To tell the school my child will NOT go to detention..

[Nataliaa]

DD year 7 has been given a 30 minute detention tomorrow afternoon, after school. Since starting secondary, she has received 2 detentions- 1 for forgetting her PE shorts and 1 for not completing homework.
I fully supported the school and the consequences DD had to face on these 2 occasions. She did learn from each time and since then, she has always been organised with PE kit and completing homework.
DD is well behaved, works hard and all school reports have been brilliant so we have no concerns.

Back to today… it is 31 degrees and the school allowed blazers to be left at home, but still expected the children to be in their shirt, ties and trousers (the school recently banned skirts, and does not allow shorts so all children are in trousers. All year round)

During lunch break, DD loosened her tie and untucked her shirt as she was so hot and sweaty… and then forgot to tuck in her shirt and redo tie before going back in.
She walked into English and straight away the teacher told her to tuck the shirt in and do tie, which she did.
Then whilst sat down she untucked the shirt again… she then got up for something and the teacher noticed the shirt untucked and as she had already been told once, she was given the detention.
DD tried to explain she was just so hot and sweaty, she felt she couldn’t concentrate and loosening the shirt helped.. she was then told off for answering back.

I do not agree with this detention at all. Other local schools have let kids go in wearing PE kits in this heat. The teacher was not wearing shirt and tie- she was wearing a floaty and cool summer dress.
I can’t think for the life of me how an untucked shirt would affect DD’s education, and why it’s more important to stick to a strict dress code rather than doing whatever is comfortable in this heat!!

I have never been in the position to disagree with the school, and not sure what would happen if I refuse to let DD go to this detention… also not sure if that’s setting the wrong message to DD, as I always encourage following school rules!!

Any advice? Is this a hill worth dying on? What would you do?

It sounds like from this thread that some schools and teachers have forgotten that they are in loco parentis and have a duty to protect the health and wellbeing of their pupils, as well as to promote discipline. If children become physically ill on the school's watch due to the school's rules, both the school and individual teacher could be on the hook for it.

@LimitedBrightSpots

Schools are protecting the health and wellbeing of DC by ensuring an ordered learning environment.

I don't imagine DC in schools where students are running around causing chaos and assaulting each other feel particularly 'well' or safe for that matter,

She answered the teacher back due to being hot and uncomfortable. Not ideal but not the crime of the century.

Schools and teachers should be doing all they can to ensure that the children, who are vulnerable and who are legally required to be there, are kept as cool and comfortable as possible. Uncomfortable children cannot learn.

Meet children's basic needs and their behaviour will improve. Ignore those needs and don't be surprised if they can't cope and behaviour disintegrates.

More hyperbole.

This. It's a disgrace

Jesus. I can't work out whether you are deluded or just on a wind up. Why on earth would letting kids wear more sensible clothes or even just try and accommodate their comfort a teeny bit in the stupid unsuitable outfits they're being made to wear - that I'm sure you wouldn't wear -would result in them running around causing chaos and assaulting each other? Honestly this is mental.
I hope you never do jury service. I reckon you'd be the type to decide "guilty" before you've even walked into the court.

I would be more than happy if my DC questioned my rules if they were stupid and put their health at risk. They can question my rules all they like and I'll tell them the reason they are in place, if after they challenge i think they have a point I would change my rules.

How is getting a detention and allowing children to be overheating and miserable creating an ordered learning environment. In fact, it caused the opposite by the OPs own admission this is out of character for her DD and therefore the teachers lack of concern and ability to understand the wider context (it being fucking hot) actually led to a good student questioning authority.

My school allowed PE kit in this weather as well as suggesting some water play. I don’t think the fallout is going to be massive, but perhaps the kids sitting in airless, boiling classrooms are still all going to turn feral as they’re slightly less uncomfortable than they would have been. Just waiting for them to be downgraded from outstanding to inadequate as a result.

If they genuinely cared another the health and wellbeing of their pupils they wouldn’t impose stupid uniform rules, and especially not rigidly during a heatwave.

