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?

No wonder teachers are leaving the profession its not what the majority signed up for

It sounds like a MAT they can be run like prisons it sounds terrible, but I wouldn't think they could be allowed to withhold food or water

It’s the Government that want Trusts. And don’t worry about profit making ones, there won’t be many of them left soon

If parents want to write to their MPs etc ask them about funding

I would (hopefully!) assume it is just slightly wrong info
For example -
'I missed lunch' children at my school call lunch time just lunch
Not allowed water in class = not allowed to fill up their water bottles in class time

I keep water in my class for the latter

But I agree if food is actually being withheld that needs to be dealt with!

If water and food are being withheld I could imagine both happening - for example to avoid kids messing about spraying water at each other in the playground... Some brighrspark decides to just ban water in the playground for all then that needs to be tackled.

Also, very hot classrooms. Many school buildings are older, run down and almost certainly not set up for the current temperatures. Though you'd hope that there's be fans and access to water in the room, alongside sensible relaxation/ move to summer uniforms to mitigate that.

I have no idea why that put in a random strike through!

Generally speaking, only parents with awful kids, rant on Facebook about what school have done wrong. Usually missing vital details such as….. the kid had a fight and for safety reasons couldn’t leave a certain area and when asked if they wanted lunch they said no.

All four issues are very disturbing. Detention for being late is the least concerning but detention for a student’s first time being one minute late, instead of a warning, is out of proportion to the “crime”. But I agree it’s good to teach punctuality out of respect for the teacher and other other students. Again though, the school is mishandling this and especially the other issues which are really problems that the school themselves have devised.

What if girls don’t feel comfortable or safe using the same bathroom as boys? It’s a safety and privacy issue, a basic provision for females to have separate spaces when it comes to personal boundaries around private bodily functions re toilets and showers.

Denying food as punishment is authoritarian and totalitarian regime-like behavior. It’s a school for teaching children academic subjects and hopefully life skills. Not for treating children like owned objects i.e. slaves.

Denying water at breaks and on the playground is cruel and willful neglect of children. Keeping the thermostat at 84.2 degrees is likewise authoritarian. And no water allowed in classrooms, playground, or breaks. I bet the powers that be who decreed this fairly high temp do not subject themselves or their families to discomfort. It is the powerless masses who are forced to not only pay the salaries of the bureaucrats who make decisions to control and restrict them but are also forced to comply or else.
Children should be comfortable at school with temperatures kept at a reasonable number. I don’t think 84 is reasonable at all, 74 or 72 is best and that has been the norm for many many decades for good reason.

Find out the truth of these allegations, Op, and act accordingly. The people have to speak up and not go along with draconian treatment of children. A lot of crazy stuff going on in the name of supposedly noble causes. It’s just a way to control, restrict, and yes defraud the masses. Using people’s tax money to harm them and then enrich the people who are in charge of the money, and enforce agendas.

People are afraid to speak up because they see how the ones who do are attacked and made into a by word, punished, sometimes pinned with “crimes” and jailed. Free speech for the masses is no longer a good thing, I think “Prince” Harry said that, he thinks he and his privileged group should have the only say.

I had a five year old throw a rock at another child's head, then when I and another member of staff removed him to calm down and have his snack (milk and toast), he kicked the other member of staff, pulled his trousers down and then weed all over the wall. We then made him have a silent time out, clean up the mess he made and apologise. By then, snack time had passed. I think missing the snack was a natural consequence, and when he asked for it later, we discussed his behaviour and said that hunger was the consequence for literally dicking around during snack time.

I suspect in a high school, if you faff around, then get in trouble, you probably don't have time to get and eat food, which I think is a natural consequence.

You misunderstand, @MysteryBelle - as explained upthread, in warm weather most schools become uncomfortably hot. They're badly built and maintained.
The unisex toilet is usually an area with cubicles which have floor to ceiling doors. There's not really any sharing as such.
I find it very hard to believe that the children were denied food. It's just Facebook shite.

But the only part that makes it onto Facebook is that the sadistic teacher denied him his snack for the sheer hell of it.

I think you had a Dennis the Menace on your hands, @Confrontayshunme
you handled the situation well.

Can't imagine they go without food

Room seem hot at 29

Will need a drink or get heat exhaustion

Only way you will know for sure is to look at schools policy and ask head

Heads don't know everything about what goes on.

Our local one didn't have a fucking clue about the bullying issues because he never came out of his office and preferred to ignore anything that didn't suit his image.

Most HT are aware and will respond, though.

We’re talking about a specific school, not most schools but one in particular, and of that school, op said, “Classrooms are 29 degrees (new building has thermometers in each classroom)” so the building is new and the thermostats have purposely been set at 29 degrees, if the allegations are true.

The bathrooms also purposely made into gender neutral, not because there’s no room, and we don’t know how the doors are configured. But we do know the space is taking away the ability for girls to have a safe private space for their sex.

I don’t think I misunderstood anything, and I think you know that.

Drinking water must be provided free of charge at all times on school premises.

this is a direct quote from the governments school food in England guidance document

it also states that the use of MUST in the document means that it is something that schools HAVE to provide.

The Education Act from 1944 states that all children are to be given lunch provisions and that all children are entitled to a school meal AT LUNCHTIME on each school day. Though updates have happened since then this is still a requirement. This is the legalisation that set entitlement to free school meals for eligible children, states that children may purchase lunch and set a nationwide price for the meal.

We do keep kids in detention over lunch and they get a menu to pick from that is suitable for eating in a classroom. This happens daily but you'd be surprised by the amount of kids that come out saying "they wouldn't let me have lunch." And tell their parents the same. Turns out they didn't want any of the 5 options offered so chose to go without then complained about it. The 5 options include 3 different sandwiches, a hot option, and a salad/noodle/pasta.

I'd take with a pinch of salt

He shouldn't have been prevented from going to the bathroom

Prevention of going to the toilet happens constantly at that school. They’re girls with UTIs , my son was consipated one day, runs the next . Meant to concentrate whilst doing all they can not to have an accident. I asked if i should send him in in a nappy

Well, you've misunderstood where they said thermometers, not thermostats. Two completely different things.

I do hear that detentions and isolation are very frequent these days, often for things like uniform infractions. I am quite shocked a detention for 1 minute lateness is given. In my day it would call for a reprimand, but not a detention. They were very rare, and for something considered serious, like smoking. I think the modern detention culture is overdoing the punishment so it's not even serious and just makes children's lives miserable.

The building is brand new - just opened. The Facebook post said thermometers not thermostats so I don’t think they deliberately set the temp to 29 degrees but it would appear no air con has been added to a complete new build either

other parents have now joined the post saying food is not withheld but some lunchtime sanctions may mean there is little time to get food or little choice left post detention which seems more in line with what people have suggested may be the truth on this thread

No excuse for not adding air conditioning to a new school in an area that has times of hot weather.

In my nephew's school if your not one of the early ones the qué is too long to get food even for free school meals so maybe it's that.