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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

School withholding food as punishment

296 replies

catgirl1976 · 15/06/2023 16:25

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?

OP posts:
3BSHKATS · 16/06/2023 06:04

Expo23 · 16/06/2023 05:50

Unfortunately sometimes students who have attacked others or staff members have to be isolated until we can get a guardian to come and collect them 🤷🏼‍♀️

And would be fine if it was only those children put in isolation, not those with the wrong colour coat.

Jellyx · 16/06/2023 06:09

catgirl1976 · 15/06/2023 16:34

See denied hot food and given a sandwich in a detention sounds fine. But at least ten people have now said their child was told no food at all as a punishment and left it go hungry all day.

it surely can’t be true I’m just a bit worried by the amount of people saying it is. Perhaps they are being told things that are not true by their kids. It can’t be true.

I suspect it's from parents whose children behave badly and who want to deflect from themselves and slag off the school. Rather than take responsibility for parenting their child.

CwmYoy · 16/06/2023 06:35

Good luck sorting this out, OP.

LolaSmiles · 16/06/2023 07:22

I suspect it's from parents whose children behave badly and who want to deflect from themselves and slag off the school. Rather than take responsibility for parenting their child
That's my experience too.

There are some schools I know with behaviour policies don't 100% agree with, but the version of the school on social media Vs the version of the school from staff and well-behaved students/students who are generally well-behaved but sometimes get a detention are very different.

Usually "They stopped me having lunch so I went hungry all day / they prevented me from having water" usually translates to a version of "I chose to spend the part of my lunch that I didn't have detention hanging out with my friends instead of eating/I was asked what lunch I wanted to order when I was in internal exclusion (or whatever the school calls their system for being in school but out of general circulation) but when it came I chose not to eat it and/or I changed my mind and the member of staff didn't go and get me what I wanted on demand/ We do actually have access to water throughout the day but I wasn't allowed to keep downing a litre of water in a lesson, then allowed to the toilet, then to go and fill the bottle up again on repeat throughout the day".

Usernamenotavailab · 16/06/2023 09:35

MysteryBelle · 15/06/2023 22:31

Because it’s really the boys they’re after. The girls are just collateral damage to them (as usual).

Boys are their targets because males are generally biologically physically stronger and more “aggressive” therefore more of a potential threat to the authority of the powers that be.

It’s not about accepting people who do feel differently and need help and support. I’ve always done that before it was trendy. No, the transgender agenda is about something sinister, pretending to protect the rights of a small group of people but what they’re really doing is confusing, indoctrinating, and steering children and teens into normalizing the idea of taking puberty blockers, binding, and cutting off body parts while they’re so young and vulnerable and making sure parents can’t do anything to protect their children. They want to stop using the words mother and father. Think.

If the powers that be, the ones who push and enforce these agendas, control curriculums and newsrooms and government and global entities, can get little boys to think they’re little girls, meaning, to think they’re stereotypical versions of little girls playing dress up like their paid ambassadors Dylan Mulvaney and drag queens in libraries and schools and churches, Biden bringing in transgender influencer to make promotional spots in the White House, global efforts to push and promote transgender activists as noble, obsessed with purses, shoes, and nail polish and makeup and gowns, because that’s what makes them “girls”, and get girls to go along with this,

then there won’t be any men, or women, left to fight for the “women and children”, for the rights of people is what I’m saying, or for the UK, the USA, and the world.

Easier to control, restrict, reduce, and defraud the masses. Easier to manage the little people whose little dollars add up and are useful but who sometimes revolt and need to be tamped down.

Hence making a transgender “woman” in charge of the USA military and recruiting transgender spokespeople and focusing on sex agendas, which is presented as the most crucial global mission, more important than all other people, including sick children with cancer for instance, and all other priorities like feeding and housing the poor, helping families who need financial support struggling with high needs children and/or elderly parents. And yes, more important than air conditioning for children and school supplies. Oh they’ve pretended to care about these things, that’s how they’ve gotten our votes and support.

