School detention for forgetting a ruler?

[Wizardo]

Just interested - how many people have secondary school aged kids whose school gives a detention for forgetting basic equipment like a ruler?

I wonder does it really teach kids to be organised. Surely it just means disorganised people get lots of detentions? And feeds anxiety?

My schooling in the 90s felt pretty strict but this seems borderline bonkers. My dd currently “can’t borrow a school library book for the rest of the year” as she’s so anxious about getting a detention because she handed her last book in two weeks late. So now we are visiting our local library instead to provide her with books to read! I have obviously told her to just get the detention over and done with but she is adamant and determined to avoid it.

vote Yabu for No detention given
and Yanbu for Detention given.

@Chocolatebuttonns and we are explaining that if DC have issues remembering things then their parents need to provide the necessary support. It is a parents issue, not a schools one.

I haven't once advocated writing anyone off.

What happens when they leave school is exactly what I've already explained. Hth.

I have said several times that a lot of them will already be doing this. I'm not saying they shouldn't.

What part of that is so difficult to understand?

My ds left school in 2020.

His were sensible.

Forgot something? Ask a mate to borrow theirs.

I taught communication skills and skills about friendship and sharing.

Ds often leant a pen to a friend and also borrowed one a few times.

Never needed a detention to make sure they remembered next time!

@Chocolatebuttonns then what is the issue with detentions for forgetting things?

Others have pointed out why Its "not just a ruler". SO I am not going to recover others posts.

In the end I did what I had to do and left.
I did write a whole lot here, but to be succinct I got tired of trying to balance every bodies needs and still being the one in the wrong.

Maybe don't constantly use yourself as an example then people won't be tempted to offer you advise also you'll probably be able to discuss things without taking it so personally.

I started off just talking generally about things which could easily improve this for most people and thus make it easier for those who really couldn't manage it (although I'm still not sure why their parents couldn't manage most of it for them but they seem to think the school can for some reason).

You derailed it by using yourself as a example and making it all about you and your personal circumstances, neuro diversity and the challenges that presents is likely to only be a small portion of this problem and you can see from comments here that many neuro diverse people can learn to manage these things which is all the more reason to help them with it at home.

Well they are unlikely to forget next time.

Hamsterchump appears to have such a rigid and disproportionate viewpoint that she interprets those of us challenging it as holding our hands up to being incapable wasters.

Meanwhile, out in the real world - and in the classroom outside these draconian systems - minor imperfections and lapses do not lead to drastic outcomes.

I do think some will, although not many. But this is where parents should step in and support their child.

No I was just trying to educate you on how your very blunt solutions don't actually work and how oblivious you are to neuro diversity. I'm only taking personally comments which are specifically aimed that way, such as yours. Let's leave it there shall we.

Just because it doesn't personally affect me currently doesn't mean I can't think it's ridiculous and OTT?

But this blunt tool does work. Parents support their children who can not do this themselves.

That's what I though should have happened - what happened when I was at school.

What actually happened in DC school was 5-10 minutes of drama every lesson - and noise could get out of hand in mean time which upset my noise sensitive DC.

It's hard to know if OP school is just being petty or as a teacher PP said like in some schools she taught attempting to reset expectations which is I think what finally happened at DC school.

Detentions shouldn't have been needed but sadly have proven affective at DC school - which frankly has many problems but not having pens being such a time sink is no longer one of them.

Does it if they're all in detention?

Sensible people know it absolutely is "just a ruler".

Its only the idiots who can't function who think its anything more.

Well you failed because you mocked the very idea of developing any coping strategies to help with this and then admitted that you yourself use similar systems and find them helpful in your day to day life. I find your statements nonsensical.

My daughter's school is similar in that they have a system of codes for various things (behaviour issues, forgetting equipment /kit, bring late, not doing homework.)

If you get a certain number of codes (maybe 3) you then get a detention.

My daughter has had I think two in her entire time there. If my son goes there, because he is completely disorganised and has his head in the clouds, he'll be lucky to get through week one without accruing a number of them.

Your posts are baffling and don't make any logical sense, so you object to freedom of speech, you object to people disagreeing with you, this is how autocracy works, is this how you would like to live? How strange that my very much loved DC have turned out to be kind, compassionate and respectful to others when they have a Mother like me. The lack of imagination is staggering, people are different and have different ideas and solutions for issues in life, you really need to tolerate that and not resort to hyperbolic sweeping statements akin to Daily Mail headlines!

Teacher here. Slightly terrified of wandering into this debate, but here goes.

In my school, the policy is 30 minute detention for lack of equipment. My personal way of handling that is that when a student tells me they don’t have something (always a pen, literally every single time it’s a PEN) I ask them what they plan to do about it. If they’re not able to solve the problem, then I’ll count that as not having equipment and issue the detention - although so far, this has never happened.

I have between 3 and 7 classes of 30 students per day. In each one of those, at least 1 student will tell me they don’t have a pen (yesterday in my Y8 class it was 6 students - some pens had stopped working, some had vanished between lessons, one inky boy informed me it had exploded when he had bitten through it). Whenever I ask them to solve it themselves, they do every single time, either by borrowing from someone else, helping themselves from the box on the windowsill (just crappy old pens that get left after lessons, so nobody’s first choice, but they’re there) or by magically finding one in the bottom of their bag. In some cases they ask if they can go and get a spare from their locker. Not once have I ever had to actually issue the detention.

I didn't say any of that so I've got no idea what you're waffling on about here.

This is a good solution and compromise, puts the onus and responsibility back on the child where it belongs but with the added back up of a consequence for the disinterested and disincentivised.

And its bigger idiots who can't make the leap between "just a ruler" and an essential piece of equipment.

In Education that "just a ruler" can cost you marks in exams or NEA.
In work that Essential piece of equipment could cost you your job or your company lots of money.

A ruler is not an essential piece of equipment.

Yes, this doesn't really impact me as my DD (year 8) has had no detentions and is what they classify as 'Gold' standard 🙄although she is working towards 'Platinum' as she is not perfect but is still striving to get there before adulthood as we all know as soon as we turn 18, adults make no mistakes and are pretty much all at Platinum levels of perfection. My DS is 17 and has had one detention in year 8 as a class so not something he was actually responsible for.

In that sense im commenting not from personal experience but from what I think of this completely ridiculous policy.