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?

My DH is a teacher and I am part of the parents group for the school. It’s hilarious reading the parents’ angry take on what has happened and what their child has said happened. None of this will be factual.

Maybe it’s that they’re not allowed to buy lunch? If that’s the case then ensure they’ve got an emergency cereal bar in their school bag and bring them up not to be a dickhead

Actually my friend was a teacher and said kids were often given detention for the whole of lunch for minor things even forgetting a pencil/pen etc and made To go without food. She complained to Ofsted, apparently it happened a lot!! I would not let my kids go to a school like that

You'd be OK if your kids weren't allowed any lunch? Eh? My kids aren't starving or vulnerable either but if they had no food from 7am until 4pm you can bet they would be. Weird comment.

Chinny reckon

Far more to the story here I'd say. As in, waiting till end of lunch once Bell has rung to get lunch then told no as canteen has closed. Asking to get water during a lesson instead of filling up water bottles during break/lunch etc.

Nope. Apart from anything else, staff need to eat, go to the loo, set up rooms etc.
I've never come across complete lunchtime detentions.

Agree! Children need fed ffs and it certainly won't help their capacity to learn without energy either.

That's why it doesn't happen

I really would not believe what parents write on Facebook. This is highly unlikely to be true, probably, as others have said, a distortion with a grain of truth (eg not allowed to fill up water bottles on one occasion due to a water fight ) . Don't nake any rash decisions until you have all the facts. It is neither legal nor moral to withhold food and water from a child. If by some outside chance you find they are doing this then report to Ofsted as they have their behaviour policy badly wrong.

1. i do not believe that
2. how does a kid do any classwork at school of they dont have a pen? Who is buying the pens?

I don't know, it's the norm now for children to have bottles of water at school (instead of water fountains that we had) and my DD usually comes home with most of hers left. Only time she finishes it is if they've been doing PE/been outside in the heat. I can't imagine as an adult being denied water if you need it, it's not as if it's something children would want to drink for no reason. It's literally just for hydration, doesn't have the taste that would appeal to children.

Seriously? Why are you expecting your child to be badly behaved? If I was a school and parent was querying punishments (and this one cannot be true) before the child had even started I would be wondering what on earth we should be expecting when the child arrives! You'll really be showing your child up as potenitial trouble causer.

Incidentally, most kids manage all five years of KS3 and 4 without any signfiicant punishment. Iso and detentions tend to be full of the same few kids over and over again. Not saying you can't have one offs - good kids gets into the only physical fight of his school life etc. But for the most part good kids manage to steer away from trouble.

Why set your child up either in the child's eyes or the teachers' eyes as someone who is going to fail at doing what's asked? If your DC is disorganised help out before hand - somewhere to study with some storage or a shelf - or if is has to be somewhere communal like the kitchen table then a plastic box kept nearby where books and stuff can be stored and where things like pens, maths stuff, etc can be kept- so DC does not empty bag on bedroom floor and then can't find geography book for 6 weeks. Buy an old fashioned alarm clock (mobile phone alarm failings are a notorious excuse) and get DC to keep it at the other side of the room so he has to get out of bed to turn it off.

Make sure DS knows you'll go to parents evenings and do so. If he knows you're engaged and on the school's side he is more likely to avoid trouble in the first place. Whta you're doing at the moment is trying to get him out of a mythical punishment he has not even received yet! Really bad idea!

My son has been given detention for forgetting his pencil. It has helped him to remember it but this absolutely does happen. And schools have spares so you are being obtuse. You are not buying 'the pens' (pencils) so get a grip.

He was allowed lunch though, just had to eat it in the detention room.

Sounds like it could be my sons school. They do lunch time detentions now instead of after school so if you're bad you miss lunch. Started recently. It effects kids who get food from the canteen more but I think if they rush then eat fast after detention they can get something maybe.

I think it's likely to be rubbish but it's not 💯%

Some schools / classes are crxp not many but to say zero is rose tinted glasses level.

Pupils can have wholly different experiences in the same school for a variety of reasons (not just naughty vs good).

One thing that bugs me and seems a general rule is the obsession just drink water & only at playtimes (or sometimes a drink going out & going in). The amount of dehydrated kids in hot summers are bonkers....some kids given the choice of tepid water vs nothing will choose nothing. (Shhh I did booster classes and if they did well I'd give a sticker & a squirt of squash in their bottle.....but what if miss says....don't worry tell them it was me....nobody complained (great results too😁)

I'd investigate if only to put your mind at rest.
👍

I very much doubt this is true, they’re probably not allowed a lunch break after eating their lunch and detained indoors instead. I also think withholding water isn’t rue either, especially in this heat.

They will not be allowed to deny them food, that simply won’t happen

I think that's disgraceful. Lunch time detention is the norm here (not sure I would agree to after school, although it would depend on the reason. Is that even legal keeping them out of school hours?) but they need to have lunch.

Out of curiosity, where are you based?

Sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you meant they were supposedly deliberately keeping the classrooms at 27 degrees, ie consistently heating them to that temperature and using a thermometer to ensure they stayed at that temperature...my mistake...

@ChristinaXYZ eh? I’m not trying to get him out of an imaginary punishment. Ill be checking that the allegations made on social media are in fact bollocks. There’s quite a difference

I admit I’m old but at secondary we used a water fountain at break times for a drink.
Nobody took water to school, nobody ever drank water in a classroom.
Lunch time was the only time you could get a drink indoors.

Lunch wasn’t withheld though, however unless I got a school dinner my lunch was two slices of bread with cheese. On lucky days it was a Cornish pasty.

Your dc will not starve or get dehydrated.

In my school lunch ends at 12.50 some boys play football and turn up for lunch at 12.45 and are turned away, some children who are really badly behaved in the dining hall might be told they are banned the next day and have to sort lunch out themselves.
I would contact the school and find out their version of events.

Mine got detention for forgetting his pencil (not for the first time to be fair) and has never gotten into any other trouble so it is a valid question how the school punishes the students. In no way does it mean they are bad.

No idea why you are jumping to a 'fighting' conclusion.

The water and food sounds ridiculous! Pupils in my school put food orders in in the morning if they are spending the day in isolation. If they are put in during the day, they are brought some options to choose from.

The other stuff sounds normal; my classroom regularly reaches 35 degrees. I raised it in my risk assessment meeting but there is literally nothing they can do. They newer buildings are generally the worst!