That’s why they pound the mantra that masculinity is intrinsically toxic (true masculinity is not toxic but a gentle strength, as is true femininity—gentle with the weak and powerless like little children, strong against predators), that children need to be steered into rejecting their bodies and who they are and instead “identify” as nonbinary (no such scientific thing), and need to put on little dresses and nail polish, and that men must be abolished, even good men. It is the bad men who are doing this, the same kind of bad men who exploited women and children in the historical past and now are placing men in women’s sports and private spaces, and there are willing women helping them do it.

What?

i was only saying it’s interesting that they’ve protected the girls spaces and changed the boys into the gender neutral ones, when it’s normally the other way round.

so now anyone male is kept out of the girls, however they identify, and biologically female trans boys can choose either.

seems a better solution to me than allowing biological males into girls toilets 🤷‍♀️

pimplebum · 16/06/2023 16:14

People often sock puppet ( fake or multiple accounts on social media if they have a big ale to grind

cyncope · 16/06/2023 17:02

Expo23 · 16/06/2023 05:50

Unfortunately sometimes students who have attacked others or staff members have to be isolated until we can get a guardian to come and collect them 🤷🏼‍♀️

How many children are in isolation because they have attacked someone - and how many because they are wearing the wrong kind of shoes, or were 5 minutes late to class, or forgot their pencil case?

Maddy70 · 16/06/2023 17:11

cyncope · 16/06/2023 17:02

How many children are in isolation because they have attacked someone - and how many because they are wearing the wrong kind of shoes, or were 5 minutes late to class, or forgot their pencil case?

Well they should do as they're told.

Zebedee55 · 16/06/2023 17:16

Maddy70 · 16/06/2023 17:11

Well they should do as they're told.

Seriously? 🙄

Eleganz · 16/06/2023 18:03

cyncope · 16/06/2023 17:02

How many children are in isolation because they have attacked someone - and how many because they are wearing the wrong kind of shoes, or were 5 minutes late to class, or forgot their pencil case?

Sadly the problem in most disciplinary systems I've seen. Serial low level offenders escalated to the same punishment as serious offenders,

Eleganz · 16/06/2023 18:06

Sorry posted too early.

I was going to say...

Without much, if any, effort spent understanding the causes of their low level disruptive behaviour.

It is why you constantly get kids being banned from their leaver's celebrations because they forgot their homework a certain number of times in a year.

Unfortunately the academy system has given free reign to a load of disciplinarians who can exercise their crackpot theories with little challenge.

Adam1630 · 16/06/2023 18:09

Like everyone else, I doubt very much it’s true, however if even one of the scenarios you mentioned are in force, in my view it’s a failure of safeguarding obligations and absolutely would not send my children to that school. Even detention for being one minute late is draconian, for God’s sake it’s a primary school!

BelindaBears · 16/06/2023 18:11

Adam1630 · 16/06/2023 18:09

Like everyone else, I doubt very much it’s true, however if even one of the scenarios you mentioned are in force, in my view it’s a failure of safeguarding obligations and absolutely would not send my children to that school. Even detention for being one minute late is draconian, for God’s sake it’s a primary school!

Erm no, it’s a high school. And detention for being a minute late is pretty strict but not a “failure of safeguarding obligations”.

3BSHKATS · 16/06/2023 18:17

Detention of any kind can be a safeguarding issue. Especially in the winter months.

celticprincess · 16/06/2023 18:19

It’s interesting when you have a child at the school and you see some of the things parents rant about on fb. Recently ours started ranting that toilet doors had all been removed. It turned out that the main door to the toilet areas had been removed but inside the toilet areas the cubicles all still have doors. Reason being vandalism and teachers weren’t supposed to go through the doors (not sure exactly why) so if the main entrance to the toilet areas are open then messing about can be seen from the corridor. There was also complaints about it becoming one gender neutral area but that was unfounded too. You get different stories from different students. The ones who are being punished a lot seem to have the horror stories but then why are they being punished so much? I’d hate to be a secondary teacher . I’m a primary and send teacher so teach a lot of challenging students however the stories my daughter comes home with from secondary are horrifying sometimes. Some behaviour is way out of control.

PaigeMatthews · 16/06/2023 18:28

3BSHKATS · 16/06/2023 18:17

Detention of any kind can be a safeguarding issue. Especially in the winter months.

