School banning banter

[Citrusblast92u]

DS is in year 11. They had a whole school assembly yesterday's entitled 'banning bants', this includes banter between friends. One strike and they're in detention, 2 and they have to attend a workshop, 3 and parents have to attend the workshop, 4 and the police are called.

I asked him what they meant by bants and he said anything that anyone might find offensive. His mates have spent many hours at our house. They're a lovely bunch of lads, very polite and kind but their main form of communication with each other is piss taking.

Just after some opinions really rather than an AIBU.

Yabu-banter should be banned
Yanbu-they can't ban banter

If you cant communicate without bants, you're a shit communicator

Context is everything, it really depends upon what is said as to whether the banter is acceptable and of course we all have different opinions. I believe that once we start policing one to one conversations we have a problem as people have a right to express their own views.

I think this is probably pretty sensible if it's during school time.

Kids need discipline. Piss taking is all very well and part of being British imo but kids need to know when it is and is not appropriate

Well that's good that you can manage your classroom well. There's zero chance of ever having classes in silence and I'm not suggesting that. There's definitely a balance needed but I don't think my son's school have got it right and behaviour is an issue.

Fine line between bullying and banter and disruption and banter if you ask me. Hard for those students with behavioural problems to grasp nuance too.

Autistic people are well aware of what they have to tolerate and as parents of course we're constantly supporting them to cope in a neurotypical world, but I'm not telling him to put up with bullying or disruption to his learning and I won't accept it either.

It feels like the quiet minority are the casualties of tolerating laddish banter and poor disruptive behaviour. I'm fed up with it I'm afraid and think this new focus is interesting and has merit.

Over a 30 year career I have seen too much casual misogyny explained away as “harmless” banter. It’s not harmless banter its casual bullying and can be the thin end of a wedge. the school are right to have the conversation with the children , the 4 strikes and you are out however shouldn’t be in relation to defined banter but to the underlying problem - bullying/ racism / homophobia etc

We need to teach our kids the difference between banter and bullying, and banning banter isn't going to do that. My workplace thrives on banter, but we're comfortable enough to mention it when it crosses the line.

The ‘banter’ used by men in male dominated working environments is really a form of bullying. It starts with boys. This is a good move by the school.

We live in Ireland and it’s called ‘slagging’. It’s just a polite name for emotional bullying IMO. It’s always at someone’s expense who usually feels humiliated, embarrassed and helpless to stop it. I think this is a great move forward!

Yes definitely ban banter. It’s often used as a way of displaying social hierarchy amongst boys. Deeply unhelpful in school environment where it’s hard for kids to avoid. Save it for free time. Let them jostle for precedence over each other then. At school best to foster the level playing field approach and keep the popularity politics well out of the way of learning. Plenty of time to ‘banter’ amongst themselves out of school if they so choose.

Banter is not necessarily negative or bullying, it depends on a number of factors. I would not want a workplace where there was no joy, or conversation other than pure fact. Do we really want to reduce classrooms to joyless places where students are frightened to say anything because that is the next step as everything no factual becomes an issue.

I’m sorry what, call the police for banter? For Christ’s sake this school is insane.

I work in CAMHS and twice once a primary school and once a secondary school I was told when I called about two different children I was working with that they were not being bullied it was just banter. The secondary school child had his finger fractured and the primary school child’s father had died and he was being teased about this…..but it’s all bants isn’t it…..

@sunshinemode Clearly in these example these are examples of bullying but banter in my view is not that and I would not have described those incidents as that - its about context.

Parents having to attend a workshop and police being called, completely ridiculous! What happens if parents refuse to attend these "workshops", are they arrested?

This sounds like a very slippery slope. Freedom of speech soon to be a thing of the past?

I think your school has some staff who have authoritarian ideals and they should NEVER be trusted. I would be carefully having chats to find what else they are up to.. A list of taboo subjects will show I guarantee what they are up to. I know of a school where the children were not to use " boys" and "Girls". in any conversations. Think about this, would love to know what you think is the reason they were doing that. It did involve bullying or criticism if the students transgressed as the local doctor picked up the resultant mild anxiety when they arrived for medicals vaccines coughs colds etc he always checked for signs of any mental issues with simple chats. BOOM! Hell hath no fury like a community doctor who is powered by strong, genuine care for children.

@AmIbeingTreasonable from some of the responses on here it’s quite clear that some parents could do with attending workshops to see why ‘banter’ aka bullying/harassment/sexist mindset is not okay

Hold on - 4 they call the POLICE? Ffs.
I've said before that the difference between male and female is that if a woman has a haircut her friends will say "it looks lovely " and men's friends will say "tell us who did it, we'll get them for you ". Whether the haircut is good or bad is irrelevant, men just communicate in a jokey way to one another. I'd almost see this issue as mysandry.

I like being rude. Compelled speach is not ok. “Hurt feels” is not an excuse for censorship.

@rolloverbeethoven if it constitutes a hate crime they are correct to report it to the police.

I agree with this.

I normally hate banter, and agree that it’s used as a mechanism to excuse bullying.

However, about a year ago I joined a hobby group which was largely formed of men between the ages of 30 and 50. Within that there were a group of men who pretty much entirely communicated with each other via banter. This included on social nights out. I’ve never actually seen this dynamic in action before. And they all clearly loved it. They weren’t targeting one guy in particular, it was all of them throwing these comments around at each other all the time. I found it exceedingly tedious but it clearly meant a lot to them.

The hobby group ended and I bump into some of them occasionally and they still talk about how much they miss that group and the banter.

So now I kinda think this ban is targeting a peculiarly male form of bonding and communication. And that rather than a ban, harder work is needed to identify when banter becomes bullying, because that’s a life long lesson in the way a ban is not.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything more naive than this post.

@Silkinside I worked in an engineering environment for quite a while where only 10% of the workforce were women. There was a lot of banter. I then ended up in an office environment where everyone was kind well they were to each others faces, it was almost all women. Fuck me some of them didn’t like each other. For some bizzare reason they all used to confide in me. I used to just soak it all up and not get involved and have an internal chuckle at X being nice to Y knowing that deep down they disliked each other.

Banter can turn in to bullying obviously and the issue is people have a different line. But though that environment looked nice it was far from it.

Unless I misread the OP, hate crime was not mentioned.

@rolloverbeethoven but a lot of hate crime is excused as banter by the person saying it. This is what the school will be trying to tackle or to prevent banter coming that if unchecked