School withholding food as punishment

[catgirl1976]

DS is due to start high school in September.

I’ve just seen a highly alarming thread about the school in a local Facebook group.

Massive disclaimer : Obviously people can write any sort of garbage on social media and it may well not be true and I will of course be speaking to the school at the earliest opportunity to gain clarity before taking any action but enough people have confirmed the allegations to make me a bit worried.

The issues raised are

1. Toilets are now pretty much all gender neutral. I can deal with that - I know enough about the law to be confident I. Challenging and ensuring sufficient single sex provision is in place so whilst I’ll be challenging if true I’m confident in my ability to do that.
2. Kids are getting a detention for being one minute late. I can live with that. Late is late. Important lesson.
3. Classrooms are 29 degrees (new building has thermometers in each classroom) and kids cannot have water during class or in the playground at breaks. Seems a bit mad. Willing to listen to the rationale and alternative arrangements if this is true.
4. This is the big one for me…kids are routinely being denied lunch as a punishment for bad behaviour. I am totally fine with appropriate sanctions for bad behaviour. E.g. mess about in the lunch queue eat lunch in isolation or miss break. But actually not he allowed to have lunch? To be denied food? Surely that’s illegal? I would have thought this was nonsense but at least 10 people have commented that their child has been denied lunch. No other arrangements or food just no food. So breakfast at home and nothing to eat all day. Surely this cannot be legal?

as said before I’ll check with the school about the truth of this and points one to three I can deal with but if point four is true and good is being withheld as a punishment…what would you do? There’s a transition evening coming up where I will have chance to ask questions and I’m gong to email the school asking for their response to these comments but surely a school can’t deny a child the opportunity it y to eat as a punishment?

Even googling I can’t find any incidences of this. It seems barbaric. AIBU or is this a thing?

I wonder how previous generations managed without computers I wonder how they managed without exercise books I wonder how they managed without pencils.

No doubt they managed, but they were less comfortable.

Keyboard warrior parents on local Facebook groups cause huge problems for schools. They can write whatever they like about the school, and even individual members of staff, and schools have no right of reply. There is also a small but significant minority of parents who will believe anything their child tells them, however outrageous, and repeat this as fact. I've seen some absolute nonsense written about the school where I work on social media, and while I'm sure most people have the sense not to believe everything they see online, unfortunately there's always some who subscribe to "there's no smoke without fire".
I've been working in schools for many years and I have never heard of food being withheld as a punishment. I would be very surprised if this was true, but for your own peace of mind absolutely check with the school.

Oh for goodness sake. Go and stand in front of a class of teenagers for a few hours or days .... And then let me hear you say what u just said.

Exactly!!!

@user9630721458I totally agree. I managed to complete my entire schooling without a detention, and I was certainly no angel.
Why do we need to punish children? I thought we’d come along way in terms of dealing with prisoners For example that it was about rehabilitation, not retribution. And yet your average teenager, apparently needs punishing for being a teenager with an under developed Forgettable brain. Circumstances beyond its control i.e. financing, school uniform etc. I suppose we should be grateful they’re not still caning them. I rather get the impression that some teachers would like to.
Honestly it's because overall social attitudes have changed.

Thinking back to my own school days there were a lot of students who weren't angels but weren't awfully disruptive either. There was a reasonable cohort of pupils who were nice peers to have, they weren't angels, but they always knew how to stop messing around at just the right point to avoid a detention. Most of them did ok in school. Those of us who did well did well in spite of the ongoing disruption. There was an understanding most of us had was that a little bit of acting up and pushing boundaries was standard, but if we got into trouble or got detention our parents would be telling us OUR behaviour wasn't acceptable.

That culture has long gone in many schools.

For a sizable number of parents now their default position is to assume their child didn't do anything wrong, to tell their child they don't have to follow very simple and basic rules, to call up school demanding to know why their child has been given detention "for no reason". The same group of parents think school rules, even fairly simple ones like not being verbally abusive to students and staff, is a pick and mix of which ones their child wants to follow on a given day.

I could probably retire if I had a pound for every time I heard about detentions/warnings/behaviour points etc being issued "for no reason" or for "just (insert tiny part of the picture here)".

Going from a school with largely supportive parents to one that has largely unsupportive parents was eye opening.

In my experience this is largely why some schools have developed behaviour policies that are much tighter and proscriptive than I would choose. When you're battling a lot of parents who haven't given their children boundaries, don't value education, and seem to think their role is to argue to with school if school have rules then policies are written accordingly.

