punishment at private school

[rawspice]

AIBU to be cross because my dd was punished at her school in such a way that it left her with a blister and cut on her finger and she was understandably distressed?

The teacher had her sharpen pencils for 1 hour as a punishment for using rude language nearly 3 weeks after the incident. She's only 8 years old and maybe I'm overreacting....

I have spoken to the headmistress but she does not feel it is an unreasonale sanction and she claims they only made her do this for 30 minutes, but I cannot see how an 8 year old child can sharpen 36 pencil in 30 minutes - is this even possible????

I know that schools have to have rules but should punishments result in cuts or blisters?

Makes me feel like a basket case!

Staying, I reckon that might be because those same children are already conditioned to challenge, and I bet it wasn't by being asked nicely to stop.

John Burningham wrote a load of brilliant, brilliant books, amny of which we ended up with by chance from a charity shop.

There are some great ones, about geese, little circus dogs, you name it. He was a genius.

I see your point about children being already conditioned to challenge, Fliight, but as such children are a reality within the school system, the schools do need further sanctions in order to be able to control this behaviour, so all the children can learn.

Or maybe the schools need to teach these children about how they ended up in these negative behaviour patterns and help them to find a better way of dealing with life. It would be more helpful in the long term.

In an ideal world, yes, Kneazle - but the teachers don't have the time to do this for every challenging child they get as well as teaching.

I believe that the existence of sanctions acts as a curb on bad behaviour - in children and in adults. My father, who was Head of Maths in a high school saw the rise in bad behaviour in schools alongside the reduction in sanctions available to teachers, and he made the connection between the two. And he was a good teacher, who could keep discipline in his class without shouting, because the children knew that there were boundaries, and he would act if they were crossed. He had a reputation of being firm but fair, someone whom you didn't play up - but he believed, and I believe, that the existence of sanctions enabled him to maintain this reputation.

But as you said earlier, I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this. It is all making me feel very old and set in my ways, though!

I never raise my voice with my class or send children to the head .... butI do have sanctions and rewards. It is all about what the sanction is - I bet most of you parent with sanctions

Every teacher does ... most of the time a quiet word etc works but not a 100% of the time

It is hard as a parent to see the big picture .. what happened to lead up to the sharpening pencils bit ... had the class been warned etc etc

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For sure in an ideal world. It is a shame about the lack of time, i know what you mean. However, this case has been carried to an extreme here. The facts in this particular case as we were given them were that an eight year old said "willies and boobs" and was "punished" 3 weeks later. This was ill judged IMHO.

We are not talking about teens throwing chairs etc although there are better ways of dealing with this than detentions in an ideal world.

I bet you are younger than me so don't feel so very old

I do agree with you about the 3 weeks thing, Kneazle - it is far too long for it to have been left. And the words used aren't that terrible either - but perhaps there's a context that we don't know about.

If all that has happened is that Child A has told the teacher that Child B said boobs and willies, and that was the first time it had happened, then a quiet but stern word should have sufficed, I absolutely agree.

Eeeeep - Kneazle and I are agreeing - perhaps the Large Hadron Collider has gone ballistic and the world really is ending.

or maybe we are not so different after all. I agree we can't possibly know what really happened anyway. I am off to eat cake before the world explodes.

I have no cake. I suppose some left-over chocolates from Mothers Day will do though - shame if they got swallowed up into a black hole!

If the world is about to end I can be a bit rude

DuckyCukker:
" rawspice - the great thing about private education is that if you don't like what the school does or how it does it, you do have the option to remove your child."

what does that teach your child? If you have a problem run away from it? Of if you do somethign wrong - Mummy will either fix it by telling the teacher off or she'll find another school...