😂😂😂

PaigeMatthews · 16/06/2023 18:33

cyncope · 16/06/2023 17:02

How many children are in isolation because they have attacked someone - and how many because they are wearing the wrong kind of shoes, or were 5 minutes late to class, or forgot their pencil case?

Everyone of ours most of the time. Or telling staff to fuck off.

if someone is in isolation with the wrong pair of shoes, that will be in addition to every. Other. Thing. they have done that week. The kids wearing their expensive trainers because why not are not the kids who generally work well. Sometimes kids shoes break. Those parents send in notes.

a child would not be in isolation for being five minutes late or not having a pencil case. That is just what parents say to other parents to blame the school instead of their child.

PaigeMatthews · 16/06/2023 18:34

Usernamenotavailab · 16/06/2023 09:35

What?

i was only saying it’s interesting that they’ve protected the girls spaces and changed the boys into the gender neutral ones, when it’s normally the other way round.

so now anyone male is kept out of the girls, however they identify, and biologically female trans boys can choose either.

seems a better solution to me than allowing biological males into girls toilets 🤷‍♀️

Absolutely. Teen girls spaces need protecting.

Scotslass171 · 16/06/2023 18:34

I'd be worried if the child had to eat at a certain time every day is diabetes etc as withholding food could cause a hypo or something and they could end up in hospital

RachandO · 16/06/2023 18:52

I can believe some of this! My Sons Secondary school routinely give detentions at lunch time which means they miss getting food. Their lunch break is 30 minutes.

Svalberg · 16/06/2023 19:22

MysteryBelle · 15/06/2023 20:45

I thought that was a typo, buildings normally have thermostats which also have thermometer readings.

Regardless, the school seems to have no air conditioning whatsoever which is ridiculous, incompetent use of funding. The proper care of children is the first priority.

Also, there is a possibility the op posted on purpose extreme allegations that might or might not be true, several parents said yes but some said no, to get others up in arms then come back and say, oh no the school isn’t doing any of these things except for like the gender neutral bathroom and look how great that really is. I don’t think op is necessarily doing that, but so many times on this site we’ve been misled by posters so we have to keep the possibility in mind.

I will never blindly go along with any powerful entity who decides draconian rules for the masses. I think for myself and I will never be a useful minion for agenda enforcers.

Buildings don't have thermostats, they have temperature sensors and, certainly up to 2012 (buildings that would have been designed and started by 2010) would have had a full building management system. Don't know about more recent buildings as I've not had involvement in them, but they don't operate on a thermostat.

WotsitsMadeIn1927 · 16/06/2023 19:30
  1. 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.

Where can they drink water then?

FedUpWithEverything123 · 16/06/2023 19:59

Why didn't you check with the school whether any of this is actually true, before posting here OP?

LolaSmiles · 16/06/2023 21:11

How many children are in isolation because they have attacked someone - and how many because they are wearing the wrong kind of shoes, or were 5 minutes late to class, or forgot their pencil case?
In my experience probably very few. They might have a break or lunch detention depending on the school system, but I can't recall a student at any school I've worked in being in isolation for not having a pencil case one day.

A situation where the school issues a uniform reminder several times to students and staff, a student comes in wearing obviously non-uniform items, they're given a school issue item of uniform so they can join lessons. In this situation instead of wearing the uniform the student chooses to be verbally abusive to a member of staff and refuse to follow basic school rules. I've seen this situation happen. I've also then heard the parents claim their child was in isolation just for wearing a hoodie/because they wore the wrong shoes/for wearing a bracelet.
The parent who do this will also claim their child was given a detention for 'asking a question/being stuck on their work', when the reality is their child had already repeatedly disrupted a lesson and had already ruined the learning of 30 other children 3 times in the lesson.

The "but it was only for..." tactic is a minimisation strategy that's missing crucial information around 90+% of the time on my experience.

Sarahtm35 · 16/06/2023 21:22

Sound sounds about right for secondary school. If they get a detention at lunchtime then that means no lunch.
personally I’d be more concerned with the gender neutral toilets because you can tell your child to not get a detention but you can’t keep them safe from inappropriate boys in a mixed gender toilet.
my daughter went to a very good school but inappropriate sexual behaviour was very common. There’s also the issue of girls needing privacy during certain times of the month and the insecurity that brings to them especially in their first years.

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