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?

An awful lot of children with SEN get bullied, to a very disproportionate extent. But I was making this point in answer to OP's claim that no-one gets their needs met in schools. Clearly they do.

You seriously want to give a load of strangers authority to hit your child?

But as the child is in care they could not move her from my daughters school or class. They could not permanently exclude her.

There are good reasons for not excluding care experienced young people from school. They have the worst outcomes educationally and for the longest time schools would simply remove them without consideration as to why they were acting out in school. The one thing the Scottish government has done relatively well is improve things for children in care.

That said, your daughter should have been kept safe in school, it’s never acceptable for children to be assaulted no matter what is going on for the other child. The school could have put protective measures in place regardless of the other child’s care status. It’s a combination of schools not knowing what they can do and, in some situations, schools not acting because they want the policy of non-exclusion to fail because care experienced kids need a lot of work that schools are unable/unwilling to give.

This, the bullying towards SEN is much more severe than the other way round!

The policies all seem to have been written with the bully in mind and not the victim. What should happen is my child should be asked what would make her feel safe in the school and that should be acted on. The bully’s situation should always come second to that otherwise you will end up with two traumatised children to deal with.

if my child has been beaten up on the way home from school by another on a regular basis they should have the right to ask for that child to be removed from their class. If it continues thry should have the right to ask for that child to be removed from the school. The victim should always have the right to a learning environment they feel safe in, whatever the cost to the bully.

I am not agree. if we find up the reasons why a bully does bad things, we will understand that he is also a victim and needs help. Happy and contented people (children) do not behave badly.

This is a fine ideal - and as the parent of a child who was bullied, including physically, I know he'd say he doesn't want that child in his class - but it's also open to abuse. I'm not sure children should get to say who's in their class, we all know of manipulative individuals who cry "bully" at the slightest bit of trouble (including being talked back to when they are the bully), and would be happy to have the control over who gets to be in their class or not.

Because then parents might actually discipline their own kids instead of letting them do whatever they want at school & defending their bad behaviour to the ends of the earth. I'm sorry but unless there are SEN, or exceptional issues at play then if your child is behaving in a way that is dangerous to others you are not parenting them properly. Why on earth should teachers have to convince children to behave at school? In other countries children are crying out for education & have nothing but respect for their teachers. But in the UK they seem to think they can do whatever they want without consequences. Again, unless there are special circumstances where a child needs more support then bad behaviour should not be tolerated. And for those who have additional support needs, there should be more flexibility like part time schooling, a mix of SEN and mainstream provision. We do not have enough provision for SEN children in this country and we have so many children who require additional help. They are not coping in mainstream school & they, and their peers, are suffering as a result.

Agreed.

I reported this post. It was left to stand but my reply that pointed out that child abuse is not OK was deleted. Is this where Mumsnet is heading. Threads inciting violence against disabled children? Does Mumsnet think this is OK? OP has another thread running about non verbal DC.

I also reported a post on here as ablist and it has remained.

As a mother of two autistic children, I'm starting to feel unwelcome here. I'm not shocked that in 2024 people still feel you can beat the disability out of a child but it's very sad to think Mumsnet may agree with this stance.

I think the problem with this thread is all the different strands of 'poor behaviour' are getting tangled.
Actively bullying a child is very different from a child over stressed who can't cope lashing out in frustration.
A child mucking about for laughs because they don't like French is different from a child apparently 'refusing' to do something because actually they can't.

And as usual the SEN children are getting caught in the crossfire.

Who said anything about beating?

See what I mean. OP doesn't even hide it. Beating, slapping, hitting, tapping. It's all the bloody same thing. It doesn't matter what word you dress it up with, it is not OK.

Many schools have introduced Trauma Informed Strategies. It has appeared over the years under different names. Many schools now have Heads of Years who are not teachers and don't understand the consequences of letting disruptive pupils wander around. Or say that you you should never send them out etc. This is especially dangerous in practical subjects such as technology, sciene. A disruptive, aggressive pupil with a Stanley knife in their hand is frightening to pupils and staff. Ignoring their behaviour as they have problems des not help.
Sending them back to class after a wee discussion about their feels etc. Doesn't do anything for the other students who have been taumatised by the violent behaviour.

