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.

Stupid question then what's been happening until now? Until the detentions? Supermarket deliveries?

I didn't say that.

Can you explain why they wouldn't be helped by implementing a system with the help of their parents?

I think you missed the bit where I said I would do that anyway?

Because "systems" aren't a magical cure for ND.

As a teacher (primary) I have been asking the class to bring in a ruler for the last 2 years.
Oh I forgot
Oh it's at home
Oh I have this 12cm one/1m one
Oh it's ok I'll just borrow my friend's one
Oh my friend has mine

For 2 years. It's infuriating. Nothing can get done easily. They can't rule a page, they can't complete certain maths tasks. So if it was secondary, yes, a detention might focus their minds

I do have a supply of rulers in the classroom but with X number of kids that's a lot of rulers

Goldenbear

It is OTT, unsure why spares can't be available,

Because it has once again been left to the teachers to fund and buy the spares.
For you as a parent it is annoying to have to either your child's equipment or collect them from detentions.
For teachers it is having to continually supply equipment for those that forget, "forget", those that CBA, those that never have the correct equipment.
And Just FYI not supplying equipment can mean that teachers get a bad obs or similar from SLT.

In my last school, and I say last school because it was the one that made up my mind to leave teaching after 15 years, I had a box of supplies ( mostly consisting of stationary I had bought from my own pocket). Another teacher left my door unlocked and I came in to find that not only had the stationary box been ransacked, along with a box of sweets and prizes I kept for kids, but they’d also broken all the stationary and thrown it all over the room. In many secondary schools I’ve worked in the yard will be littered with broken rulers, pencils and biros from school supplies.
Schools are getting tougher on the little things because they start adding up to huge issues. Kids not prepared for lessons, kids not respecting things they’re given, kids disrupting others’ learning because they can’t keep hold of three or four items of stationary. Kids with ADHD do have it hard but it is perfectly possible for kids with ADHD to turn up with the right equipment.

@Chocolatebuttonns ,

It wasn’t my experience that the ND (at least the ones on the system) were the worst offenders, it was normally the lazy ones!

And there are better ways of supporting those with needs than just letting them off. This is where a good form tutor and SENCO, working with the parents, can be incredibly helpful.

But, as I said upthread, a good teacher can tell the difference between a student who is upset that they have forgotten something and one who just doesn’t give a damn, and will use discretion about the penalty (or lack of one).

I didn't say that either.

Can you explain why you seem so keen to argue that they wouldn't be helped by implementing a system?

Even if it only helped the neuro typical it would still be a logical starting point for all parents to start doing wouldn't it?

@FrippEnos yep. In the last place I worked you got given 30 pens at the start of the year and that was it. After that you were buying your own. Similar set up with paper and glue sticks. It’s ludicrous. You wouldn’t expect hospital staff to buy bandages for their patients would you?

I think a detention for forgetting a ruler is way over the top if it’s the first time they’ve forgotten. For me, a detention should be used to punish what I would deem bad behaviour so swearing, fighting or back chatting the teacher.

It’s bizarre really, there’s threads on here where teachers are quick to say how awful behaviour is in schools now but then you hear how kids are getting detentions for really minor things like forgetting a ruler like they’re scraping the barrel trying to find something to punish them about!

Because in my first hand experience "systems" don't help very much?

I have all the good intentions and many systems but if you forget to even do the system or you lose things or you get distracted half way through or you quite literally cannot force yourself to do it when you're supposed to, it doesn't actually help that much.

Some systems will absolutely help some people. But it's not a one size fits all.

And do you honestly think the majority of parents aren't doing some form of this anyway?

Ex-teacher here and totally agree OP. Hate detentions for petty things.

Completely get that. When I was at school the ones who got detentions couldn't have given less of a shit and just didn't go or ended up in isolation anyway. It doesn't really seem to target the right kids in the right way.

This, and it all stems from a lack of respect for the teachers, the school and its equipment which is engendered from a lack of respect from the parents who think that absolutely everything related to their child is a problem for the school to solve.
"Don't worry darling, Mummy will tell the mean teacher off and get you out of that detention, you shouldn't have to remember or take responsibility for anything ever and neither should Mummy, that's Teacher's job, just like everything else."

And they wonder why teachers are evaporating before their very eyes! What are they going to do with their little darlings once they're all gone I wonder? Oh well, too bad, so sad.

There are also different type of detentions, which we tried to implement at one of the schools I taught at.

So an organisation/equipment detention might be at lunchtime, when a teacher would actually help the pupil to organise themselves and see if there was any underlying cause (recent divorce, for example). Then support could be put in place.

On the other hand a behaviour detention would be after school and, basically, not designed to be pleasant or useful, other than as a deterrent.

Yes I honestly don't think they are because if they were it wouldn't be such a huge problem. I think parenting in general has fallen off a cliff.

That is literally a ridiculous statement
Parenting has fallen off a cliff

Yeah we literally don't even bother feeding or clothing them now we just leave them.in the garden to be raised as a feral fox cub

As if parenting way back when was in any way superior!

At one of my friend's children's secondary you get detention for dropping something, bumping into someone int he corridor, smiling at a friend during class, etc. It;s pretty brutally strict. The children are generally very frustrated and stressed because even accidentally knocking a pen off your desk gets you a detention.

There has always been and always will be bad parents. The vast majority are doing their best.

And tbh i wouldn't have much respect for anyone who thought that of me. It needs to be a mutual respect between school and parents and with attitudes like that I'm not surprised it isn't!

This is my gripe as well. They need to show all equipment at first lesson, so no ruler/calculator/green pen is punished even if they won't be needed that day. I get this as it means they always have the stuff with them, but I would prefer if the detention was for not having a calculator in maths rather than not having it for PE.
And yes, you need to be quite disruptive to get a detention for poor behaviour, there are a whole pile of warnings and levels first so detention must be full of poorly equipped kids with the odd disruptive one thrown in.

That's why you do things like set regular reminders in your phone or on Alexa (at a time you're at home if you're a child), or ask your parent to remind you at a specific time 9 they can use a reminder on their phone) or pair the action with a familiar task like getting up to leave the classroom or the end of a favourite tv programme or when you brush your teeth. Or you can put a post it note where you will see it at a specific time every day, etc. You build the habit on to other habits, and at first you use external things like other people or reminders until the habit is set, there is help online for this kind of thing.

If it's important to you you try things and you improve, if someone always sorts it out for you you don't.

Yeah thanks I've never thought of or tried any of those things

It's total bollocks, OP, I agree.