Not able to eat at school? Punitive systems

[RainbowDaffodil]

My son has started at a new secondary school. Firstly, I have no issue with detentions and I welcome interventions… but surely all lunchtime is madness?

He was late for example yesterday (bus, traffic -perfect storm. He’s usually very early), punctuality detention is lunchtime 1.25 to 2.05. Lunchtime is 1.25 to 2.15 but the canteen isn’t functioning for the last five min of lunch, which is when he’d get there.

The intervention he’s given in two subjects is the same time two lunchtimes a week. 1.25 to 2.05. I got him to say to the teachers he wanted to go, but he needs to eat. They shrugged and said he’s down for interventions and has to go. No solution or dialogue.

The school day is full, 8.15-3.15. 15 min break at 11:20. Some days they also have expectations for after school work too.

Is this in anyway remotely normal nowadays? My son is a robust kinda kid, friends and confident, but he’s starting to look run down. I get this as I’d be run down! He used to eat me out of house and home but lately he’s going 8-4 without food a few days a week, even with a packed lunch it’s been eaten after school. It’s partly getting time and partly the access to toilets not been there, they seem to manage it restricting drink and food.

He works hard, likes teachers but from my view it’s a punitive system of constant directed time, little access to food or toilets and a behaviour point system where getting one positive point in six weeks is a feat but sitting on a pen and snapping it can land you in detention for not being properly equipped (silly mistake, put his biro in a pocket and sat down). Another behaviour point was for being slow with work-I helped him to understand it at home, he was just stuck and didn’t get a new concept. No negative points are for rudeness/ disruption or any active actions but it’s so easy to get them it feels.

Communication is on the app and all one way. Recently I noticed he had some unauthorised absences so I emailed to ask if he was truanting or it was an error. No reply, but they disappeared on the app. I contacted them too at the start, he wasn’t given an IT account when he started and all the homework is online. He asked lots of times and I emailed but it was weeks of detentions for not doing homework while he couldn’t access the system.

It feels nuts!

I’ve worked at lots of schools in my teaching career, and this sounds absolutely insane.

Automatic detention for lateness? I’ve never had that in any school I’ve worked at. Consistent lateness (usually more than 3 times in a short period of time) is addressed with the student and parents, and measures are put in place to improve punctuality. How is it your son’s fault that the bus was late or there was a storm!?

Missed lunch due to detention? No way. We’d have parents rioting at the gates if we ever tried that at my current school. Lunchtime detention always allows for a 20-min period to eat.

I have to say though, I’ve never taught in an academy. I’ve taught in comprehensive, private, and international contexts. I’ve heard from teacher friends that academies are way stricter, but I didn’t realise it was this intense.

Ours is similar and on days when they have pe, the massive pe kit (and the fact that they aren’t allowed lockers so have to carry coats all day too) means that along with books/ musical instruments , my little lad looks like a laden camel and simply hates having to cart lunch/ water too. Combine this with all the hustle and bustle at lunch means he frequently goes without lunch :(
Not that the suso and and pasta pot combo is particularly nutritious anyway .
He always comes out of school bursting for a wee because they have some sort of locked toilets policy for most of the day too.
The health and wellbeing of pupils isn’t the first priority though. My school would far rather a child be in ‘correct’ shoes (silly brogues, freezing blazer) in winter rather than in weather appropriate winter clothes (boots / coat), regardless of the fact that we live fairly rurally with extreme weather and and the school is liable to close in the middle of the day and expects students to walk home if roads are impassable in snow. I just don’t see that wearing winter boots is a massive affront to equality 🤷‍♀️ but that’s a whole other tangent.

It sounds like they expect them to know the systems already in year 11. Which to be fair by that point most kids will have been there for four years so should do.

example: you say he was late and missed form time which has an automatic lunchtime detention, but he can’t see the app so didn’t know. Surely he’s noticed that he missed form time and therefore knows he has an automatic lunchtime detention? He doesn’t need an app for that just a watch!

my school did used to get SLT to go and collect some students from class for their lunchtime detentions but we would in general expect students to remember if they had detention/intervention and actually attend.

