Detention - for 5 year olds?

[unicorn]

Seems rather odd- to threaten detention at this age.. I just am curious what other schools do.
Briefly...
Some boys in dd's class (yr1) have been playing rather rough at lunchtime.. and this has apparently ended up with the threat of detention (I presume for the boys involved)
I am rather concerned that this is (wk 2 of a new school year) with a teacher - who has apparently alreadly labelled these boys as aggressive (FFS THEY ARE 5/6)..
I have a girl in this class... but if if I had a boy I think I would be very concerned with the way it is being handled.
Any thoughts?

the one rule for all teacher was clueless! She asked me to "explain" to ds1 that pinching hurts (he's non-verbal with the language skills of a 15 month old).

His new teacher however is just completely fantastic!! Unfortunately though clueless ones can make life impossible for SN children- ds1's didn't do that- but I can see how important it is now to have someone who knows what they are doing!

would agree beety- I think the idea is a good one in theory (and for a lot of last year ds1 would eat apples so we were OK- it was when he stopped those-overnight- no idea why- we were stuffed!)

I am all for healthy eating and my ds (and dd when she was there) takes in appropriate snacks (pieceof fruit). Child A had her snack taken off her and Child B (who is one of hte trouble makers) is handed 4 fingers a day - the reason? because they are a plain biscuit which is acceptable! whilst the teachers sit there with their cans of fizz and packet of crisps in hte playground

In front of the kids, fine, but what I eat in the privicy of the staff room is my own buisness. I don't wear school uniform either.

I definalty take into account that there have to be special provisions made for some children with sn.. Having said that, you do need continuety for the rest of the class, and as people have posted children do accept that the needs of others can be different to their own. It is one of the few real benefits of the current 'inclusion' policy, that kids do get to see this at an earlier age. Makes for a more understanding society, I think.

Re: star jumps as punishment- the PE dept would be livid. As would a lot of parents- schoolchildren cannot be treated as recruits in the army and given physical punishments.
Re: this being a discussion about primary not secondary- discipline and rules have to start at the beginning so i do think it's relevant

I think the bottom line is that whatever punishment you use, someone will disagree. We all agree that we have to be able to do something. Parents are also livid if their child is bullied/ hit whatever (understandable) and want the perpetrator 'punished. So what can we do?

WRT the standing against the wall, it was facing outwards so you could see what you were missing. It's really no different from lining up the whole class but it's selective in that it only punishes the children who are misbehaving and doesn't take away the whole of the break. I don't think anyone can really claim it has psychologicaly demeaned their child. Well, no reasonable parent would provided the child had genuinely broken a rule.

I agree that children are generally very accepting of SNs if they are explained properly. At 3, DS1 was more than happy to learn a few Makton signs to say hello to a deaf friend. He accepted that she couldn't talk or hear because "her ears didn't work properly".

Trouble is tho, some parents are not reasonable! Not the majority but some are not.

We have set school rules regarding standards of behaviour and dress. Parents and kids sign a home/school agreement saying that they will keep to the rules. (this is in secondary btw).

Now I know that teenagers will be teenagers, but we do have to apply the rules. What I do get annoyed about is when parents will then not back us up. Kids are asked to remove visable body piercings (only allow one small pair of studs in ear lobe). Parents will then fly into school saying that this is denying their child's basic human rights and will waste the money they spent getting the thing done. But they knew the rule ffs! Why send the kid to a school if you are not going to let them play by the rules???

agree also that staff should eat what they want in the privacy of the staff room. Having just spoken to dd about whole school/class punishment thing again - her view is that some kids will take the "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude and if they're going to get punished then what's the point in conforming.

I think part of the problem here is the lack of adequate supervision at playtime - most playgrounds have too many corners and too few supervisors.

Yes they do need to work off some energy but some of them need watching very closely because they can't be trusted to do it harmlessly. It would be good if primary schools could allocate one (or two - infants and juniors) extra supervisors (pref male) to be specifically responsible for the roughest ones - the usual suspects are
identified pretty promptly I think and there are always a few others having a rough day - and keep them away from the rest in an organised activity.

Not likely to happen though.

Different in terms of severity of punishment perhaps but not in that the child needs to know that if they break rules there are consequences and those consequences result in lack of priviledge. I think your idea re physical movement is one that can be built into the lesson where we don't expect the children to sit perfectly still for an hour. But I have to say that bad behaviour needs punishing otherwise it escalates and you end up with a school full of children who do not behave. Personally as a parent I would rather the environment my dd be educated in be one with firm boundaries which enables learning to take place rather than fuzzy boundaries which makes learning difficult. As a teacher my responsibility is to ensure the safety and education of the majority. That cannot happen if I am spending time trying to get the kids to behave. I am there to teach. they are there to learn. In primary as well as secondary- to suggest that primary children do not need disciplining is IMHO rather naive. Where do the yobs of today come from? Certainly not from fresh air

Beetroot, I tend to agree with you that teenagers will always push at the rules and that they need to do this in a safe environment. What I don't feel that we have to do to them is give in! Or they will then go on to push at more serious rules with possible dangerous consequences. And what I definatly don't expect is the parents of the teenagers to side with them and expect me to ignore the rules that they have signed up to! That way lies chaos, and is the root of much of the bad behaviour that I see each day.

i agree that bad behaviour needs punishing - i just don't agree that good behaviour needs punishing too. Boundaries are so important too and therefore consistency is surely paramount. I also think that SN needs to be discussed within class situations more as so many kids don;t understand why their friends may need a different set of rules. Child B(with CF) needs to have a something with fat content for his morning snack - the school have said no he can't do it - why not just explain why it is just B who needs this?

Has the school denied a CF child the right to a fatty snack? That is insane. It is akin to preventing a child with diabetes sugar when they need it. Has the school been informed? This could result in malnourishment of the child with CF.

As an aside I teach a girl with diabetes. She leave my lesson early to test her sugar levels with another child who makes sure she is safe IYSWIM). It is accepted by the rest of the class without a murmer

his mum has spoken with the teacher and sends in a fatty snack regardless

i've found the most effective discipline in class to be what is called 'positive behaviuor'. it means that every action has a consequence - good or bad. therefore is Child A turns up to each lesson with all their books, and is a model pupil - they get a reward which add up to a trip/prize draw etc. if child B disobeys a school/class rule there is a consequnce - first 2 warnings, then a 15 min community service job (picking litter etc), then a 30 minute detention when parents are sent a letter outlining why, and then 'ice' or isolation, when the pupil is removed and put with a senior member of staff. at each stage the pupil can 'earn back' their consequcne by conforming to the rules and modifying their behaviuor. i know this is secondary, but it has worked brillantly with some very difficuklt children, who are now trained to take responsibly for their actions. whats also great is those who are always quiet and well behaved get rewarded just for being themselves.
i think that the message in this is not to give loads of attention to the bad behaviuor - the warning etc are given by silently writing the childs name on the board - but give loads of attention to positive things. that works at primary and secondary.

i think so too luley.

In our school we have good work assembly once a week and each week a child from each class is "star of the week" - the idea being that they all eventually get a turn. However quite often it does tend to be the little buggers who are rewarded more often for not beating the shit out of other kids etc and the "goodies" are pushed to the back of the queue. Also whilst on this subject, i have noticed that each week when the reason is being read out it is often things like "Billy has worked really well this week. Usually he finds it hard to concentrate and is quite disruptive, but this week he has shown real improvement". Now i'm all for rewarding good behaviour but i really don;t think its necessary to tell the rest of the school and the parents that he's usually like this. I am going to speak to the head about this actually.