How do you think schools should punish children?

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

A lot of ‘school refusal’ and problems in education is associated with poor behaviour from other pupils on here. Yet whenever a poster’s child is reprimanded they seem outraged and feel the teacher is picking on their DC for no reason. They often think the (perfectly reasonable sounding) punishment is too harsh, or their child should’ve had more warnings.

So I’m interested in how you think schools should actually discipline pupils, taking into account this also means your own DC?

Prevention over cure for most issues:

• Lay out clear and reasonable rules, and explain them to kids in age appropriate language. Lay out consequences alongside these.
• Parents need to be on board with what the school does - rules, consequences, homework, general things at home in terms of school expectations around screen time and learning opportunities.
• Support in place for reasonable adjustments for children who need them
• Allow access to these supports for all children if possible (chance to step out for a quite five minutes, proper use of fidget toys during long periods of focus, allowed to drink water in class or step outside for a reasonable healthy snack if hungry)
• Smaller classes, which allows teachers more time with pupils, pupils more time for learning and more personal responsibility
• Students to be given personal responsibility over things within their classroom (eg tidying up, cleaning the classroom)
• Revamp of the curriculum with less focus on testing - mastery of basic reading, writing and maths skills by KS1 with intervention opportunities for those who need them. Allow students more choice over their learning in terms of subjects and the content of them.
• Appropriate access to outdoor physical play and healthy meals during school time (and outside of it)
• Access to the full curriculum, including variety of sports, music, drama, technologies (food, DT, textiles, woodwork, art, electronics) with proper teachers and coaches for them all, for more time that is currently allotted, and extra curricular opportunities relative to all areas across the school with appropriate funding, so every student can find something they're good at and enjoy.

In terms of actual punishments, the main thing is the school rules and consequences being sensible, and parents being on board with it. I think if that happened, then it would solve lots of these lower level issues.
Stuff like "The school has a rule that full uniform is to be worn, if it can't be parents should let the school know in advance with the reason, and should make sure their child is back in full uniform asap" and a child not wearing a tie leading to 'my child is in a breaktime detention for not wearing his tie, that's ridiculous, he's not doing it' versus 'well now he's more likely to check he's got it before he leaves the house. We won't punish him more at home, as this is sufficient that he feels bad and will remember in future' as differences in attitudes make all the difference!

SEN are absolutely not "discomforts". You clearly need some education yourself.

I'm quite sad that everyone didn't take lockdown as a good time to eradicate the beasts.

If everyone in the UK had made sure children were de-nitted - they would be gone!

It very much is. A little bully girl at my daughter’s school had so many eggs too could see them from afar. Coke back after half time and basically she might as well
be a nitty Christmas tree. When anyone has mentioned to the teacher,
the answer is,
it’d an in going issue. That’s neglect.

How does excluding children improve their behaviour? You are simply creating a large group of disaffected children with no education. If ever there was a recipe for driving them into crime, that's it.

Not actually true. We do have a number of rights to have needs met as adults, for example with regard to housing, social care, health and benefits.

It actually makes SO much sense to meet children's special educational needs, not least so as to maximise their chances of achieving qualifications and becoming productive, independent, taxpaying adults. The notion that this is somehow indulging them is just ludicrous.

So you teach them that the way to get out of doing anything they don't want to do in school, indeed the way to get out of being in school at all, is to play up a bit and be sent home. How does that help?

You don’t work in a school do you?

It helps the other children.

So, in your book, you punish the child for having an awful, abusive, violent home life by depriving them of the chance of a normal education and putting them in a PRU with potentially violent children. And you create another generation of abusive, violent adults.

The only way to avoid that using your system would be to fund superb PRUs each of which would be very small, and would be fully staffed with highly specialist staff including psychiatrists, therapists, emotional learning support assistants and the like. Your tax would probably have to double to achieve that. I assume you're happy with that?

What even is an ‘emotional learning support assistant’?

