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'd make them hand over their phones, they'd be unlikely to leave without them and it would avoid the stinky feet issue*

*DD's school is a shoes off school, I wonder if it gets smelly in the classrooms or not. Thankfully I don't have to find out.

If they forget a pen, they borrow a spare from a friend, the person sitting next to them, the teacher, or their form tutor.

There is no shortage of ballpoints.

But here you're saying all that stuff you've set up is helping you and you would be worse off without it. I'm arguing for children to be helped to have it in place for them too, in the first instance.

Having equipment in the classroom disincentives this for parents and children.

It being very difficult is not a reason not to try but a reason to try harder, in childhood with more parental support.

You could just let your husband or someone else do all your organising for you (like the teachers do now for children) but you don't want that do you? No one does because they realise the value in being able to do things themselves, children need to be given the tools and the incentive to do this too.

The problem is things are stolen all the time. I use to buy full essentials for students who would forget things by October half term they would have disappeared or be broken.
Personally , I would help my DC to pack and check their bag and pencil case every night. One Claddically Autistic and the other undiagnosed ADHD. They both eventually learnt.

I am imagining most of you looking like this.

One local school does. They even give a detention for the wrong sort of ruler apparently.

It was one of the reasons we went for the other school, as they were more laid back. My dc's school does the carrot rather than the stick. They have to show that they have (I think) pen, pencil, ruler, rubber (can be on the end of the pencil) and ID card in form period and if they have them all they get a "praise point". The praise points add up and at the end of the year if they have enough they get an amazon voucher. That was far more effective for ds at any rate.

A lesson there in how to miss the fucking point.

But if it helps some then that is a start isn’t it? These kids aren’t coming into school naked or barefoot, at some time in their lives they have learnt how to get dressed/ check they are wearing shoes. So the same principle applies to equipment they need, especially to the items they need every single day of their entire school career, like writing materials.

Of course it's a start and I'm sure a lot of people already do it.

Also wearing clothes is very different considering you can literally see it. But I'm gonna stop arguing the case here because there's a severe lack of understanding or willingness to learn so it's pointless.

Well obviously the consequences could be worse in the real world, one might lose money or a job for example but we only have so many ways we can punish children and detention is the accepted standard one. I'm not sure what you're arguing for here.

They are comparable in the analogy on how important they are to the situation.

My kids learnt hard way to be very wary of giving out pens as they never came back and it started to have a noticeable cost to us - teachers spend their own money on pens frequently not getting them back and if they left it with child - next lesson same kids no pens.

It was every lesson 5-10 minutes same kids - being given yet another pen - my kids got sick of it staff got sick of it - detentions stop it.

However many ballpoint teachers or other students gave out it never stopped - detentions did stop it. It really shouldn't have needed that but that's what worked.

So what do we do? Just give up on them? You really wouldn't even try?

Which point? Did you make one?

How is forgetting to ask for a pen to be returned any different to forgetting a pen in the first place?

I'm not saying people should be obliged to share their possessions, but having a mug of cheap pens on the teachers desk and keeping a note of who has taken one aren't insurmountable problems.

Go and spend a day in a bottom of the league table secondary school.
Go and spend a day in a school where about 10 to 15 don't have a pen in every single class.
Go and spend a day in a school where if you only have to give out 4 or 5 pens in a lesson that's a good lesson.
It really is not that simple

I’m arguing that a detention for forgetting a ruler is an inappropriate consequence. Schools like to go on about preparing kids for professional life, but being punished for forgetting something isn’t real life.
Consequences happen naturally,people forget things all the time. If you forget your ruler then you draw wobbly lines that day, or borrow one from a friend. That’s real life.

It may seem nothing on its own but when the bell is about to go and 30 kids are itching to get out of the door and you haven't packed up yet because you still need to do whatever the latest ofsted b0!!0[ks is to prove you've done your job
Then the next class come in and it all starts again
But it's just a pen

@Cosyblankets that’s quite depressing.

I do remember at GCSE if we forgot a calculator in maths we’d be moved to front row of desks and given one to borrow . Then a barrage of sarcasm and maths questions directed at you by the teacher to “check you’re actually awake today”. It was relatively uncomfortable and the humiliation in front of peers did “work” as I don’t think most of us made sure we had kit (whether our own or borrowed).

Well I am not a teacher but if I was, I would have a collection of spare essentials which I'd hand out if needed and request back at the end of the lesson.

If there were repeat offenders I might mention it on their report, to their tutor, or send a note home.

But I certainly wouldn't be wringing my hands together and spending 10 minutes of lesson time making a mountain out of a molehill.

In any other career you would take a pragmatic approach - they don't have a pen? Lend them one and move on.

I'm arguing that pens and rulers are important equipment to a school child, akin to tools or important paperwork and so forgetting those in the professiona world certainly will have negative consequences so it makes sense to get children used to remembering and looking afte the things they need at school when the negative consequences they face are only minor.

Well no, because as you've already been told quite clearly on this thread once already (one might wonder why you need to be told a second time if your systems for remembering as as wonderful as you seem to think), people who struggle with focus and attention don't just give up. They try again and again and again to find a method that works. In the meantime, whilst they spend their time and energies trying to implement the 76th different method for remembering things that took you just one attempt, perhaps we could consider cutting them some slack and accepting that they're doing their best.

DD2's processing and executive function is so not functional she HAS managed to leave school before and forgotten to put her shoes back on, in addition to the day she forgot the skirt to go TO school.

She's diagnosed with dyspraxia and ASD, awaiting an assessment for ADHD... academically though, she's a very able child so special school would not be an option for her - but she needs school to understand that yes, she's very likely to have forgotten a ruler periodically and it's not because she couldn't be bothered - she tries so incredibly hard.

Like I said - we're parents who'll happily buy multiple sets of equipment to leave in classrooms if schools are willing to work with us, but when schools don't want to engage or belittle parents (which has happened in the past), or decide to refuse to believe diagnoses (not Private ones either in case someone decides that would somehow "legitimise" it, but a long-standing NHS one - again has happened in the past) - we can't do anything but our child suffers. If you're in an area where all the schools have decided to go zero tolerance and detentions all over the shop... you've got fuck all in the way of options.

Detentions don't work anyway - DD1 got one recently, earned it totally legitimately by talking in class so we had bugger all sympathy for her having to do it - she comes out saying "well that wasn't so bad, I could do that again if I had to."

There is no money to pay for loads of school equipment which is why children are asked to bring their own. Now what?