Making the rules stricter, and even more ludicrous, is not likely to make the parents argue less is it ?

I would imagine the reason why more parents pushback from our generation is because most of us remember at least one dick head teacher who let the power go to the head and overstepped the mark. I went to quite a poor school. Where one little boy who had been naughty was forced to stand on the stage and whilst The teacher smacked him. He was forced to dance like a monkey. I would imagine if he’s got kids. He is probably quite overprotective.

Making the rules stricter, and even more ludicrous, is not likely to make the parents argue less is it ?

In years gone by you had common sense.

Eg black school trousers, not jeans, not fashion trousers. People pushed it a little bit, but generally pupils look smart enough.

A school I worked in said the same. The result? Joggers, leggings (of various levels of see through), jeans, leggings, assorted varieties of low slung trousers with boxers half on show. School reiterated the message and added photos and clarified. If I remember correctly they ended up moving to single supplier because some parents are incapable of saying "no" to their children. They haven't quite got to the point of being the adult in the room.
See also the parents in the local press in September claiming the school doesn't care about learning when it turns out their child's school doesn't consider blue hair to be a natural hair colour. Personally I couldn't care less about hair colour FWIW but I'm not going to tell my 13 year old they can have blue hair and then moan that there's clearly outlined sanctions for a rule I chose to facilitate my child in breaking. If I choose to allow my 13 year old to dye their hair blue then I'm the one who doesn't care because I know the school line, I know what will happen but avoiding a whiny child was the path of least resistance.

Making the rules so black and white removes the endless whining done by a certain type of parent.

I would imagine the reason why more parents pushback from our generation is because most of us remember at least one dick head teacher who let the power go to the head and overstepped the mark. I went to quite a poor school. Where one little boy who had been naughty was forced to stand on the stage and whilst The teacher smacked him. He was forced to dance like a monkey. I would imagine if he’s got kids. He is probably quite overprotective.
I imagine he might be overprotective in that situation. I'd also hope he has the common sense not to teach his child to ignore whatever rules they don't like.

There's many ways that parents can raise issues and I've done so myself at times.

The sort of parental culture that I've been outlining has nothing to do with being overprotective. It's permissive and doesn't value education.

So basically you’re suggesting that if you give the parents an inch they’ll take a mile, this is as you’ve just admitted about getting the parents to tow the line, not particularly the children. As we’ve always suspected, but good to hear it out loud. Imagine people wanting autonomy over their own children are raised. It’s not like it’s them that has to deal with the consequences of how the kids turn out or anything is it ?

Being denied any food I would be less angry than not being allowed to drink in class or during break. I would be contacting Ofsted for advice on how to report this

So basically you’re suggesting that if you give the parents an inch they’ll take a mile, this is as you’ve just admitted about getting the parents to tow the line, not particularly the children. As we’ve always suspected, but good to hear it out loud. Imagine people wanting autonomy over their own children are raised. It’s not like it’s them that has to deal with the consequences of how the kids turn out or anything is it ?
Parents have autonomy on how to raise their children.

They don't have the ability to expect schools to accept their children disrupting the learning of 30 other children without consequence.They don't have the right to expect a whole school culture to centre around their desire for their children to not encounter boundaries.

In many schools there's a positive culture and most parents don't see a set of clear rules, teach their children to break whatever rules they like and then moan when the school says it's not ok. Most parents don't behave like that.

I don't think it's a coincidence at all that in my experience the schools where parents are generally supportive of education, apply common sense, and don't actively go out their way to undermine the school at every opportunity have a common sense set of rules.

I also don't think it's coincidence at all that the schools where there's been historic poor attainment, long standing issues with behaviour and a sizable number of parents who actively undermine the school and actively support their children in breaking even the most basic school rules, have ended up taking a more proscriptive approach.

Why should children in the second school have school life dominated by a sizable minority of pupils who flout any rule they don't like, backed by parents who will argue with any member of staff?

I've worked in both types of school and can understand why different schools take different approaches.

If a school is giving out frequent punishments on issues like blue hair I think it's becoming too heavy handed and micro managing. I can not see how this builds trust and good relationships, how it encourages students to enjoy school and be motivated. It's more likely to create alienation, which can't be good for anyone. And if as some has said, students are being forced to miss food due to detentions or long queues, it isn't going to make school a place they enjoy and value either. All of that means they are unlikely to achieve their full potential, which I thought was the purpose of education.

user9630721458
It's fairly standard for schools to have a policy about natural hair colours.
Personally I don't really care about hair colour and am undecided on whether I'm in favour of uniform, but that's irrelevant.

