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?

My kids are adopted too so I understand, but would you not prefer for them to go somewhere they can learn to manage emotional regulation properly, rather than be in a school where they are probably struggling, and being made to feel even worse for it because others are getting frustrated with them.
I’m not saying these places exist by the way, I’m well aware that they don’t, but I think that’s the main problem and in an ideal world would that not be what you want?

However in our school a large proportion of the pupils who misbehave have no identifiable difficulties, sure, they may have difficult home situations but not all . A fair proportion of them just don’t behave, and there are no consequences, at home or at school.

That is an illegal suspension. Schools are not allowed to sent pupils home without formally suspending them.

I feel that schools don’t do enough. My daughter has had years of disruption to her lessons due to certain kids being constantly naughty, rude, aggressive. Little is ever done about it, bar going ‘on report’ as these kids are still there. She starts sixth form in September and I’m hoping that things will be different and the lesson can 100% focus on the work and not time wasted telling these kids off / being unable to hear what teacher is saying etc.

I’ve also seen parents of kids complaining that their child has a detention for this kind of thing but at other times has openly admitted their child is disruptive. The schools don’t seem to do anything if kids don’t show up for detentions anyway and many parents don’t support them as they think their child is being bullied / picked on as they are constantly getting detentions. Thankfully my daughters gone over GCsE content herself so she’s fully prepped for exams as she wouldn’t be otherwise. And she’s at an outstanding Ofsted so no doubt much worse in some schools.

I think as a society we have started treating children as individuals who have rights and opinions, which is of course the right way to go , I’m not advocating the old “ seen and not heard “ days , or indeed corporal punishment, but i sometimes worry that we have gone too far down the slippery slope, so many children have little or any respect for adults . I don’t know how we bring it back , but something needs to change . Sometimes children just have to do as they’re asked , and see that there are consequences for bad behaviour.

It’s so ironic that we bring our children up to be polite and well behaved and say please and thank you and be keen to learn, and yet the government think it’s fine to sling our children into school with people who shout and swear and punch and throw things, because that person who is doing the punching and shouting and throwing is damaged. It’s just so unacceptable to expose children to that.

We have threads on here about ‘toxic work environments’ where people might say nasty things to a colleague and the advice is (rightly) get out before your mental health is damaged any further, and yet we expect our children to go into chaos day after day after day? And then we wonder why anxiety is so high? The answers are staring is in the face.

Another SEN bashing thread. Hope you are all feeling better now getting it off your chests whilst getting cheered on by the equally ignorant. Some of these comments are horrible.

I agree. I know it sounds like a Daily Express headline but I think they scramble kids brains, ruin their attention spans and cause withdrawal symptoms which look like ‘anxiety’. We need a return to the basic mobiles of the mid 2000s.

You’re just like one of those people who claim those that question trans rights are bigots. The fact is children are being harmed by inclusive policies. These policies needs to be changed.

My kids are adopted too so I understand, but would you not prefer for them to go somewhere they can learn to manage emotional regulation properly, rather than be in a school where they are probably struggling, and being made to feel even worse for it because others are getting frustrated with them.
I’m not saying these places exist by the way, I’m well aware that they don’t, but I think that’s the main problem and in an ideal world would that not be what you want?

If you see my first post on the thread you’ll see that’s what I was advocating. My subsequent posts were in response to the OP saying we shouldn't expect our kids to have their needs met in school

I work I'm education. I think schools should be able to have the power to make unilateral decisions regarding the consequences of a child, if the behaviour is serious enough. The child should be able to be excluded from class or excluded from school depending on the circumstances

@Sahara123 theres always some reason for bad behaviour though, whether that’s SEN, bad parenting or just because the child is not engaged. Why does every child need to be schooled in the same way? Why can’t* we think of more creative ways to get those children engaged with learning something *(anything!) rather than learning nothing at all at school whilst disrupting the learning of everyone else along the way. There’s no reason why kids can’t learn maths and English whilst learning a trade, should we not have trade schools for exactly this purpose? 14 is too late for this, it’s usually obvious by age 10 or 11 if a child is academic or not, and they know what they enjoy. Engage the ‘just naughty’ ones and you’re left with far fewer children who won’t engage with school for whatever reason.