That’s only a good thing if you want schools to churn out drones.

@Ddakji

As has been demonstrated by this thread, schools cannot allow leeway as DC then take the piss.

The root of the problem here actually seems to have been the school being too lenient in allowing blazers to not be worn.

The issue with shirts being untucked would have been avoided if the school had required blazers to be worn and then permission asked to remove in lessons.

All very well employers having these risk assessments but youve got to GET to work first. public transport has no air conditioning. where is their risk assessment

So since 99% of schools have majorly relaxed their dress codes this week there is going to anarchy on our streets for the next month?

youve got to GET to work first and public transport has no air con Where is their risk assessment

yeah and i bet there is a correlation with the ones who followed the ridiculous lockdown scotch egg type rules.

Yes to this.

Why can boot camp borstal schools not allow P.E kit during heatwaves. Why can't they wear shorts? I might understand the skirt problem based on how we would roll them up.

Shorts though. Why why why.

Why do we blindly roll over to this nonsense. I accept we have limited choice. I accept we have to play the game and so must our kids. But we have power trip idiots everywhere and that includes in our schools

A very polite and gentle challenge where we have a well behaved relatively compliant child here. Yes absolutely.

I actually wonder if part of all these apparent problems with kids are not actually a lack of discipline. Instead, is part of it is this obsession with treating children so terribly with the most ridiculous of expectation that detract from really important issues,values and morals we hope to instil in them. Like wearing a bloody blazer, wearing nothing but trousers and all these other ridiculous expectations that do what exactly?

there will be when someone dies Thats the way it works in the UK Someone has to die first.

Reading some of the deeply unpleasant posts on here it would seem an awful lot of people aren’t endowed with either empathy towards nor common sense when dealing with children .
Also really poor knowledge of how heat exhaustion/ stroke manifest

Exactly this. Why do so many people treat kids like second class citizens? These insane uniform rules are the sort of petty nonsense a boss who is a power tripping bully might try and instill. And you're all happy for your kids to experience that?
You know what? We're currently looking at secondary schools as my DC is year 5 and there was no correlation in the schools we looked at between the treating kids like criminals attitude and behaviour. In fact the 1 school that did seem to assume all kids needed to act as though they are in the army every day is the one we've discounted not LEAST because I see the kids on their way home. The kids from that school are the most rowdy badly behaved bunch of all the schools we looked at.
To be fair I don't know which came first the bad behaviour or the stupid rules but what I do l know is that their behaviour is worse than the kids I see where the schools are working on more important stuff than uniform rules.

It is a common problem in secondary schools. The insistence upon ridiculous suits for the school day, detention for breathing incorrectly. All adding stress to parents trying hard to keep afloat as well as the stress to do many children.

I don't blame each teacher, many too a victim of a completely insane system right now.

As an ex teacher I feel there's a big difference between trying to explain and 'answering back'. Obviously it depends on child's manner, but I dont think any adult should assume that someone speaking after a warning is answering back.
Reminds me of the trunchbull in matilda, I'm right you're wrong, I'm big you're little.

It's not remotely "sexual discrimination" to make school uniform the same for boys and girls.

The OP has now confirmed that the detention was for rudeness. Her daughter needs to face the consequences of that.

If parents want the head and governors to consider changing the uniform policy in hot weather, they need to make a reasoned case for it.

I agree with the part ref making a case for it. My own child's school have relaxed uniform during hot weather fortunately.

If parents put a case to Governors, I would struggle to see how they could not at least consider this.

Why was your DD getting up during the English lesson? It she was sitting at her desk nobody would have even known her shirt was out.

@Seriouslywhatnow

There are plenty of schools which don't have strict rules; and children are allowed to do as they please.

This means that very little teaching takes place, students run around corridors banging doors, assaults on staff and pupils are common, and exam results are terrible.

Those options are available if parents are so keen to avoid schools which have rules and enforce them.

Searching the Ofsted website for schools with inadequate grades for behaviour & attitudes will do the trick.