All students need a calm environment to learn. Too much time is taken up with low level disruption.

Yes, we should take into account the background of disruptive and or traumatised children. However, it shouldn't be to the detriment of others.

Also, disruptive and violent pupils do not all have special needs.

Many ND pupils find the disruption frightening and result in them becoming school refusers.

Schools need discipline. They need everyone to buy into a calm productive environment.

As a foster carer I don't think my foster children should be allowed to get away with things that affect others. I don't think it's good for them. They need to know where they stand to feel secure. My younger boy had an awful year in Year 1 because he had a teacher who felt sorry for him. He won all the prizes and was allowed to get away with all sorts because the teacher was just too soft. But that meant that his behaviour at school rapidly deteriorated and he didn't actually enjoy school much at all as he was falling out with the other children and growing further behind academically. We changed his school at the end of that year and I did lots of work with him over the summer to get him used to having to do written work as he basically did nothing all year. He also got a strict teacher in Year 2 and he never had any major behaviour issues with her. Because he knew where he stood. I'm sure she had to tell him off a few times initially but then he settled down and had a really good year.

I'm not convinced by letting people get away with things either. I remember a classmate that had a very traumatic bereavement in early primary and from then on got away with anything they wanted and never got punished. By late secondary even they had nothing but contempt for the teachers for letting them get away with everything for years on end.

That's a very different thing to reasonable adjustments for those who need them though.

I completely agree with this statement, behaviour does get lumped together. The thing is, SEN kids are known in school and allowances are given. However, just because a child is frustrated/overwhelmed does not give them a right to hurt others without consequences. If a child does not have the ability to control themselves, then other protections need to be put in place.
The biggest problem of behaviour in schools is not bullying or violence, its ignorance, entitlement and disrespect. Kids do not follow rules, they chat back, ignore instructions and feel entitled. If I was queen for a day I would give school staff the ability to remove phones, WiFi and xbox/ps5 time outside of school for disrespect and rudeness in school.

If a child is constantly disrupting other students who actually want to be there and learn there is only so long the excuse of 'but they have...' can be used for

If one student distracts 20 how on earth is that right?

Hmm, I'm not so sure. The worst bully at my secondary school was a spoilt kid who always seemed to get their way. Their parents thought they could do no wrong.

I think there's a very difficult line between reasonable adjustments and letting people "get away with it". And what is right for one person isn't right for another.

One of my dc had a friend who used to get overwhelmed and so they gave him an exit pass so he could leave any lesson immediately and go to a quiet room.
Worked well at first. But then he found there was no consequence/issues with walking out, so he started walking out of any lesson he didn't like - and the lessons he didn't like increased. My dc said to them one time that they'd ask to sit next to him and help him get through the lesson, and they replied "why should I sit through anything I don't want to?"
And shortly after that he started refusing to go to school because "it's pointless".

Now the problem was the exit card worked very well when used properly, as a reasonable adjustment. But where was the point it became "getting away with it". I doubt there was an exact moment. And if you start putting consequences for missing a lesson, as a reasonable adjustment, the exit card becomes pointless.

Two of my dc at various points had exit passes. One never used it, but having it was a comfort. The other did use it, but mostly when they didn't want to do something (they admit this now). But they wouldn't have seen it that way at the time. They would have seen it as "doing this makes me anxious, therefore I should use my exit pass". They had to learn what they could cope with, and that some anxiety is normal at an older age. For example they would think normal exam nerves was their anxiety and that they should pull back from that. They were a mixture of indignant and surprised to find they really didn't struggle worse than most people.

There is a very thin line and it isn't obvious when it's crossed as even the person involved may not know it.

It doesn't help how in those cases there were a large number of different teachers involved, presumably with no single person having oversight of the strategy as a whole. In the case at my school I think the letting them get away with anything kept being done simply because it was what had always been done.

There’s a certain level of anxiety that is just part of being on this earth. It’s normal. We need children and parents to understand this. Some teachers are good at feeding anxiety too.

Being anxious in certain situations is normal. Having an anxiety disorder is a MH issue and can be debilitating. My DD has GAD and can also just feel anxious about normal things such as exams.