Another poster also mentioned the waiting lists for ADHD medication. This is a massive issue. Whether you agree with it or not, medication for children with ADHD works. My DS was put on the NHS waiting list 3.5 years ago and we’re still waiting. Luckily we could afford a private assessment and he’s been on medication for 3 years. That’s 3.5 years (and counting) of education he would have missed out on. I have absolutely no doubt that if we hadn’t acted then he would have turned in to the child that people automatically think of whenever anyone mentions ADHD. Medication stopped that from happening. There’s no way of a child catching up on that amount of missed education, they will just grow to hate it. It’s those early interventions that are missing and making problems snowball.

Apologies, I must have missed that one. I stand entirely corrected.

I agree with this. The issue is if you hold this opinion people lurch to the other extreme ‘oh you want to see children beaten/starved/silenced do you?’ Etc

I actually think our over anxious, overly attentive parenting is making kids miserable. Some of the anxious children I know have very worried and involved parents who seem to obsess over their kids negative feelings and thus heighten them. The children might seem fleetingly happy for a moment getting their own way but in general they seem troubled that they’re ‘in charge’ and desperately want an adult to step up.

I went through a phase of justifying my every decision to DD when she was about 3, and eventually it just meant everything we did she felt entitled to an explanation. Eventually I lost patience and started with ‘because I said so’, which has massively shortened the messing around and she seems perfectly fine.

I agree with something like this. Violent, badly behaved or just disruption to others should be grouped together or excluded.

I will never agree to one child's right to education over the safety and right of everyone else.

I don’t think we should punish, but that it should be about discipline instead. This is how I try to parent as much as possible.

I work with loads of schools and the majority (not all) are incredibly strict but the consequences are so punitive and kids don’t actually learn anything from that.

and many school (again, not all) have so little understanding of SEN and of trauma. They just don’t seem to get that “normal” rules are not going to work with some kids, it just makes things worse. Some teachers are so bloody amazing with this but some have just had no training at all around this.

I have a relative who taught in a PRU for many years before retiring. They LOVED working there. The difference was that the children weren’t expected to learn anything and they weren’t expected to teach them anything. Expectations were very low. And the children attending were away from being constantly compared to more academic students. And yet they taught a practical subject that most children loved and excelled at, gaining lots of excellent grades. Don’t just assume PRUs are terrible places to work.

That list is maddening!

It just feeds into the child’s eye viewpoint that if you disrupt you will be richly rewarded.

And these are linked how? Presuming you are trying to shoehorn your own agenda into this thread

This is exactly what should be happening! People assume that outside of school there is no hope, but actually there is no reason why children not managing school have to end up hopeless. There are plenty of other things they can do that will both improve their quality of life (and often by default, their behaviour), as well as the quality of life of the children who actually do want to be in school.

Smartphones have a lot to answer for.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403814/

But herein lies PART of the problem . Yes, many children are brought up like this, but my no means all. There are a significant number of pupils who are brought up in a most entitled way, and their parents do not back the school or support them. And with so few consequences teachers often feel powerless . Little or no support from SLT - who are probably bogged down anyway- plus as mentioned previously no suspension or exclusion in Scottish schools now . I’ve worked in schools for almost 20 years now, both private and state, support not teaching, and honestly can say the general level of behaviour has dropped dramatically. From most pupils swearing freely and openly, to higher level violence and aggression, drugs, alcohol. You can’t always blame special needs either, it’s across the board.

I think there is a contingent of parents of children with SEN who think schools/teachers must be prevailed upon to implement surreal levels of exception, intervention & tolerance of unacceptable behaviour, to enable their child to remain in mainstream, at any cost.

More likely a contingent of schools who will bend over backwards to keep children out of non-existent specialist provision - I don’t know any parent who wouldn’t support their child moving out of mainstream into suitable specialist provision - it just doesn’t exist and so parents are stuck with mainstream or nothing.

We do this with some of our pupils with more challenging behaviours, along with a sensory circuit thing too. Unfortunately we still see these behaviours play out later on, so it isn't enough.