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.

I've just checked the detention details and he was in fact drinking water in the science lab. He knows he shouldn't do this so he absolutely deserved the detention. I'm the mum and I agree with the detention. Young teens can be really defiant and they need to learn when, and when not, to question authority.

You're embarrassing yourself now honestly. Let's leave it. You've "won"... If that's what you believe

By the sounds of it all these draconian behaviour systems don't really work at all then as the classroom behaviour is worse than is has ever been, by all accounts on here!

See, I have turned up without my laptop before. Twice, in fact. No idea how I managed it. (I suspect I have inattentive ADHD but see no point in getting a diagnosis.)

My employer - or rather the IT department - laughed at me and gave me a spare. No detention. No shame. A hassle for me because it wasn't set up how I like it, but other than that we all just got on with things.

I'm going to give away the biggest one.

Monday morning:

Lesson 1 - I don't have a pen (Gets pen).
Lesson 2 - I don't have a pencil (Gets pencil).
Lesson 3 - My pen ran out (Gets pen). My ruler snapped (Gets ruler)
Lesson 4 - I lost my dinner pass to get in the front of the queue (Gets new one signed for every Monday)
Lesson 5 - I don't have a pen (Gets pen)
Lesson 6 - I lent my stuff to x who had a test (gets two pens, two pencils & two rulers, one set for me, one set for friend)

Tuesday morning;

Form time. Going to be an equipment check.

Pencils - £1 x 3 = £3
Pens - £1 x 5 = £5
Dinner pass for the rest of term - £2.50
Rulers - £2 x 2 = £4
Total profit for day - £14.50.

Original pen, ruler and pencil still safe in inside blazer pocket where they'd been all the time.

Repeat with exercise books, compasses, sharpeners and anything else that people forgot regularly (or had considerable value attributed to them in terms of actually getting into the dinner hall before all the decent food had gone).

Roughly ten different subjects, 2-3 different teachers, 5 lunchtime clubs, 38 weeks in the year = enough time and money to made from never getting too greedy that none of the staff would notice a pattern (or if they did, they kept quiet about it when there was always a thriving black market in undercutting the canteen, chocolate, crisps, permanent marker pens and any number of other substances to deal with).

You know what I don't get about this kind of parent is don't they remember being teenagers themselves? Don't they remember lying to their parents themselves? What makes them think their spawn are any better? And most of all, aren't they embarrassed when they realise?

Ok let's leave it.

I'm on both sides of this!
I must spend a ridiculous amount of money for other people's kids to have pens. I get about half back. I often get complained at 'I don't like this pen'. Erm, then you know what to do. When I was a yr7 tutor I used to issue points, but kids usually got a reminder. Detentions were for persistent offenders and no, it wasn't necessarily the kids who were struggling financially.

No pens is an arse ache. You give Out 2 or 3. Then 10 minutes in, Jimmy isn't working.
Why not?
'A'n't got a pen.
Another 10 minutes.
Why aren't you working, Amy?
You haven't given me a pen. Shall I go and ask another teacher for one?( Desperately hoping to go for a wander)

I also have a ds whose only behaviour points are for lack of equipment. My favourite was the lack of spare pen. Especially as he lives in a house full of pens. Today his was for a ruler. He is absentminded (to put it mildly), but so am I. I just have to work hard to keep organised.

The "black market" in stationary was one of the reasons why I stopped supplying equipment out of my own pocket.

Although it was nice to see some pupils with gumption.

A ruler is not the equivalent of important paperwork. A project or homework might be. A pen is equivalent to a pen! If you forget a pen at work you are not punished.
You keep saying consequences - but I think you mean punishment! The negative consequence of forgetting a ruler is that you can’t use a ruler that day.

So you would be happy for your child/ren not to be supplied with a pen, pencil, ruler, calculator if they forgot them on the day of their GCSE exam?

I can see what you’re trying to do (badly) but that’s not my point. There is a big difference between forgetting a ruler for a lesson and forgetting your entire pencil case for an exam. But I think if schools are preparing kids for the real world you’d expect them to be allowed to borrow a pen. Imagine no one at work being allowed to lend you a pen 😂
I don’t think they should get detention for that. That’s all we are talking about, right. Being punished for forgetting something is ridiculous.

If your child is constantly forgetting things, why don't you purchase a pack of pens some rulers, a pack of pencils, a box of white board pens, a pack of pritt sticks and drop them off each week at your child's school?

As a separate aside, most teachers I know have a great understanding of Neurodiversity. What they cannot do is meet the needs of all of their pupils in their massive classes without support and time. Saying that teachers need more training is missing the point spectacularly.

It's the low level constant disruption that's the issue.

If you work in an office of 30 people, and all day every day people were getting up and down to stationery cupboard and disturbing people, and then the stationery cupboard key running out/company spending more and more money on resources. Then actually the management probably would do something about it,.and that might be that staff aren't allowed to help themselves any more etc.

And yet for several companies that I have worked for, if you forget to lock your pc, in the work building, it is confiscated by security and returned to you once you have signed for it, repeat offenders will get fired for breach of company rules.

And I have known pupils turn up to exams with no equipment.
I have even known university students that spent the entire year blagging equipment, paper and anything else they could off their classmates.

Sounds pathetic really. And all the comments about preparing them..has nobody ever forgotten to take something to work?!

But this is poor organisation and not setting her up real life. She will always need her pen, pencil, ruler etc. She should pack her bag the night before and only add books for the lessons she has the next day. It’s nothing to do with scared of being caught out, she just doesn’t want the extra effort of preparing for the next day. Something we all have to do as we grow into adults. Basic life skills. Preparation prevents anxiety it doesn’t cause it.

It's called an analogy, you can look it up.

I can guarantee that no employee has ever lost their job for forgetting a ruler!!

If pupils don't bring essential equipment then it affects their education as they can't complete the learning as required.

It affects others education as the teacher spends time handing out, logging and collecting them back in. It means an hour lesson is actually only 50 minutes. This adds up over weeks and weeks.

The teacher also has to provide the equipment themselves as there isn't money for the school to do it.

Don't be terrified.

That's the common sense approach my ds school took.

I'm wondering if you were mine if the wonderful teachers there. If not - Thankyou for being a wonderful teacher.

It's people like you that meant my autistic ds with severe executive function problems kept his anxiety to a minimum.

He was always able to solve a problem with logic. Preventing them however ...... 🤔🤣

My son's school can be able bit like this. It worked for him, he got a detention and now remembers his equipment...and to be honest as he's got older they aren't as strict, I think because he's well behaved , he also doesn't have any SEND needs. I'm a teacher and I don't do this for one off offenses it would only be for persistent lack of equipment and then always taking into account students who really aren't able to organise themselves due to SEND needs or homelife issues. A bit of judgement is needed.

My DC's school that get a behaviour point if they forget equipment. Three behaviour points in a week = detention.

For my children they keep a pencil case in their bag, and use other stuff at home. School books don't come home. Reading book kept in bag.

It’s not an analogy, actually. You might want to look it up.
You're just making bad comparisons.

Though ds got a negative comment for not attending an after school session (it's the booster sessions for GCSES) on Monday that we weren't told about. 🤔