Is this normal or heavy handed?

[Doriubarne]

DD started Y7 today, mostly excited but with some nerves. There were a few things she told me that seemed a bit heavy handed of school, but maybe they were just setting expectations. I don’t know what’s normal in schools. For instance, there was an assembly for the year. There was a bit of murmuring from some pupils already seated, whilst the rest of the classes were filing in. Whilst there were still some pupils filing in, the HOY pointed a girl who’d been murmuring out and asked her to stand up for the entire assembly. No warning. There are about 250 pupils in the year. AIBU to think this was heavy handed and should I expect dunce hats to be rolled out in classes soon?

Well I suppose she’s unlikely to murmur in assembly again? My secondary handed out similar punishments (I’m 42) We quickly learned what was expected of us.

Leave the discipline to the school whilst kids are in school and you focus upon instilling good boundaries and discipline at home then your child shouldn’t have any issues

This is why the country has gone to pot with folk like you moaning about ridiculous things!

Any chance your DD is downplaying this "murmuring" and it was more disruptive than that?

I hate that kids are treated like tiny prisoners in schools these days. I know there has to be crowd control but shame is not the way to do it.

It is a bit weird, I remember being made to stand on a chair at the back of the class for quite a while and getting laughed at by other kids etc (this was late 90's/early 2000's in year 4/5/6). Not sure what I did but I was disruptive. I was also sent out of the classroom quite a bit for being disruptive. Have ADHD so was likely due to the impulsivity of that and obviously then people just thought you were naughty.

This could be an effective deterant to stop disruptive behaviour I suppose. Being sent out might be better though.

@MissCooCooMcgoo

have you ever worked in a school? Or are you perhaps one of the policy makers who advise schools on such matters? Plenty of them are soft touches and that’s why teachers are enduring assaults on a daily basis up and down the country

Sounds pretty grim to me, humiliation isn’t a tool I think should be used in schools, but as pps have said you may not know all the details.

I personally don’t believe in shaming kids on this level in front of their cohort, unless it’s for stuff like racist, misogynist, homophobic or other behaviour that needs to be called out very clearly. Basically if you wouldn’t treat an adult that way I don’t think it’s OK to treat a kid that way. It’s normal for people to be chatty when all coming together like this, it would be the same with an adult crowd. To me it’s definitely heavy handed.

And there's a thread about extremely violent kids in Scotland...personally I would be happy if my kid was "humiliated " once so that every kid behaves than having to worry about violence every day.

We had the cane, the dap and black board rubbers thrown around. Guess what...we behaved

But what other tools are there. I've seen threads on here about people upset their kids are suspended, making excuses for pretty poor behaviour. People here moaning about detentions...so what do you suggest?

I’m horrified when I hear of extreme rules schools. But they tend to get way better results out of the cohort than relaxed schools. But then half the country is now on mental health disability benefit so who knows.
There is nothing more frustrating than smart kids who want to progress being held back by disruption, so let the school get on with it. Tell your kid to keep their nose clean and do their time.

I would imagine the first step is telling kids to be quiet?And where this doesn’t happen perhaps the child is removed from the peers they are talking to, has to sit beside the teacher or at least away from friends. At the next assembly they don’t sit with friends. That kinda thing.

Telling a kid off, fine. Making them stand up in front of others - an outdated humiliation technique which seems like overkill as a first response to some murmuring.

Schools are in a mess, what staff are left are pretty jaded, they overreact due to being overstretched, they can't tell the difference between a serious issue and a nothing. Senior leaders make wild rules.

The things they did 30 years ago - say 'quiet please' and then assessing if it stops. You know, being normal.

Get them there for 8.30/45 am sharp no messing
Pick them up / tell them to walk home at 3.15/30.
Trust the school/ the teachers / the process and back then/ it to the hilt. Full stop.

Or give it another 10/15 years and there will not be all the money in the world to persuade anybody to go into teaching.

Be warned.

No parent should ever blindly trust all teachers or always back them to the hilt.

Well, not any of the ones you'd want to be teaching, anyway! So many good ones are leaving, and they say it's the parents, and other non-teaching adults, who cause the issues.
For the good teachers hanging in, thank you!

Oooof standing for the entire duration of assembly seems a bit much. In my high school 25+ years ago we had to come into a whole school assembly silently and stay that way. Anyone who spoke also had to stand up but not for the whole time and they were picked off to be told off when leaving the hall

Report back with how many kids are murmuring in the next assembly and we can judge how effective or not it was. I think it was fine.

A few clarifications in no particular order:
It wasn’t my DD.
I’m asking as I don’t know what is normal in schools.
I have no idea what this other kid is like.
I wasn’t there obviously, but can’t see why DD would make it up.
I’m not intending to do anything about it!

Rightly or wrongly, I think it’s an 11 year old kid on their first day of secondary school being made an example of in an overly heavy manner, by someone who thought that was the best use of their power. I think if absolute silence was expected before the assembly whilst pupils were filing in, just say that and then respond if it’s disobeyed. DD said she just felt really sorry for this girl and also the person behind the girl who had their view blocked. She also said that nobody including this girl was talking loudly.

I’ve been looking through the consequence booklet and levels. Do all schools have these booklets now? It’s a learning curve. A C3 would be a general racist slur or causing distress to another student or being in the vicinity of vapers, a C4 would be poor conduct in or failure to attend c4 detention, a C5 would be unacceptable uniform that cannot be corrected or dying hair an unnatural colour or refusing to remove jewellery. It’s interesting as I’d actually put some of the C3s higher.

They’re trying to set a standard and expectation of behaviour. Children should know from primary School not to talk in assembly whether that’s whispering or shouting, they shouldn’t need to be told.

🙄

Making the child stand for that is extreme and actually sounds very old school. However, any teacher would've told kids who were murdering to be quiet. Anyone who works in a secondary school will tell you it won't stay quiet murdering for long before they are all talking and getting louder and louder to be heard. So the expectation of silence is normal......although rarely achieved in a lot of schools

YABU. Children need discipline. They’re being mollycoddled at home and schools are too terrified to do anything.

It’s about time they cracked down on behaviour from the start.

And we have the story 2nd hand through someone who was entering the room after the event.

Surely if you are making a precedent, line in the sand moment..bang thats it first assembly everyone knows how they stand.

And what standing up is now humiliating? Being called out for bad behaviour is humiliating? Not in the real world