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 don't think detention for forgetting a ruler is proportionate tbh. These things can genuinely be an accident and personally, I think detention should be for deliberate misbehaviour. And sometimes it's not the students fault if they are from a chaotic household etc.
And I say this as a teacher.

Lol thanks hamster you've solved ADHD for me and millions of others. I'll just repeat things and be cured.

My point is struggling is not a reason to give up it is a reason to have more support and double down until something works. A method needs to be found and having equipment available in schools disincentivises this. Time is of the essence here, once children leave school so much support is lost and they can be cast adrift which is terrible for their outcomes.

Except it can be snoozed and often by default only 3 times and then it goes away and you have moved on to another tasks..

It can be a long time, I mean 2 or 3 minutes between looking at my phone and doing the thing I am reminded for. Currently I have a reminded on my phone for a tablet I have to take an hour and a half before I want to be a sleep. I can have it in my pocket. I can have my phone next to me and that alarm will still be snoozed 3 times then the reminder ignored and 20 minutes later I remember I need to take my tablet. Only now I don't have any of my drinks left and I have to make it to the kitchen for a glass of water without forgetting why I am getting the glass of water. This is something that has a detrimental impact on my sleep if taken too late. I don't have ADHD but I have other mental health conditions. If a reminder can't make sure I take something as time critical as medication do you think it's really going to be the magic bullet to get a 14 year old with ADHD motivated to get their pencil case right.

There is a place for routine. The only way I have anything in the week is by planning for the entire week on a Sunday evening. That is my golden day when the stars align and I can be organised. Thursday morning and I have forgotten it's fairy tale day at nursery. It doesn't matter how many reminders I have she will not be going in fancy dress with a book unless it was planned on Sunday. During the week ensuring everyone has taken all of their medication, is dressed and out of the house in the 20-30 minutes my mental health allows me as it's bloody hard to get out of bed and takes about 12 of those magic alarms that can so easily be snoozed.

Any one struggling find when you work best and when you don't. Don't expect yourself to be able to do the same things at times when you work best when you are when you work at your worst. Be kind to yourself

The voting was supposed to be a factual answer: Does your secondary school immediately give out detentions for minor rule infractions (yanbu) or are minor infractions generally just a telling off (Yabu)

i just wondered if this approach is now absolutely the norm as it wasn’t when I was at school. And if it actually works!

Seems like most people have a three-strikes penalty system before a Detention.

Although now the thread has derailed a bit.

if it helps teachers manage classrooms , and avoid wasted time and resource then I guess I’m for it, especially if kids with SEN can have a free pass.

Seems like most teachers are in favour so I guess it must be popular and effective!

My dc school have detentions for not having equipment when needed. The form tutors do a random uniform and equipment check once a week too where everyone has to show they have correct uniform, pe kit if it's a pe day and that their pencil case is fully stocked. DS3 has SEN so gets an allowance for some things, so he is allowed to wear non uniform shoes and he gets 5 warnings instead of the usual 3 for disruptive behaviour or daydreaming.

A pen is not a minor thing for a child in school, it is the tool they need to complete almost everything they will do all day so is more akin to a tradesperson's tools for example which if they forgot them they would feel a negative consequence.

If you had received a negative consequence for forgetting items at school perhaps you would be more equipped to remember items now and your life would be easier, I think we should give children the chance to see for themselves not write them off as incapable.

It wouldn't annoy me in the slightest if every single student in the class forgot their ruler. They'd simply have to go without for an hour. I'm sure they could manage.

The world will not end because a 13 year old isn't able to draw a straight line.

I have plenty of things to worry about in my job - they involve budgets, deadlines, handling data and accurate financial reporting. Not the contents of a fucking pencil case!

I simply don't understand how teachers can complain incessantly about being over-worked, yet spend their time and energy flapping about such trivial matters.

You can just give up if you want, you're an adult. I think children should be helped by their parents to find ways to make their lives easier and smoother, not just be written off as incapable.