If you are an able, neuro-typical child with no disability, you stand an excellent chance of having your needs met with no difficulty, and it's not a luxury. I, for instance, went to a good state school with very conscientious teachers, where I and all my cohort were well taught and received the education we needed to achieve qualifications and other skills to the best of our respective abilities, and that included those with learning difficulties. My needs and those of my contemporaries were certainly met, and our school was absolutely not unique. That is still the case in many schools.

Your idea that having your needs met is just some sort of wet liberal concept that doesn't actually happen simply does not accord with reality.

It doesn't matter. Do you disagree with my opinion?

Excluded children will not disappear from society. They will remain with us, but without help and correction. And this will only make life worse for other children in the future.

Your child's school, social services and the health authorities failed her, and failed the child in question. If the school could not deal adequately with the other child so as to keep your child safe, they should have applied to the local authority for extra funding, probably through an EHCP, and all concerned should have been busting a gut to get that child properly assessed and the right psychiatric and other care. The school should also, of course, have been doing much more to safeguard your child.

It may be that ultimately the other child needed specialist education, but that should not be the automatic outcome if no-one has realistically tried to meet the child's needs through the means available outside such provision.

If the parents won't 'go for it' then let them keep their sprogs at home! It's unlikely they are bothering to learn anything in school so they won't be missing anything.

The Chokey.

Unless they have pigtails, in which case boomerang-time.

What even is an ‘emotional learning support assistant’?

In Scotland they’d be called nurture teachers, qualified teachers who are also trained in trauma informed nurture processes. My kids primary school has one who is fantastic. She does work around bereavement, emotional regulation and trauma recovery in schools, she takes small groups for literacy and numeracy teaching the kids both how to learn (meeting their learning styles) and what they need to learn.

I’d do shifts in Tesco to fund her role if it was ever under threat.

But there wouldn't have been the levels of disruption in society either.

We need to start by physically safeguarding the innocent victims of this unwarranted violence. Get violent children out of mainstream schooling.

Does that not extend to safeguarding the child who was in care, who almost undoubtedly would also be a victim of unwarranted violence given they were removed from their parents care.

Sadly that level of autonomy wouldn't be allowed today, to get such a variety of people interacting with the pupils would be an administrative nightmare.

Well considering we have had Ofsted in since this change in policy and they have seen what the school is doing and where perfectly happy with it then I don't see what they are doing is a problem.

No child gets that provision without it having been established to the satisfaction of people who know what they're talking about that they need it because otherwise they will not learn and make progress.

Children get 1-1 full time support only when they have major learning difficulties, including serious language processing, comprehension, sensory and social communication problems. They are exempted from some school behaviour rules as adjustments for disability, particularly in very strict schools where they have fairly pointlessly rigid rules anyway - e.g children with massive sensory sensitivities who don't have to wear daft ties and blazers. They have special provision at mealtimes generally because they simply cannot cope in a noisy, busy dining hall, and the same applies to things like not having to queue, because they simply cannot cope with it.

If they have particular difficulty with a part of the curriculum, they are in fact generally taught the same curriculum but in a different way, for example with 1-1 help, touch-typing instead of handwriting, etc. I would be amazed if your school is exempting them completely from the National Curriculum, because in most circumstances that would be unlawful.

They will only get "special" food due to allergies, or because they have an eating disorder, or because they have major sensory problems with the textures of certain foods. If you think any of those are a privilege, think again.

They may not be punished for things that are the result of their disabilities, and quite rightly so. Do you complain if children aren't punishing for failing to stand up when they are told to? And does that still apply if that child is in a wheelchair?

I promise you, if you think having a learning disability gives children such an easy life, you should try walking a mile in their shoes.

Poor parenting is the largest part, the 'I know my right's brigade who have no concept of responsibility, someone else will raise my off spring, why should I bother?

That's ridiculous. I suggest your friend write to the LA to point out that making the school reapply every year is a waste of their time and the LA's, given that they have a duty under the Children and Families Act to secure the child's special educational provision and to pay for the school named in the EHCP, and that she requires confirmation that, so long as the EHCP names that school and continues to do so after annual reviews, it will not be putting the family through that stress again for the rest of that school placement.