Pathetic school rules

[Gigimum]

My son just started high school. Got a detention yesterday for drinking water outside on his break. No warning just a straight detention. Apparently this is a new rule they have because other kids messing around throwing water (which he was not). They can only drink in the canteen. He was not aware of the new rule. Also they have just set them a goal of drinking 2L a day. I think it's totally pathetic of the school to give out detentions for. I want to ring and complain he doesn't want me to. Am I over reacting 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve posted on here about this before but our local secondary school is obsessed with blazers. They can’t take them off in school at all unless the head (who is a complete zero tolerance head) says so. They can apparently never take them off out of school. Absolutely pathetic.

Meanwhile there is litter everywhere, students are in exclusion because they don’t have an expensive (compared to other colours) purple pen and the students in blazers out in the street are swearing and cycling into toddlers. If the head had any sense they wouldn’t want a uniform as at least the behaviour would be less obviously linked to the school.

My DC are not secondary age and I usually let most of the stupid rules go but the laser rule is a hill I will die on. Unbelievably stupid and I truly believe a health and safety issue. Students faint in class in the summer.

I’m aware I sound like one of those parents on here but I am actually hugely supportive of the primary schools. Even when they have rules I do not agree with. Because their SLT are reasonable at heart (even if one MAT is twattish) not megalomaniac rulers.

Is it part of a large MAT DisorganisedOrganiser?
I only ask because on here there's regularly threads about kids never being allowed blazers off and I'm yet to come across a school (either working in or working with) that refuses to allow them off. I've even looked round some MATs for leadership jobs that are a bit too corporate for my tastes and still not come across it, but on MN it seems to be a regular complaint.
I'm really intrigued where has that policy.

How did you guess Lola . Yes it is. Bunch of wankers. They nearly destroyed the local primary school too that they took over (I’ve talked about it on here) but thankfully the head is awesome and I think keeps the kids and parents shielded from the worst of theirs. Parental opinion at the primary is universally negative of the MAT.

Parental opinion at the secondary is very split. Lots of parents love the strict rules and don’t mind if kids faint wearing blazers as they ‘have to follow the rules’. Frankly I despair of these parents who don’t seem to be able to think critically or have any interest in teaching their kids to do so.

Lola
I'm posting slightly tongue in cheek.
As a parent it seems to me there is a mix of useful rules and ones which seem less so to parents . I've always encouraged my children to behave well at school and they have.
I can see that a school with good discipline is a better learning environment and probably a better place to work too..

I jnow it's not the point if the thread so apologies for that but reading this makes me seriously doubt my child will be able to cope with mainstream secondary.

Neome
How so?
We're not really talking about major issues here. Basic things like uniform and not taking drinks into lessons.
Also about a culture of discipline and respect for rules (which generally does help children learn better)

LolaSmiles I rang to check the policy and was told,
I can't speak to individual teacher about this,
it's down to the teachers discretion,
each child has to ask unless the teacher has stated at the start of the class that blazers can be removed,
and last but not least I should be aware that it's incredibly disruptive to have 30 odd requests to remove blazers so obviously some teachers might refuse.
No shit Sherlock, maybe don't make that part of the policy then.

I'm a teacher and I think that sound a like a ridiculous rule. But my school also has one or two rules that I don't agree with. However, all are based on a reason. Schools don't set rules for absolutely no reason. I think the main issue here is miscommunication - that he wasn't aware of this rule. Why wasn't he aware? Who was supposed to communicate it to him? I migbt contact his form tutor raising concerns about this, and checking that he is getting information.

In some cases, the message was passed on, but the pupil didnt hear/listen/forgot. In others, the form tutor or Head of Year didn't relay a new rule to their pupils.

There's one academy that only allows blazers off in class during Summer 2. After complaints,they said they'll announce if this rule is not applicable before Summer 2 if the teachers deem it too hot. The problem with that is that the teachers (particularly the women) can wear lovely summery clothes. The men are restricted to short sleeve shirts. The teachers aren't meant to drink in class but will swig water (students cannot). So this means that on a moderately hot day, the students are in blazers, long sleeve shirt (compulsory all year), jumper (only allowed off in Summer 2, must be in bag) and blazer whereas the teacher can remove layers, or wear a dress, and drink to control their temperature. By the time they realise it is unusually warm and follow that up with a general announcement to students, the school day could be over. Of course some teachers might realise and tell their class for that lesson, but again, it could be too late before they consider that the students are restricted by the rules.

Wow, that's ridiculous notso.

Much as I can take or leave uniforms, I can get on board with needing to have the blazer.

I agree 30 requests would be disruptive but that's why any sensible teacher would surely have a blanket "just remove them" approach. That's what everyone in my school does.

I've worked with some real arseholes and I'm not even convinced they could be bothered to be that arsey, surely these staff have to be in the minority.

Lola nope. They are not in the minority at our local secondary. Mind you, that school also has a massive teacher retention problem .

Being forced to wear a blazer all day and not being allowed to drink or go to the toilet are not minor issues!

Sorry hadn’t meant to make that whole post seem as if I was having a go at you Lola. You always seem pretty sensible. I was just referring to the comment about staff who enforce the blazer rule being in the minority.

Yeh I don't get the blazer thing. At my school it's mandatory to wear blazers unless it's seemed by the Head to be blazers off (due to heat). But any teacher with common sense would just let pupils take them off if too hot in class. I've never said no if a pupil has asked me. I can't imagine why any teacher would and be met with 30 requests! I might not realise at the start of the lesson if I'm in my summery clothes, but pupils aren't shy about asking! I would get asked by a pupil in the first 30 seconds of a lesson. All good.

I hate the no water in class rule though. We allow it as long as in proper water bottles and just water. I drink water all day long and I want my pupils to be well hydrated too! Thirst and hunger can severely impact their attention and behaviour.

