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?

i go into a primary school to give 'specialist' help, and have used a watered down version with reception upwards, modifying it for each class (up to year 6). however, for a quick fix, especially for rec/yr 1 time out is brilliant if used immedatiely for inapprioate behaviuor, ie hitting/OTT etc. 5 minutes of missing out on whatever is happening quickly modifies a 5/6 year olds behaviuor.

Agree that draging up the past is a very bad idea. Also you do have to keep remining yourself to use positive teaching with all of the kids, not just the 'bad' ones. I run Mrs hmb's pupil of the lesson, and the kids enjoy it very much. It does sometimes backfire if the 'wilder' eliment do behave and then don't get the award every lesson

Unfortunately that's what happens in a lot of schools. Little Johnny behaves this lesson and because this behaviour is not his norm he is praised for being good but little Billy behaves every lesson and is thus not rewarded every lesson- terribly unfair but it happens. Same as in our school we have naughty kids who are rewarded with good behaviour with use of one of the school laptops while the good kids don't get anything. It is terribly unfair but unfortunately due to the govt setting targets on exclusions and suspensions teaching staff have to look at inclusion of badly behaved pupils and how to handle it rather than the old fashioned exclusion and then a special unit. for all good kids whose education suffers

RE positve behaviour rewards. Something which has worked very well with some very challenging behaviours is a tape which bleeps every 2 minutes (or something like that). At every bleep the teacher has to look around and praise good behaviour- and apparently bad behaviuor drops off very quickly. This was a technique devised by Pyramid (the people behind PECS) and designed to be used in classes of autistic children (who often show the most challenging behaviour of all). They flog the tapes! But studies recording incidents show that it works very effectively- so if it works effectively with these very difficult children I would imagine a watered down version would work well in a mainstream classroom.

the tapes

If anyone was particularly interested they publish data on the effectiveness of these tapes and I'm sure they would send it on request.

jimjams - earlier I wans't implying primary schools can't accept children with SN as needing to be treated differently. I just used seondary as that is the key stage I am most familiar with, that's all. Didn't mean to sound a bit ... I don't know!

didn't notice you saying that hulababy Certainly wasn't offended! I can appreciate the need for rigid set rules (and would be more than happy for ds2 to have to abide by them, even if I personally thought some were a bit daft). Just over-literal translation of them can cause problems sometimes. Actually I'm more horrified by jampot's story of the child with CF than anything I've heard. Usually schools are fairly good with medical conditions (as opposed to developmental). I know that ds1's school would have no problem in that sort of case.

Me too. That is truely appalling. I can't believe that school - so out of order. Surely it must contravene some sort of act, or SN provision, or something. If not, it should do!

Wow.. this thread has developed an identity of its own!
Just to pull you back again to original query (and sorry - I haven't read everything)
There is no teacher on playground duty at lunchtime (which is partly the reason the boys go a bit loopy I think) now whilst I appreciate teacher's rights etc... surely a rota for lunchtime play supervision is not asking too much?
I just don't think children respect the authority of dinner supervisors as much as they do the teachers (sad but true)

I was so used to my oldest son when age 5/6/7 missing playtimes, it never occurred to me to challenge it.

He was very lively at this age, not very focussed on work and was prone to get very overexcited. On the one hand the teachers had a child who wanted to wander around the classroom, chat and fiddle, yet on the other hand detention stopped him releasing pent up energy at playtime. Had someone suggested beetroot's solution - extra exercise - I would have happy.

I didn't get that worked up about my son getting detention, though. I knew the teachers had him all day at school and so could look at things as a whole. If he got much worse in the classeroom after missing a playtime, they would spot it. It would not be in their interests, presumably, to punish him in such a way that made things worse for them. It would not be in my son's interests either. I put my faith in the teachers.

I also accepted that my son's behaviour at school could be very different to his behaviour at home. I had no idea how exactly he distracted his classmates for instance. For this reason, I felt I couldn't assume a school decision to punish him with a detention was wrong. Things went on at school that I knew nothing about. The teachers had years of experience in seeing what punishments worked, my son didn't come back in tears about the cruelty and unjustice it, so I just let them all get on with it.

Had my son been really upset about detention, then that would have been another matter.

unicorn- regarding the teacher on duty at lunchtime. I totally agree with you that some of the kids run rings round supervisore- sad but it's true. It's an option that teachers can have to do duty at lunchtime- for this you get paid handsomely- a free dinner for a week! Personally i do a lot of work at lunchtimes and am in my room if any kids need to see me regarding work or problems. An hour at lunchtime is an hour less at home and an extra hour for me to spend with dd. If every teacher in school agreed to do it on a rota basis and we were renumerated properly I'm sure it would improve the behaviour of the kids- they're far better behaved at breaktime when there are teachers on duty (statutory in contract to do set amount of breaktime duties on a rota basis- no payment)

Agreed, pixiefish. That said our lunchtime supervisors take no prisoners and are backed up 100% by the SMT. We also have break supervisors, complete with walkie talkies, but we still do pre school/break time/start of afternoon/afterscool duties. I also work at lunch time, often doing the photocopying/putting up posters that we are not supposed to do

Sorry, haven't read through the whole thread, but I can't believe a 5 year old being given detention. I really don't get the idea of detention. A child is demonstrating through his/her behaviour that s/he needs to let off steam and that s/he doesn't like being in the classroom. So what is denying them running around opportunities going to achieve apart from reinforcing to them that being in a classroom with a teacher is punishment (as if they didn't know that already!). If, as a manager, I get forced into giving a student a detention I make it as work orientated and fun as possible so that they get the idea that school and learning are what they want to be doing!

I'm with Jampot.It is clearly hugely unfair that children who don't misbehave are punished. Even small children can see that, even if their teachers apparently can't. I think her suggestion was sane and sensible. She wasn't suggesting her child avoid a punishment for bad behaviour, she was suggesting a way (that caused nobody any harm) by which she could avoid being punished for something she didn't do. Haven't those teachers heard about being hanged for a sheep? I think that sort of behaviour - blatantly unfair punishments for well-behaved children - is just encouraging bad behaviour. Sheer stupidity, IMO. And no, I don't agree with the detention. I know some teachers much get very frustrated at unruly pupils, but tarring them all with the same brush does not seem a reasonable response to me. Sometimes I think it is easier to punish the good kids than the bad ones.