I was a deputy and then a head in the 90s - the Tories (who were only ousted in 1997, so better budgets only started arriving in 98) had absolutely run school finance into the ground between 79 and 97. TAs were non-existent in almost all secondary schools, for example.

The problem is partly funding - having spares × many in each classroom costs a lot - and these items WILL disappear with students on a regular basis. But it's also the disruption caused to each lesson by x kids in each lesson sticking up their hands to announce they don't have equipment (some will come to school on a regular basis with NONE), the dishing out of various items, the reclaiming of items (can each teacher remember to whom she gave what?), etc.

Every day, every lesson. If the school is reacting in this way, it's because too many students are failing to bring equipment too often.

I agree there is no perfect system and i like efficient once a day checks. My gripe was minor - not one i would express to the school. But i still find it odd you can get a detention for not having equipment for a lesson you dont have that day. And you cant say "sorry, no protractor today but maths isnt until wednesday' and the teacher cant go "ok remember it on wednesday"

You really don't get it do you.

I haven't given up. That's why I have a job and manage to keep a child alive and a house mostly alright. Because I don't fucking give up.

What I do do, is continue to set fucking reminders, Alexa messages, post it fucking notes, get my husband to ring me, put everything on a calendar and so on and so fucking forth every single fucking day of my life and it is fucking exhausting.

And because of that I get by. Right. I get by.

But despite all of that trying which you think is so simple and straight forwards I forget things all the pissing time. All the time. You could tell me something and I will have forgotten within minutes and it will occur to me often in the middle of the night that I haven't done it. I can set an Alexa reminder but If I so much as think of something else before I get up and do that thing it has often gone.

I write everything down. Everything. But I sometimes forget to check.

I cannot programme my brain like you can yours. It is not an option for me to "give up".

I sincerely hope you are not a teacher. Sincerely.

Like you think I wouldn't help my fucking child who will most likely be the same as me. It's a joke. People are often trying their best and then get shouted down by people who don't understand and can't be arsed even trying to.

There's little point in claiming that you weren't suggesting that ND people were stupid if you are then going to treat them as though they were stupid.

Yes, they know all these little tricks and systems. You don't need to list them like it's some sort of revelation from on high. Most people will have tried a myriad of these techniques and in many cases, they simply don't work. Not the case for everyone - lots of people with ADHD and similar traits will find these systems work for them. But for a significant number, they won't.

Yes there will be natural consequences in those scenarios. Being given a detention isn’t one of them though.
I’ve never seen a builder get detention because they forgot a hammer. They might have to go and get a hammer. They might have to use a different tool to complete a different task that day. But I’ve never kept one back 15 minutes as a punishment.

If you had received a negative consequence for forgetting items at school perhaps you would be more equipped to remember items now and your life would be easier

Blimey. Thanks for telling me where my life has gone so wrong.

Small, cheap, easy breakable, easily mislaid items like pens are nothing like boxes of tools or laptops. I use pens every day myself. If I get to work and don’t have one to hand, I’ll visit the stationery cupboard or borrow one. Feels like kids are paying the price for adult financial problems.

DS had double of everything, so didn't have to take pens/rulers out of the bag at home. Didn't have anything fancy so doubling up didn't cost too much, but did mean he didn't forget anything

The school system in the UK is beyond laughable , from someone who was educated in Scandinavia where there are no detentions and way better educational outcomes

What if it's a pen?
The world might not end of they can't draw a straight line but if they've got nothing to write with it's not so trivial

You have to keep them up for them to work.

And here, in a nutshell, is why many of your "systems" don't work for ND people who struggle to maintain attention and focus. Because their brains are simply not wired to "keep them up".

And supportive parents?
Don't underestimate what difference this makes

It makes doing geometry impossible, just to give one example.

But if the builder goes home or to the last job where he left it or to B and Q to buy one the job will take him longer.
Not that much difference

You don't need to draw to scale in order to be able to do maths.

But you do need a pen / pencil