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 wouldn’t believe much I read on a local Facebook group about a school. I’ve seen all kinds of accusations about one local high school, which I know are all 100% false because DH is the head.

The majority of stuff parents post about schools on social media is wrong or distorted. Always check with the school if concerned. If you can post on MN whilst on holiday you can drop the school an email now.

@NeverDropYourMooncup Hopefully you do not work in a school. Most DC are perfectly reasonable. I would not want my Dc cared for by you.

Don’t drop the school an email! Read the policies! Are your DC authority you? Off school?

Dc with you - that should read

No water in the playground sounds like they’re stopping water fights. Which I have some sympathy with.

No food, sadly I can believe it. Maybe not literally banned from eating, but in detention with a ham sandwich for a vegetarian, or delayed long enough that they don’t actually have time to get food before next lesson, etc. Yes, having seen how our local secondary is run I can believe it.

The fact that most kids wouldn’t really suffer from not being allowed lunch is irrelevant. It is not an acceptable form of discipline.

If they're not the ones starting playground water fights, getting other children injured in the process, picking on disabled kids and then wailing to you that they're being bullied by the nasty staff when they get kept in to prevent them doing it again and thereby protecting the perfectly reasonable children, they'd be just fine with me.

Highly doubtful they are withholding food. That is abuse and they will know this

If these were true I would not be sending my children there.

Most are reasonable, a sizeable minority are dickheads, and the dickheads are the ones most likely to have dickhead parents who do things like spout shit about the schools on social media (this is, coincidentally, usually a significant factor in why the children are dickheads in the first place).

I don't believe it. People write all sorts of crap on social media and then whip up outrage about it

There is no way that this will be true. No child would be denied food, ever! Water might be restricted on the playground for the waterfight reasons but again,. there will be ample opportunities built in to the school day to ensure children are hydrated.

Not allowing a type 1 diabetic lunch, could have drastic consequences. This might not be the only situation where it could lead to dire state of a student

Do you know any sensible parents at the school you can ask?

I'd be amazed if the school reply "Yes, that's right. If children misbehave we don't let them have any food, as we think that letting them go hungry will teach them a lesson." It's not going to happen is it

We have this complaint posted on our local Facebook as well. It's often because the lunch queue doesn't move quick enough so if you're at the end you don't get a lot of time to eat (and very very very occasionally you don't have time at all). Or the child is doing something else at lunch time and therefore misses the time to eat.

It's always reported as per OP's original post though. Actually maybe it is the same school (if it is, I can confirm that the others are equally exaggerated).

This is ripe for a DM sad face story

29 degrees in classrooms? Surely that is a typing error? That would be terrible.

Stop believing fb nonsense

This sounds like something the Daily Mail would write! Highly unlikely to be any truth in it.

It’ll be a load of bollocks

I imagine what happens is that students who get a lunch time detention have to queue for lunch at the end of the lunch time and this means occasionally they’ve run out of the food the child wants to eat. Easily overcome by a) not getting a detention in the first place or b) sending in a packed lunch or c) encouraging them to eat whatever’s left (dietary restrictions not included). Let’s face it, it’s not going to be a situation well behaved, respectful students find themselves in.

This will be categorically untrue. I work in a secondary school and there's a handful of parents who post ridiculous claims on Facebook that their children have told them. "My child got a detention for dropping a pencil." NO, your child threw a pencil at a teacher.
Don't get sucked in, I guarantee the people posting have the worst behaved children.

Er what? That's not unusual.

Mine has been over 29 a few times this week.

My favourite about my own school was that we let year 7’s drink alcohol and get drunk in a Pshe lesson ! They actually tried on special ‘beer goggles’ that mimic what being drunk can be like