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?

Maybe schools and social services need to be more interlinked. There is an abundance of easily spotted neglect going on. Often those children are also bullying other students.

Doesn’t mean they should get an easy ride though, rules should be rules and social should step in to deal with the home life.

Yes that’s exactly what we want, hanging.

If you want to be taken seriously at least stop with the wild hyperbole.

I think that is a very good observation!

So what he should be allowed to stay and abuse other children or disrupt their learning so what his not home??

Get more Sen / pru schools and more social services involved.

"Please tell me what you think should happen? A violent SEN child (and the vast majority of SEN children are OBVIOUSLY not violent) is kept in a mainstream classroom to assault others, or they are removed? What exactly do you want to happen? I don’t understand."

A child whose needs cannot be met in mainstream should have an appropriate specialist education available for them. My son attends a specialist independent school. He found mainstream classrooms distressing. I have no issue with special schools.
It's the way some people are talking about children with disabilities - as though they could never a child with those needs- because of their superior parenting or something.

If you are really interested, read Paul Dix 'when the adults change'. Stop thinking about what you think a child 'deserves' for their behaviour, and think about what they need.

Yes indeed. Children need to feel safe. So keep children safe by removing violent disruptive children 👍🏻

IME moving to specialist means giving up any idea of any qualifications.
My DS is 12 and reads age appropriate books, though maybe at a 10-11 year old level as he prefers graphic novels.
He's just had an EP assessment which says "his literacy is at a functional level which is what he will need for adult life"
This is exactly the same as when he was in year 2 and could read at a year 1 level and his suggested outcomes for year 6 were to move to a year 2 level.
It's a total lack of ambition for the pupils and blaming them for "not being ready to learn".

Well that would mean funding social services properly. Schools would love to work more closely with social workers but social workers are so short staffed that an awful lot of referrals from schools get refused as not meeting the threshold of need. And families are often stepped down from social services involvement when schools still feel there is a need. I've worked for four different local authorities and this has been the case in each one.

They need to change that. There should be levels, children who could complete a gcse should be given the chance.

OH GOSH WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT.
No, children who have an EHCP SHOULD GET WHAT IT SAYS IN THE EHCP.

Are you a teacher?

And every single Scottish teacher I know tells me that ‘Paul Dix’is the reason behind all of the problems in the classroom they are seeing. They are being actively disempowered to do anything about disruptive children by being told to have restorative conversations with children instead of actually addressing their behaviour.

You're full of excellent ideas today! Go on then, tell my DS school "they need to change that". I'll wait.

Is a sad state of affairs. So what we need is

1. more Sen schools, that give GCSE’s
2. more prus
3. more funding for social services to fix the home issues
4. schools being tough on bad behaviour and allowed to move/exclude pupils

Sorry, I seem to have taken a wrong turn and ended up on a thread from 1903.

Thank you for explaining, this is a really valid point. Yet so wrong! All educational establishments should be focused on enabling all children to meet their full potential, whatever that might be. Specialist schools shouldn’t be only for those who aren’t academic.
We need a complete overhaul of education.

There were no threads in 1903, the Internet did not exist.

I do think a lot of education departments do whatever they can get away with to spend as little money as possible, especially here in Scotland. Can’t afford PRUs or SEN provisions that meet children’s academic, social and emotional needs? Just throw Paul Dix’s book at teachers, say you’re doing mainstream as it’s more inclusive and give yourself a big smug hug while saving a load of money to waste on ferries.

it would be nice if ALL children were given an appropriate safe environment to learn in.

No, I’m sure it’s not fair.
I really don’t know what the answer is as he can’t cope otherwise but also won’t get into a special school.

So, so true!

I think the view of most parents is going to be that their own child is a priority.

I’m sorry to be blunt but I love my child, I want her to be happy and safe at school whilst having the opportunity to access a high quality education. Thats all I care about.

If that can be achieved by including children who have some difficulties I’m happy to do that. Infact I did send her to an expensive inclusive nursery which had children with various disabilities such as physical disabilities or ND kids which were well managed by parents and the nursery. I sent her there because it was a bloody good nursery with a warm and safe community feel for every child that went there.

So it’s not that parents are terrified of their kids being around SEN kids. I’m definitely not. But they have to be able to integrate into a classroom. The point at which my DD is negatively affected then yeah I’m not going to prioritise someone else’s child over mine.

Why should my child have to be educated with only other children who struggle with social skills, including those who physically bully him?
He is disruptive. That's not in question. But he's not aggressive to other children.
He needs to learn social skills but is in a school where every other child struggles with social skills.
He's not going to learn how to interact with peers from other children who don't know how either.
Why does he have to have a substandard education? Why does he lose his right to education so other parents can pretend he doesn't exist?

For me and DS, I don’t actually have a preference. As long as he’s safe and happy and engaged in some education then I’d be happy.

for the other children, and probably the school, I’m sure it would be beneficial if he was at a special school as he takes up such a huge amount of resources.

"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."

In my experience this is a very small number of parents. Far more parents would prefer a suitable specialist education for their child but there are no places.