To refuse to send DS12 to detention

[AlwaysTheGoodGirl]

I know everyone thinks their kid is perfect, but mine is super-conscientious, and every day he comes in from school saying most of the kids just mess about and break things all day and all he wants to do is get on with his work.

Anyway, his class have been given detention tomorrow after school, and the teacher (supply teacher as far as I can tell) has sent a really angry-sounding explanation for the detention. I know DS is going to be gutted about losing his 100% positive points record more than anything. He's been invited to an awards evening next week for achieving 100% positive points, so I know this is going to cloud it for him. And me! I'm gutted too!

Is it any good ringing the school to complain, or is this just a suck it up situation?

What did he actually do?

Why was the detention given?

But if it’s mass punishment where he was not himself misbehaving - I’d complain and point out that the only reason that used to work was that the innocent ones would take the bad ones round the back of the bike sheds and ‘impress upon them’ why they behaviour was not ok.

One assumes that the school does not intend to endorse that approach.

Is this an all class detention for bad behaviour? If so, sorry he has a long standing appointment that you can't (and won't) change. Which you don't need to show proof of as it's outside of the school day.

Our school banned class detentions. They said that it was just am easy option for teachers who couldn't control the class.
I would phone the school and ask if they have evidence of poor behaviour from your son in particular

Type: 40 Minute Date: 03/07/2024 Note: Virtually the whole class refused to follow any instructions Had to be brought back to classroom from ILC for messing about noise levels through the roof. Defiance from most. Back door opened without permission. fire fighting at all times then it would start somewhere else

This was the explanation given. It's exactly what I hear every day. The Y7 kids seem to be out of control and it's really putting DS off school 😕

In our school, this would move the detention to another day, or if he was lucky, he wouldn't have to do it - but it would still be on his behaviour record.
It sounds like the behaviour record is what OP is most upset about.

I would suck it up I think, but I would email the school about your thoughts on whole class detentions - things must have been really bad if the teacher couldn't pick out a few particular disrupters and give the detention to them. I'd be really unhappy about missing out on an award because of the whole class.

What does DS want to do? Mine would rather do the detention than be the only one to get out of it.

Dd school is somoalr and she has no behaviour poonts. Shes asd and says if she gets any she will start to mess about all the time.
Y6 there were sen kids but her class was nothing like secondary.

Year 7!! Hell’s bells, is there any other school? I would usually say suck it up but in this case I would contact his form teacher and explain his upset about losing his good record. Explain that he is struggling due to constant bad behaviour of others and this will demotivate him . His form teacher must be aware of the dreadful teaching environment. ( Teacher here)

If it was 'virtually' all the kids then they are admitting that some are innocent and are punishing them too. I would very much be 'that' parent over this. I would press your son's spotless record, threaten to take your complaint to the governors etc etc. the fact that they can't control the class is not a reason to punish everyone.

@EarthlyNightshade I'll ask him how he feels about it when I get home. His brother got through the whole of school without a C sanction or detention so I know exactly how he'll feel! If he wants to do the detention with his class, fair enough.

@Pottedpalm I do have a good relationship with his form teacher, so would be happy to speak to him about it. I just wanted to check I wasn't being the neurotic parent! And yes, at time the learning environment sounds very poor, with a lot of supply staff and not much in the way of provision of proper lessons..... It's such a shame as my eldest had a great experience, but this generation seems so different.

I'd be surprised if the teacher was allowed to give a mass detention like this- it's against our school behaviour policy. I'd definitely want to see the rationale.

This. Unless they can confirm that your son was one of the ones misbehaving then I wouldn't send him to the detention and would also ask for his record to be updated.

Sounds like the class are out of control in general though and I'd also want to know what the school are doing about that. That's the bigger issue by the sounds of it.

Mine lost his perfect record in Y8 for bouncing a ball outside the classroom! Not a detention but a tiny sliver of red on a perfect chart of green. And he missed out on end of year ice creams.
At least that was on him though, your DS sounds like this was not his fault.
I am never that parent, but if DS was in agreement I would say something to school, even if he went to the detention with everyone else, perhaps it could be erased from his records (or even everyone's records) as this is something out of his control?

Yes I'd ask teacher about it. Cant be the whole class misbehaving can it?

I would definitely question the validity of a class punishment and I'd want to see where that is described in the behaviour policy. I don't know if any schools who allow that.

This is from the detention policy - am I right that it says whole class detentions should not be given?

When a student disrupts learning or behaves inappropriately within the Academy there are consequences for those actions. It is essential, that all staff are consistent and use our agreed behaviour system so that we are fair to all students within the Academy. When students have been part of a group who have not met Academy expectations, the group may face the same consequence with regards to completing detentions however whole classes should not face consequences as a result of the behaviour of an individual or group of students. In these instances staff will investigate and pinpoint those who have not met our expectations. In these cases, consequence points will be put on retrospectively about an incident.

That sounds like a teacher at the end of their tether and definitely not a professional message to send to parents. Teacher has lost control of the class and this was the only way they could think of to claw back some sense of that.

I’d approach this with some sympathy for the teacher but also be clear that your child wasn’t involved, if you’re certain in this instance that he wasn’t. Reading between the lines of the message from the teacher it sounds like some of the normally compliant ones have joined in this time. Put pressure on the school to have a solution in place for this year group. Often parental complaints carry more weight than daily complaints from staff.

@VioletMountainHare From what my son tells me, the supply staff are pretty useless to be frank, no control of the class whatsoever. But I can sympathise with them having to deal with this year group.

Then the detention is contrary to policy. Refuse it unless detail is provided as to what DS himself did.

Sounds very similar to my ds school. His class (also yr7) is just total anarchy, pretty much every day my ds comes home with stories of how they missed most of a lesson because one or other of the kids kicked off. He was begging to move classes for the first two terms, I raised it with the school who refused (too many other kids had already moved out of the class apparently). Now my lad has got used to the disruption and the chaotic behaviour has been normalised to him and he's now actually ok with staying in that class (for the entertainment value of watching the chaos).

But they haven't been given a whole class detention yet. I think I'd tell him to suck it up, that's life, take his annoyance out on the real culprits. But I'd also be having very firm words with the school about it.

I would refuse to send your DS to that detention, quoting the behaviour policy back at the school and asking them to confirm whether or not your DS was in fact one of the troublemakers.

Are there any other schools you could look at? This all sounds fairly shoddy tbh.

I think that's exactly what it means @AlwaysTheGoodGirl . Definitely how I read it anyway.