After reading this update OP, you should think about what you want to achieve here. If your DS only has 2 more years of schooling, could he grind and bear it? Especially if it means achieving the exam results he requires?

If you do decide to contact the school, focus on actionable change. You’ll never get them to give up their convoluted app system, but perhaps you focus on your son being given enough time to eat lunch when given a detention? Or, for example, a way for the app information to be better communicated to the students throughout the day.

If it’s really hard to find a good school place, unfortunately, your hands are rather tied here.

Is there a clear process for parental concerns and complaints?

Everything does sound a bit harsh. I think I'd write it all out clearly and request a meeting to clarify and confirm the events happened exactly as your son reported to you before taking any action. Just to do your due diligence, not trying to prove your son wrong, mind you.
Also, could your son have had a bagged lunch from home to eat in detention? If so, it is reasonable to have been told that.

At my school, children that need to get food are taken to the canteen, even whilst in detention.

Also, lunch sounds very late.

The more you post, the more it seems like school are trying to help him catch up and no one has really considered the pressure I him logistically.

I'd contact the head of year and point out (nicely) the issues.

He knew after he got home and for the future… yes. First time, no way of knowing that I know of. Nothing like a printed journal with procedures. Not in the behaviour policy or website info I read to him, it’s very generic on ‘sanctions’. Doesn’t mention details like points etc. I’ve actively looked. The website was excellent for academics and supporting him getting learning ready for each syllabus, but very very little on routine or systems.
They do seem a bit obstructive on sharing stuff at times. Like asking his form tutor daily for weeks how to get an IT password, told he’d get round to it/ talk to someone. Finally a peer got involved and knew to go to IT in the first 15min of lunchtime. Then it was solved. I emailed 3 times to help too, and used the app messaging to politely ask too.

What I’d want in an ideal world:
-lunch, some way of eating. Ideally hot food, access to his FSM entitlement. Minimum to be allowed to eat a sandwich in Intervention rooms or detention (it’s not).
-a chance to just have a 5 min phone call for awareness he’s struggling a little, even if just to say politely if when he does improve or do well to also use positive behaviour points for a balance? I think it’s a grind to try and try in good faith and every minor slip gets you a detention. I’d crack up working like that, and I’m an adult. Or even just a few min dialogue around how he’s settled in, I’m guessing so much I think with how it’s going- other than knowing he’s been late twice this term, broke a pen sitting on it, forgot homework once, didn’t do online homework when he couldn’t access it. He fractured two fingers in school and they ignored my letter about writing being hard and suggesting a solution/ support. He pushed through that which I think shows his attitude to really trying. Maybe impacted assessments

Ah.

i see your problem.

I suspect in this case he needs to key into the peer network better. If he’s asked his form tutor to do something more than twice and it hasn’t happened it’s not worth asking again, he needs to ask the other kids what to do and where to go.

honestly at times even as a teacher I found it more helpful asking the kids how to get something sorted then going through the management structures.

can he download the app that you seem to have access to onto his phone or is the school one of the “no phones ever” sort of schools?

No phones ever.
The app is only parents login.
Peers fine, but do also share silly rumours that get believed too. He’s come home convinced of some right nonsense. Behaviour is frayed in general, lots of fights and him being in the top set is in the context of not being a place with high achievement compared to similar schools. It’s an iffy communication route. Silly collection of these behaviour points seems to be the cool thing. Some have at least x10 more,

Ok.

sounds like a tricky school to be in.

schools often have shorter lunchtimes to deal with social issues - ie if the kids only have time to eat they don’t have time to go around getting into fights. Saves a surprisingly large amount of senior staff time but it is quite brutal on both teachers and kids.

is the canteen open at break time? My school had a similar timetable but opened the canteen at break as well and honestly many kids ate their “lunch” then. As did staff.

if the management are in a situation where there are fights and it’s a generally low achieving set of kids then there often is a punitive approach.

does your dc know what he needs to do to get out of the interventions? (Ie does he know why he is there? - eg art coursework behind, maths work not on target etc. there will be a reason).

