lesson of the year. Drink at the beginning / end. If you need your water bottle during lesson, ask me quietly when I am wandering around the room, not during instructions or explanations. There is remarkably little disruption!
The same goes for removing blazers and such. Have some respect for the rest of the class and ask at sensible times. I always say yes! Too hot, take your jumper off, thirsty, quick drink and put it away. Need a wee, off you go. Lost your tie - I'll let your head if year know and write a note in your planner. Be discreet, don't make it into a melodrama :-)

I agree Op. This is why I left teaching and why my 3 bright, well-behaved kids left secondary school as nervous wrecks and completely turned off education.

There is always a choice of school because if you don’t follow the rules you will get excluded and the local authority will get you a place in another school. Although you might find out what being in a shit school is really like! 🤣🤣🤣

Why do they need to ask to take their jumper off out of interest? I get the rest obv you can't have students wandering out of lesson randomly.

OP, there are standards and expectations. Tell me, would you want to be a teacher of a class of 30 where all the children fail to bring the correct equipment? As a result, you spend the first part of the lesson scrabbling around to provide pens, pencils, rulers, compasses etc, probably paid for out of your own pocket. In doing so, how do you manage behaviour when the class is off task? Or, is it reasonable for the children to arrive in the lesson equipped and ready to learn?

Rather than siding with your child and berating the rules, standards and expectations, I suggest looking at this more objectively and looking a little deeper at the skills it is teaching - organisation, compliance, respect, amongst others, but also independence, responsibility and resilience.

As for uniform, it’s a simple request. Why, therefore, is it so hard for a minority in every school to follow the uniform expectations? Do you want your child’s teachers to educate your child, or teach them how to dress? Surely the latter is down to the parent and the former is down to the teacher who, after all is qualified to teach!

I do have issues with certain noises so perhaps you're right. But equally it would piss me off children older than 3 asking me if they could have a drink!

KS3 no water bottles on desks

KS4 water bottles fine. Put away anyone’s who is being noisy/distracted with it.

I hate uniform and the mind numbing pointless pedantry that enforcing it causes.
time wasting for compliance, nothing meaningful. . UK is so out of step on the obsession with uniform.

I would be interested to hear from parents/grandparents observations/opinions about secondary school culture & conducts compares with their own experiences & which decade or era they spent in secondary education.

For example, my secondary years were in the 1970s so relatively liberal about uniform, hair length etc but the idea of piercings, make-up, & personal hydration for school kids would have been laughable.

Everyone had longer unadorned hair, scrubbed faces, no jewellery, kids waited until break time to go to the loo & slurped water from the playground drinking fountain. School dinners were freshly cooked on site & served up by dinner ladies with minimal choice. Tales were told of the previous decade where strict uniform codes were subverted at all times: skirts hitched up, berets spliced & pinned to beehives, starched net petticoats under regulation school skirts that popped up like can-can girls when girls sat down during assembly.

But that said, by the time sixth form came & we were deemed to be nearly adult so rules relaxed, ears were pierced, eyeliner trowelled on & hair was dyed ink black & roughly chopped. Glory days of punk.

Ugh. This is why I'd hate school. Compliance. It's like north Korea. Be a good little compliant citizen. The real world isn't like that at all is it.

Nor would I expect a teacher to "teach a child how to dress" I would expect them to be able to teach their normal lesson to children no matter how they are dressed, quite frankly.

I’m a teacher - god I hate water bottles. SO much! I teach Science and they’re not allowed but the amount of kids that complain about not being able to have a drink of water (often straight after bloody break!) drives me nuts. And then the ones who break the rule, the bloody crinkling of the disposable ones drives me nuts! Had a spillage today all over the floor, genuine accident on the part of the lovely girl whose drink it was, but it was so disruptive.

I don’t care about uniform though, I hate kids asking me if they can take their blazer off and genuinely wish we could switch to some sort of uniform tracksuit type thing - polo shirt, hoody and trousers. Don’t see the need for formal uniform in the traditional style nowadays at all.

Homework - should be handed in really but second chances given at KS3 IMO. I’m a fairly soft touch though, except for the water bottles!!!

I will say, though, in defence of super strict schools, I work in a school where things relaxed significantly in a lot of respects and it is horrendous now trying to deal with how far standards have slipped, and how poorly students regard their school as a result - and the subsequent rise in appalling disrespect to staff and general antisocial behaviour in school. It’s given me a bit of a new appreciation for the local secondary my kids will attend that is super strict - I think having seen the impact of dropping standards I’m more supportive of rules than I was!

Exactly, it's so demoralising

They work so hard and then one little mistake gets them punished

Yanbu