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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Why is yr2 teacher punishing whole class instead of groups/individuals responsible for disruption?

52 replies

peggotty · 08/09/2011 22:00

Dd's new yr2 teacher's system seems to be that if the level of noise/talking (for example) is too loud, the class gets three chances to settle down but if this doesn't happen then the whole class gets 3 minutes off their break time. This is only the third day back at school and dd's class has already lost three minutes from breaktime . Is this not excessive and also unfair to the chlldren in the class who are quiet and behaving or am I missing something?

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ivykaty44 · 09/09/2011 14:15

In real life you would accept a verbal warning for your team being late for work?

LawrieMarlow · 09/09/2011 14:16

I think it isn't fair - it is often unlikely that the quieter members of the class are likely to be able to influence the ones who are being noisier. And unless there is a full scale riot going on then the teacher should be able to see who is being noisy and discipline them appropriately, not the whole of the class.

There was a meeting last night for DS's year 3 class and we were told about the sanctions that are in place. All are for individuals with no collective punishments. That is IMO a much fairer way of organising things.

IndigoBell · 09/09/2011 14:19

Do you get a choice about accepting verbal warnings?

A verbal warning is the first part of a disciplinary procedure designed to fire you.

You can only get a limited number of them before you're fired.

It is totally ridiculous to compare being kept in at break time for 3 mins to something that can lead to you getting fired.

But yes in RL whole teams get fired because they're not delivering what they should do. I have been made redundant because my whole team was made redundant because we weren't delivering.

But I didn't get any choice over whether to accept it or not.

ivykaty44 · 09/09/2011 14:25

They are both punishments - you want to compare bonuses with punishments, they are not the same thing whereas at least I have two punishments even if they are different punishments. The point is you wouldn't sit and take a punishment for someone else being naughty, otherwise you would be seen as a complete walkover.

IndigoBell · 09/09/2011 14:41

No, in my case I would be seen as a team player, not a complete walkover.

I guess different jobs value different characteristics. Where I work we value being a team player. We value it a lot.

Only teams can deliver what we deliver. It's absolutely no use at all to have one person do their job well - we all have to. If the team fails, I fail. So all punishments and rewards are whole team.

But again, I really think you're reading far too much into this. It's 3 minutes! 3 minutes. The parent can tell the kid that's unfair and she'll go in and speak to the teacher - or she can support the school and tell the kid that that's what happens in Xs class.

But if the parent wants to get a reputation for being a PITA, so be it. Lucky them to not have bigger worries.

CustardCake · 09/09/2011 14:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AMumInScotland · 09/09/2011 14:47

It's unfair and lazy. And IME the pupils quickly lose respect for a teacher who can't deal with class discipline in an effective and fair way.

Plus, the quiet children are very unlikely to be able to exert much "peer pressure" on the disruptive ones, so it is very unlikely to work.

ivykaty44 · 09/09/2011 15:09

No indigo your not a team player you are seen as a walkover by others, you let other slack of by being prepared to do overtime for them - rather than seek help sorting bad management that allows these people to slack and leave the work undone - you allow the slackers to put you in a position to have to do the overtime.

The manager should have pulled the slacker up on their work and delt with them, and if the manager had delt with the slacker - then everyone could go home on time.

I have never heard of a good manager promoting unfariness

Original poster

peggotty · 09/09/2011 15:18

Fgs indigobell they are all 6!! . All your employer-verbiage isn't relevant. I am about as far from a pita parent as you can get, I'm just unsure that what the teacher is doing is the way to promote good behaviour in the classroom. I don't know if it's going to be a start of term thing only, or a permanent thing. On the whole I have total confidence in the school and have never felt like there's been any reason to doubt a teacher's methods, but something about this just doesn't sit right with me.

OP posts:

Original poster

peggotty · 09/09/2011 15:20

'lucky them not to have bigger worries' . God, how I hate that put down on here. Now THAT is lazy reasoning. Would you really like a list of my other worries so you can assign levels of importance to them?

OP posts:

ivykaty44 · 09/09/2011 15:23

peggotty - think it was me that started the employer analogy

tabulahrasa · 09/09/2011 15:39

The thing is - it's really hard to deal with whole class noise level without dealing with the whole class.

If it's one or two people, then it's really easy to deal with just those pupils, but if it's half the class - then there's no way you can tell who is or isn't being noisy...