If the late detentions are held the same day as the lateness, he’d have to take a packed lunch every single day just in case! Which would be ridiculous as he’s entitled to FSM.

I think, I’m not sure, interventions are essentially revision sessions for various groups? He reports everyone seems to be in one, some are at different times. Some told say to go at lunch on weds, some after school Thursday. Tbh, neither of us have any real info. However, he says they have been useful and well pitched so I have no issue attending them, other than some now being planned at lunch. It’s both eating and I think he needs a brain break to learn.
I’m pretty confident there’s no real issue, just a system that’s a bit rubbish. There’s L3 detentions which he reckons are busy and they sound like they hand out suspensions more often than I’d expect. The first notable step in the procedures emailed a while ago is after 50 behaviour points in a term, he’s miles off that.

It amazes me that the staff at these kinds of schools expect to get any respect at all, given that they are basically in an abusive relationship with their students.

The school sounds awful.

Your son sounds wonderfully resilient. You must be so proud of him.

Personally, I'd just ask him if there's anything at all you can do to make his school or home life easier and just support him best you can - he's approaching this madness with a "can do" attitude which will take him far in life.

Yeah, it amazes me nowadays that schools think they have the right to demand so much of children while giving them such a shit experience of learning and childhood.

We've really screwed things up for our kids as a society, if a child can't be properly supported in unexpectedly starting a new school.

On a very practical note, is he able to use his fsm credit to buy a sandwich or a wrap and a drink at break from the cafeteria? And then eat some of it at break, some of it at lunch?

I know a proper cooked lunch would be better but it seems like this isn’t feasible for him.

For the interventions I think he just needs to suck these up. The interventions are happening because he’s moved school at a really bad time for gcse and they’re trying to get him up to speed.

For the detentions, is there a peer or a teacher who he trusts and is supportive? Can he sit down with someone and make sure he understands exactly what causes these and why? And then could the two of you come up with some strategies to try and reduce them like keeping a spare pen in his bag?

I don’t blame you at all for moving school, housing is so tricky to manage unless you are well off, but I do think that is having a massive effect here.

Looking ahead, is there a 6th form college anywhere nearby so that you can move him after GCSEs into an environment where everyone is starting fresh and he’s treated a bit more like an adult? If he wants to obviously.

Tbh a lot of this is going into wider issues that are probably not resolvable. He can not move school at this point in the game and they aren’t going to change.
I think it’s more about how much to push back on lunch and how unusual it is. In principle, I could send a packed lunch everyday and it would partially manage issues… but I do feel quite strongly about hot food most days and reasonable access to food for a kid that needs it so much

Batshit school - I’d be putting my foot down

No, lots of teachers don’t get used to not eating. And it’s appalling that they do.

And as for kids not being able to eat!?

I was a secondary school teacher for 30 years.

A negative school experience can lead to MH issues as an adult so I would be looking at home schooling. I wish I had done it with my son.

If schools aren't satisfactory, online schooling can always be an option. They're more affordable than conventional private schools as well. Socialising opportunities can come from community clubs and cadets.

At our school lots of the FSM kids who do lunch time clubs get their hot food at break and have a somewhat early lunch. Is that feasible?

Yep, that’s what schools are like now . Kafkaesque authoritarian and automated. Apparently schools have no money but the can afford all these stupid apps which deskill teachers, confuse parents and demotivate kids . This is entirely down to academization and capitalism.

A school that punishes pupils - however bad their behaviour - by preventing them from eating their lunch, is not suitable for any child let alone your son. Find him a more civilised school in which to learn and develop.
You might also discuss the issue with a parent governor because this is not just a daily management issue - it is a matter of principle and policy.