School's punishment of all boys in year 6

[htdt]

My son is in Year 6 and has done SATS this week, today was meant to be a fun day for them as they've finished all the papers.

But my son came back from school really upset as the teachers had separated the girls and boys and he says the girls got to do fun activities and given treats but the boys got told off and given a lesson on respect.

He's taken this badly and has said things like 'I must be bad because I'm a boy'.

It's such a shame because he's worked really hard and was otherwise enjoying SATS week, but now feels horrible about himself, the teachers who told them off and the girls getting rewarded when all the boys were punished.

I feel like I need to speak to the school next week and find out what's gone on and why. I also feel like making a complaint. But I'm not sure what they are going to do to make things better even if they did agree with me that it was not a great way to deal with some boy's bad behaviour and also very bad timing so should I just forget about it...?

my professional teaching career.. in a nutshell, handed over, there you go

If they missed out on a treat and were collectively punished then I agree, but there is not enough information in the OP to suggest this was the case. The OPs son didn't attend what the girls did so there is no way of him knowing they got to do fun stuff and other than he had a lesson, we don't know what was taught or the full reason why.

Sorry Scorchio, I don't know what this means? I wasn't having a go at teachers here.

I also agree with the poster that said to challenge the self-pity talk of “that means I’m bad because I’m a boy.” That’s the same rhetoric of the misogynists that wail online about “demonizing men” (i.e. holding them accountable for their actions). You don’t want him going down that route.

Do you feel the same about presumably 'self-pitying' women who suffer from the behaviour of appalling men and 'wail' that "He wouldn't have treated a man like that"?

But most year 6 classes are doing fun stuff after SATS on the Friday/Thursday afternoon- for good reasons!

So do people of colour, and disabled people - many of which in both groups are also female.

Do you believe that white, able-bodied girls are automatically a problem - and can always benefit from being brought into line by being punished for something that they didn't do - because of their inherent privilege over girls (and boys) who are not white, not able-bodied or both?

Or is it only boys who need to be punished for being boys?

I find it deeply disturbing how much hatred some adults have towards children, very young boys. One poster even appears to work in an education setting!

I think that is terrible and yes you need to find out what happened.
The pressure out on these young children during SATs week is terrible enough without a blanket punishment like this.
If a group of boys did something wrong that should be tackled but these type of blanket punishments are unfair and wrong

All schools do fun activities after SATs which are are horrible, stresful.week of tests. It will have been a fun activity, we don't need to know exactly what it is

But there is no excuse for punishing everyone. And the post SATs treat is a treat for getting over the week. Not letting all the bits do that after getting over the week is cruel
Tackle the behaviour, yes , but not this way

Are you normally an advocate of guilty until proven innocent - even when the person doing the punishing has freely admitted his innocence?

Do you genuinely see all teaching staff as perfectly wise and never making foolish or unfair judgments?

I agree with you. But I don’t think this teachers approach was the best way to do it.

Is her thinking that because they missed out on treats at the end of primary school - this act will be a lifetime reminder for them to be kinder to girls? Punish those that did the act and have a stern talk with the rest of the boys via an assembly or something reminding them that the school does not tolerate sexuality behaviour .

They will have 5 years of secondary which is brutal and so much worse with much worse influencers and sadly the online world is scary (I really hope they introduce a ban on smart phones soon).

I don’t know what the answer is.

Teacher here. OP, there has to be a lot more to this than some boys stopping girls playing football. It will be a culmination of unkind behaviour by multiple boys over a long period. Parents need to remember that children give their own version of events when they have been in trouble and usually downplay their own role or mis-report the events leading to the punishment.

The TA shouldn’t have taken it upon herself to speak to you about it, TAs have no authority to speak to parents about disciplinary matters. You keep saying that she told you it wasn’t directed at your son, but she may well just have said that to be conciliatory rather than risk a confrontation. People in all sorts of life will take that approach in a tricky situation.

The school will not have taken this action lightly, there has obviously been a big problem for some time with the boys’ behaviour. You do not know that your son wasn’t involved, either as a culprit or by encouraging or being complicit with others. Peer pressure and herd behaviour are big factors. I’ve seen normally well-behaved children get sucked into mean/bullying behaviour many times, it does happen.

By all means contact the class teacher or pastoral leader on Monday and ask them what happened as that’s the only way you are going to get an accurate picture.

If it was so serious an ongoing situation( and you don’t know it was) why was there no collective email in the run up and about the punishment?You can criticise the TA but frankly the teachers should have taken them out instead of leaving somebody on a fraction of the salary to take the flack.

It’s really poor.

It might have been handled badly yes. However it's also now an opportunity to start a constructive conversation with DS about these issues and why it's an important thing to talk about even if it was communicated poorly at school

If my child’s behaviour was so bad and ongoing that it required a big punishment at the end of SATS week I’d expect some correspondence about it.

Football is a source of a lot of bullying, exclusion and unkindness in schools. To the extent that some schools actually ban football at break times. It tends to be dominated by a small group who think they are brilliant footballers and they dictate who is allowed to play, and are absolutely vicious to anyone who doesn’t perform to their ‘Premier League’ standard. 🙄

This behaviour is fuelled by the poor behaviour of the professional players they watch on TV. And of course, there is some shocking behaviour by parents from the sidelines of junior matches too.

If the exclusion of girls from football at the OP’s school is a major problem, the school should ban breaktime football for a period of time to show they mean business, and write to parents to explain why.

What issues? Nobody knows what happened and how if the op’s son wasn’t involved.

Where has it been said that this about football exclusion?

OP hasn't actually spoken to the teacher so we don't know if this was actually a punishment yet, or if the teachers felt it was needed to have a lesson about respectful relationships with girls.

It's an important conversation to have even if it wasn't started well.

I think some people are missing that this is a massive school. OP said there are 100 boys in year 6, so I can see her child would have been sweep up in collective punishment if the majority of boys are being unkind.

It also shows we aren’t talking about one lazy teacher but potentially 7 teachers.

For the PP who said most year 6 children don’t have phones. Nearly all our year 6 have phones. A quick search, says 69% of children aged 8-11 have phones.

I don't see that it is necessarily any different to the lessons we had at school about periods, where the girls all had a separate lesson. These conversations are important for kids of this age.

We don’t know if it is about respect to girls.

And either way if the op’s son wasn’t involved I’d be having a yes I hear you and collective punishment isn’t ok for this reason first.

Do you think collective punishment is acceptable?
Do you think collective punishment at the end of SATs week when the kids have worked thier socks off is acceptable?

If 100/100 boys in your care are misogynistic bullies, you and your colleagues have gone very, very wrong somewhere.

OP said they had a lesson about respect for girls!