Is there room in the canteen for the whole school to go and have a drink?
DC's school introduced a rule of no eating except in the canteen - which would have been fine except that the canteen was not big enough to accommodate the whole school. So where were you meant to eat lunch? Result: many children not eating at all...

And how unintelligent do you have to be not to realise that children's learning will be affected if they are having to do a school day in the heat wearing too many clothes and with no access to drink? Though perhaps the boost to IQ provided by wearing "proper uniform" cancels that out?

disorganisedOrganiser
Oh I didn't take it that way at all.

If I was going to guess from what you've said then my generalisations would be:
Large academy trust
Very corporate
Probably the school has had a turbulent history, probably with ongoing behaviour issues and/or a high number of parents who think they'll go fuming in when rules apply so zero tolerance is adopted (the rest will send their child to the nearest school regardless)
High staff turnover means most likely most of senior leadership are under 40, with a good number who have been parachuted in from the central trust because they will push the trust message and not ask too many questions
Long serving members of staff probably disappeared within 18 months of the trust taking over
Lots of heads of departments are in their 3rd or 4th year of teaching
There's quite a big focus on micromanaging the teaching to account for weaker teachers, unqualified teachers and (depending on area) a high number of teachfirst types.
The staff body is quite young and full of hungry ambitious types who'll worship the trust overlords to get fast tracked out the classroom within 5 years

I'm under no illusions that will be totally accurate, but given I've so rarely seen teachers who'd be that arsey over blazers in a range of schools, that's the only type of school I can picture

Senior schools do have ridiculous rules these days. At my dd's school, not only do they have to wear a tie but a certain number of stripes must be visible! Some teachers carry a swatch of grey material to see if school skirts are the correct grey 🙄🙄🙄

Interested to know why your onboard with blazers LolaSmiles they are a new addition at DS's school and as a parent I am really not feeling the love.

According to DS what happens is pupils go into class wait for the blanket ok to remove blazers,
Teacher forgets/doesn't say anything,
a few pupils ask if they can take them off and generally are allowed,
Teacher is then inundated with blazer removal queries, gets pissed off as time is being wasted and says that's it no more blazers off.

There are a few who have put up notices that pupils don't need to ask in their class but it's a minority.

Some of these are ridiculous are just about showing who is boss Some are verging on bullying

@LolaSmiles - your description VERY accurately fits my dd's school.

Yes to all of those Lola, which of course won’t surprise you .

notso
I can take or leave uniform on the whole and my preference would be a simple uniform that can be bought anywhere, but is strictly enforced (eg black non skinny, non fashion trousers, white polo shirt, school sweatshirt or jumper, black leather shoes or trainers with no branding)

But if schools are going to have blazers then i can get on board with it and it makes sense to me that you wear them and then remove if hot.

My biggest issue with uniform isn't so much the existence of it. It's the amount of time wasted due to some parents/students thinking the rules don't apply to them.

E.g. In a former school the girls' uniform was "black school skirt, no jersey skirts, no fashion skirts". We didn't stipulate knee length or anything like that because we knew everyone was built differently. If they were indecent then we'd tell them. That was similar to uniform rules when I was a child.
The reality was that 80% of KS4 would come in in tiny, skin tight jersey skirts showing the tops of their tights, the outline of their knickers etc. The rule was clear and simple. We'd call home and be told from parents it was a school skirt.
The school now has single supplier skirts. Problem solved. Some people complained but they only had themselves to blame.

Unfortunately the more I'm in schools (and the more I read MN), the more it appears to be true that school rules end up having to be made around the growing number of parents/children who think they are exempt from the rules.

Well, yes - there certainly are plenty of parents who think the rules don't apply to them. Like the ones who park on double yellow lines every single day to pick up their kids. Or try to drive into the school car park even though there are daily requests not to!

They do, and it really is a problem to running a calm and orderly school.

As you can guess I'm not in the corporate trust model , but those trusts tend to take over schools where there's a long history of arguing the toss over every little thing. A mid sized trust took over somewhere I used to work, and whilst it wasn't perfectly my style,I had to hand it to them that it was much, much better for the majority to have a blanket set of clear rules. I didn't always agree with all of them, but it did make it easier to teach instead of dealing with someone arguing that they didn't have to do a detention because their mam said it wasn't defiance, DC was just questioning your authority because you couldn't give them a good reason to be quiet and listen to instructions instead of applying make up.

So something like no water out of the canteen would seem ridiculous in a school like my current school, but would have been absolutely appropriate in my current school before the summer when some KS3 boys insisted on squirting each other with water (and others at times), arriving soaking wet, wanting to go to the toile to dry off, moaning loudly all through the lesson after lunch about how they can't concentrate because their hair is wet and so on. It was easier to ban water bottles on the KS3 yard for a few weeks.

@notso that sounds bizarre... are you saying that every pupil has to ask the teacher individually if they can take their blazer off?? Rather than one pupil asking and the teacher saying yes to everyone? How peculiar? Also I've never known pupils be so reticent as to wait for a teacher to say something like that ... if my pupils want something they ask me the moment they enter the room!

@Lolasmiles your guess as to what the school type is is a good one and I share your prediction for most part. However, I'd like to point out that a HoD who has only taught for a few years is not necessarily a bad thing (I was Head of English in my top independent school in my fourth year of teaching) and neither is SLT under 40s. In fact, these individuals, such as myself, are often more likely to have more recent training and more access to current research, rather than harping on about educational myths that were debunked years ago as some (certainly not all!) older and more experienced leaders might. Experience is a useful tool but certainly not the be all and end all. It wasn't clear if you were derisive of younger HoDs and SLT teams but wanted to point that out just in case.