To believe the school over my dd?

[durdledoris]

Dd is in year 9 - was always an angel at primary , smashed her sats etc but now in year 9 isn't quite the angel she used to be. Has a lovely friend group but we quite often get emails from school saying she has been sanctioned in class for low level disruption- never goes any further than that and when we speak to her about it, it's always the same "it wasn't my fault" response. Never her fault.
Today she got a detention - apparently a boy behind her kept throwing paper at her so when she did it back, she got in trouble. The email from school said it was because she was disruptive and kept turning around.
We have been talking to her lately about her upcoming GCSE's and we know she will be ditching a few subjects but it's not fair to ruin it for others who want to learn so basically, in those subjects, keep a low profile amd do what you have to do to get through til the end of the,year, which is only a few weeks.
She is crying in her room saying it wasn't her fault today - aibu to keep her phone and tv remote while she has a long hard think about her behaviour?

Listen to your daughter, some of these schools sanctions are rediculous and they honestly punish them for anything. I would commend your daughter for sticking up for herself and give her things back

Well, was she turning around because the kid was throwing things at her?? I'd have turned around too! Why didn't she tell the teacher when she got told off for turning around? .

Go and work in a school and you will come back saying lots of sanctions are not hard enough.

@durdledoris I would believe the school. If it was someone behind her annoying her then that needs to be dealt with separately. She still chose to keep turning round which is so annoying when you're trying to teach. She needs to learn not to react to annoying kids.

It could be worth a quick email to the school, when I speak to parents it's often quick to see if there was a misunderstanding but nine times out of ten the sanction is valid and there has been a very inaccurate story at home! And when there's not, it's good to speak to the student, check why they didn't speak up if that's the case and apologise if I got it wrong.

Throwing paper is not something that needs to be reciprocated. If she was turning round because something was thrown at her, that's understandable, but if she was also throwing paper, that's on her.

Refreshing to see a parent accept their child might be at fault. Tell her to suck it up and do the detention. If it was as she says she'll know next time to report the person throwing things. Chances are there was fault on both sides.

One thing I always said to parents when I was a teacher is not to punish children twice. If the child had a sanction at school, that's enough, there's no need to punish them at home.

Low level disruption disturbs everyone's learning. My assumption would be that this was a last straw situation - your DD has been consistently poorly behaved and this was an attempt to correct that. If you interfere you'll send the message that she has every right to mess about in class.

Whether it was her fault or not, why are you punishing her at home when she's already been punished at school?

And you've given her 2 punishments so she's actually had 3 including the detention.

That's overkill. Unless it was deathly serious, I would never punish my DC if the school had already done so, although they'd get a very stern talking to.

If someone was throwing things at her, she should have told the teacher. She chose to engage and throw things back so got a detention. Or she has made it up and it was her that was causing the disruption. Either way, she has done wrong. The only question is whether the boy also got in trouble for throwing paper, if that bit was true.

All of the above

I’d perhaps ring the school to get more context on the situation, make sure all is as it seems. I try not to ever bad mouth the school tho as I think it erodes respect for the teachers. I picked the school because I liked the feel of it and don’t beleive the teachers would unfairly discipline my child.

Her room is an absolute mess too and am sick of asking her to clear it up so the phone removal is to do with that too, which she knows.

You're allowed to believe her but still say she has to do the punishment, it wasn't all her fault but that's life. Punishing her again is definitely over kill.

My child would definitely be in trouble at home if she had misbehaved at school!

Children are messy and if there is lots of homework I would prefer they did that.

She is being punished by school that is enough.

The conversation I would have with her is how do you think you should have handled it? Let her answer that. Then separately in a calm tone ask do you think your past behaviour of messing around in class may have bit you in the arse over this incident?

She should have told the teacher what was happening not retaliated. She is learning that she gets into trouble for her actions, it doesn't matter who started it, she made that choice and these are the key words to use, choice.

You only have to watch any of the Educating Essex/Manchester or any other one to realise how bloody annoying low level disruption is. Teaching is also dealing with behaviour management which is shit. Year 9 does cover some GCSE content in some schools, it did for my children.

What is your job? Can she relate her pissing around in class all the time to how disruptive you would find it if someone did it to you? I did it to my own children when they were in primary, they were setting the table for dinner and I kept moving the cutlery which at first was funny for them but then annoying as they kept having to redo it. I said that is how your teacher feels when you are chatting to your mates in year 2. They were all separated for year 3 and were annoyed about it, this made my child understand why.

Sorry l am confused as you are saying don't punish her at home but that low disruption is annoying - l want the school to know l am supportive if she has been playing up. Am not one of these my child never does anything wrong parents - she's had a few tellings off for low level disruption and obvs they've had no effect.

Listen to her. I had to deal with years of unfair treatment from a teacher who decided she didn’t like me who found a way to make everything my fault.

if a boy was giving me grief it was because I must have done something to deserve it. Even if I was just trying to keep my head down, it must have been because I annoyed the perpetrator just by existing.

So girls are supposed to just ignore boys throwing stuff at them? The teacher should be making sure that doesn't happen and if they're not then the OP's DD should be allowed to turn around and tell them to stop herself. If she did that several times and it didn't stop and wasn't stopped by the teacher then I'm not surprised she ended up throwing the paper back.

People say she should tell the teacher but I can't imagine a teenager putting up their hand and saying 'so and so is throwing paper at me'. They'd probably instantly become the least cool, biggest snitch and laughed at kid in school.

She already has a detention OP, I'd leave her to argue that with school if she thinks it was unfair or just do it - why would you punish her further though? School are already punishing her.

I'm always amazed that people think you can punish, punish, punish teenagers into good behaviour.

Babies and toddlers have Witching Hour, some of the elderly have Sundowning.

Year 9 have The Summer Term.

You've given her the best advice possible. She's only got a few weeks left of the subjects she won't be doing again, keeping her head down, being as little trouble as possible to avoid unnecessary attention from staff and not making it miserable for staff and students alike will mean it passes far more easily than reacting to everything (and rewarding the pestilential with some entertainment).

I'd like to see you spend a few days in a high school classroom.

Most schools don't give detention unless the situation has escalated. They normally have to fail IER first amour school. I think more parents should enforce the punishment at home and then we may have better behaviour in school.

I have two teenagers and neither of them are angles but neither have they managed to ever get a detention at high school. They are actually quite easy to avoid.

Just seen the messy room comment, sit on a chair at her open door whilst she cleans it. If this is part of the phone deal then sit over her. Do this every, single, day. Then she is only tidying a day's worth of stuff and keep saying don't put it down, put it away. It will take longer the first time but no time at all after that. She knows you are deadly serious and will not back down. Words are nothing without action from you. Daily tidying is a good thing.

Love this! Ironically, l work in a school! Have told her she should have told the teacher but she reckons the teacher wouldn't believe her. Hmm. The other boy has a detention too.

She’s already been punished with detention

It’s hard sometimes. My school once accused me of something that I hadn’t done (no one’s fault, it was an admin error) and my mum didn’t believe me. It was something that anyone who knew me would have known I’d never have done. It was laughable. It did damage my trust in my mum that she didn’t believe me and came down really hard on me over it.

However, in this case, your DD isn’t actually denying turning round and throwing the paper. So I’m not sure what exactly she’s saying she didn’t do - is it just a quibble about how many times she turned around.