The way I see it as a parent and a teacher is that if I sign up to a school then I'm signing up to a package. If I want my children to be part of a school community it really doesn't matter what I think about their uniform policy saying no jeans. I'm simply not going to buy them jeans because I'm the grown up in the room and me buying them jeans and other non-uniform items is teaching them "isn't it great that Mum can read the rules, see what's expected and she'll not only support me breaking them, she'll facilitate it". That isn't an outlook I find value in. Some parents do find value in teaching that, and that's their right as parents, but I don't think they have much ground to complain when the school say "actually that's not the uniform, please correct it".

Now if it's summer and their school is deploying a policy that all children should sit in boiling classrooms wearing their blazers at all times, you bet I'll be on the phone to speak to someone about that asking them how that's been risk assessed appropriately (which it won't have been).

I think it’s been a long time since School was designed to help pupils achieve its full potential if that was ever the case. They are moneymaking machine’s now it’s all about profit. Minimal outlay. Maximum numbers. Unfit for purpose.

@3BSHKATS I don't know who they are making money from, they never seem to have enough. You may well be right that someone is profiting, but I wonder who. I imagine many people went into teaching because they wanted to support each child's potential, but instead they spend their time enforcing rules and punishing. I expect there are still lots of schools which are not like this, and perhaps these very authoritarian places are in the minority.

3BSHKATS
They're not a money making machine, but they are suffering from being a political football for years, as well as always picking up the pieces from over a decade of cuts to other services that would help children and families.

There's no chance any organisation can simultaneously educate a huge range of abilities and aptitudes, deal with an ever increasing range of SEN without appropriate funding, provide comprehensive mental health support for the many children who can't access specialist services, pick up all the family support work and community engagement work that would usually be done outside of school services, provide access to the young people who need support from young offending teams, improve basic literacy and numeracy in communities with historic low literacy and low education outcomes, improve parental engagement in education, offer vocational courses to those who want it, offer an academic program to those who want it, and make sure every single child gets specialist support from whatever specialist services they need.

There's big issues with some schools not making appropriate reasonable adjustments for SEND and that needs challenging because it's wrong. Bog standard "my mum says I can wear trainers, my mum says I can walk out if you give me a warning, my mum says I don't have to do your stupid detentions" poor behaviour that's enabled by parents is a different kettle of fish.

@LolaSmiles I see what you are saying, though I can't agree that monitoring hair colour is useful. Blazers in a heatwave sounds very silly, so I hope you are successful in challenging that one!

user9630721458
Blazers in a heatwave is one I've heard from friends/acquaintances. It seems more prominent in certain academy chains.

Schools can get things wrong. I don't think anyone would say otherwise. It's reasonable for parents to challenge schools on issues like that.

My experience is that most sensible parents accept that they probably don't agree 100% with every rule, but there's logistics of running a large organization with over a thousand teenagers.

I'd rather my DC were in a calm and pleasant school where teachers can teach and the students who want to argue about why they can't do the work/why the teacher is C U next Tuesday/why they had to be talking in a test /why it's so unfair that they were expected to be polite and not disrupt the lesson / why their mum says they don't have to... Etc are given appropriate consequences, than go to a school where a loud minority of parents and their poorly behaved children dictate the school culture and draw staff time away from teaching.
I want my DC school to be focusing on teaching, not having their time sucked by a loud minority of parents/students. I want the majority to get rewarded and learn, not the ones who ruin lessons being given a pat on the head and their detentions cancelled because their Mum's kicked off and leadership are too spineless to have standards.

Exactly. As I said, I'm not arguing against water bottles...just it's not a life and death issue. That was my point 👍
It was a hot day and pupils in my school (not my.class) were all wanting out of class to fill their bottles up. The management kept finding pupils in the corridors and not in lessons. Was disruptive... So I can see it from both sides.

Thank you! Children have been going to school for hundreds of years and water bottles are within the last few decades.
We had a water fountain. You got a drink before class, after "recess" and after phys ed. As far as I know, no child/teen was ever rushed to the hospital with IVs for dehydration.

Water bottles are wonderful but on a playground, a few bad apples spoil it for everyone else. Ditto when the rule is no water bottles in the classroom. I doubt the rules are arbitrary. Most likely, the rewards of the many got curtailed by the behavior of some.

You should look into home schooling option. Probably better for you and your child.

Thank you for your advice. My child attends a lovely private school where our every whim is pandered too. Throughly recommend.

I'm just here for the update