To refuse to allow my son to serve anymore detentions?

[CrazyNites]

My son is in year 8 at secondary school. He has always been a good kid at school, gets on with his work, tries hard, never been in trouble or anything.

But in his class are a set of kids who just cause havok basically. They shout out, mess around, cheek the teacher, throw stuff ...

Well the teacher has gotten into the habit of giving the entire class a detention whenever they play up.

When it first happened, DS was devestated because like I said, he's never been in trouble before. I told him it was probably a one off to shock the ones misbehaving.

Then it happened again a few days later. I spoke to the teacher who confirmed that DS is never involved in the bad behaviour but her new policy is to punish the entire class to stop the other kids supporting the ones messing around by laughing etc. I still wasn't happy and told her so.

Anyway in the past 2 weeks it has happened a further 3 times and I'm just not having it. DS has sports clubs after school and these constant detentions, aside from being extremely irritating when he's done nothing wrong, are leaving us with little time for tea before his clubs.

He's saying he wants to move school so that he doesn't get detentions all the time. AIBU to write a letter to his teacher saying that I will be picking him up at 3.15 everyday on the dot and will not tolerate anymore detentions unless he was specifically involved?

I agree with twinset in that I use it at lunchtimes as we end the lesson by sitting quietly, and then I reward the sensible ones by going first etc

Its hard in a very disruptive class to say 'ok you 4 are being good, no detention for you' it is divisive and can cause problems with those children being singled out! Equally after school detentions being used repeatedly, is obviously not working here and it is unfair on the good kids.

The teacher clearly needs some support, they're probably floundering badly and clutching at straws there's at least one in every secondary school. Parents do need to speak to the teacher, heads of dept and senior management its their job to support, observe, and assist the teacher who is struggling. Teachers do not get sacked or replaced at the drop of a hat, but they should get support.

Bad behaviour is rife in many secondary schools with teachers trying every available tactic to get the little sods disaffected students to toe the line. I think the disruptive elements need to be relocated for a number of lessons, other class rooms, internal exclusion whatever so the teacher has a chance to start again! what has this got to do with parents? a lot unfortunately parents have the power to stop senior management obsessing over exam results, ofsted documentation and other pap and look at whats going on in their classrooms

"Its hard in a very disruptive class to say 'ok you 4 are being good, no detention for you' it is divisive and can cause problems "

Wouldn't this depend on the children and maybe how old they were?
If it had happened to my children with their friends and they were let out on time because they had behaved it would have caused less problems than being kept behind for something others had done.

well yes it is better than keeping them behind, but equally setting them up to be called 'freddies/boffins/gimps/gays etc' is something I wouldn't want to do tbh. The quiet children who keep their head down do suffer in a comprehensive system, and although inclusion can be a good thing, including children who can not or will not behave doeas affect and disrupt.

Yanbu. When I was at school, they sometimes gave us entire class detentions after school, I just stood up at the end of the day, walked out, and went home. Nobody ever challenged me on it even though I was quite keen on arguing with the teacher about it tbh.

I NEVER caused problems in class.
Why should I have spitballs shot at the back of my head for an hour, then get bloody punished for it too?!

YANBU.
But I would phone the school rather than sending a letter.In a phonecall you can put over the impression that you are a reasonable but concerned parent.In a letter you could easily come over as 'disgusted of Tunbridge wells'

YANBU. This brought back memories from my old, crap,secondary school which used collective punishment. The disruptive kids absolutely loved getting the entire class into trouble. The teacher is actually handing them a lot of power over their fellow pupils.

Oh yes, and the disruptive kids never turned up to the detentions anyway. I seethed at the injustice of it (still do 25 years on!)and it's extremely demotivating. Not surprised that your child is upset.

Is there an update on this crazynites? Presumably it is just one particular teacher/subject? What happens in the other subjects?

Collective punishments are so injust and (rightly) resented by students.

I do 'cover' in school, which means we have to be pretty sharp with discipline, and have to cope with some challenging behaviour. I always make a point of keeping notes of miscreants and angels, and in my experience a 'very difficult' class usually has at least 75% of students doing pretty much what they are supposed to be doing, and often the catalyst/main problem is just 1, 2 or 3 individuals.