It's not a fair way of dealing with it, but she has to show she means business somehow, especially at the start of the year.

3 minutes isn't that long, though, just long enough to bug the children, lol.

cansu · 09/09/2011 15:50

Agree with Indigo. If you make a huge fuss about this three minute 'punishment' you are massively overreacting and are also likely to be very busy for your child's school career. This is minor stuff. plus, let the teacher do their job and stop interfering. I am amazed at the number of parents who think they should be able to comment on every detail of the way the teacher runs their class. If this was the whole class staying in for their whole or even half their breaktime every day you may have a point. At the moment you don't.

iloverainbows · 09/09/2011 18:00

I agree with Custard. To me this is just very typical of the way our schools are run - the good ones are punished when the naughty/loud ones are naughty but the naughtly/loud ones are praised to the hilt for the 10 minutes (ok exageration) that they are good. IMO a classroom environment is not about team work at all, these children are individuals. I assume then Indigo that you are expecting the lovely quiet shy little girl to go up to the loud/naughty children and say 'please be quiet'.

MigratingCoconuts · 09/09/2011 18:27

to be honest, this would be unacceptable at any of the secondary school I have worked at. Yes, it is only 3 minutes but I do believe it should only be targeted at the kids who are disruptive. And there is never a class where the whole class is disruptive.

Given that the time is relatively short I would leav it and see what happens in the next week or. two. If it tails off, great, but if it becomes the nrom then contact the school.

pointythings · 09/09/2011 18:49

I'd leave it for now but agree with Coconuts that if it becomes the norm you should step in.

I do still think that it is a lazy way of managing discipline and does risk disengaging the well-behaved kids.

Lastly, if the Geneva Convention is good enough for adults, why isn't it good enough for 6-year-olds?

MigratingCoconuts · 09/09/2011 19:39

forgive my typos...its been a long week!

firstgreatholswiththree · 09/09/2011 22:47

I would be pretty mad about this unless of course I thought all the children were capable of working quietly and at the same level in term of behaviour. 2 or 3 boys in my DS's class are always the ones to misbehave (although only year 1). I think 2 of those might be better by year 2 but 1 in my mind has underlying issues. This sort of thing really wouldn't help the whole class. The poor boy has already been singled out and no one is playing with him. The children would just be more annoyed with him than they already are.....

BusterGut · 09/09/2011 23:30

Bad practice. Trying to instil fear of teacher. Probably not succeeding.
School needs to look at behaviour policy.

mrz · 10/09/2011 07:56

I'm a Y2 teacher and I cover EVERY break time playground duty so if I have to stay in with a group of children for 3 minutes EVERYONE in KS1 (not just my class) has to stay wait to go outside or they would be unsupervised.

CustardCake · 10/09/2011 10:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tethersend · 10/09/2011 10:27

Poor practice.

It suggests that the teacher is feeling insecure and sees the class as a homogenous mass instead of individual children. Whole class punishments (even three minute ones) do nothing except embed a 'them and us' mentality in both teacher and child; which is ultimately counter-productive.

chill1243 · 12/09/2011 10:56

Point taken Ivykaty

exoticfruits · 12/09/2011 11:25

It can be very useful at the start with a new class. If it doesn't work, and she carries on doing it, then it is a different matter.
It just gives expectation that lessons will start on time (that is the usual problem as they are supposed to settle and don't) and that if they don't they will carry on for the expected time-therefore it is in their interests to be ready.
It will be low level disruption and very difficult to single anyone out.
Being tough right at the start works wonders because you then don't have to keep doing it-they know the expectation.
In my experience you don't have to do it many times, only a few and then you don't even have to speak you just look rather pointedly at your watch, or stare at the clock. Someone then says 'shh-she's looking at her watch' and they sort themselves out.
It may seem unfair for someone ready to waste 3 mins, but it isn't long and it saves a huge amount of their time being wasted in the future. I'm sure that I, as a well behaved, quiet DC, would far rather have missed a small amount of playtime than had a whole year of waiting 10 minutes for the teacher to be able to teach every day.

exoticfruits · 12/09/2011 11:28

My quiet DS was in a 'lively' class in year 4 and the new teacher was very tough, e.g. if they didn't change quietly for PE they changed back, if they didn't walk quietly as a class they walked back and did it again. DS didn't like it but it paid dividends-after a while they saw that the teacher wasn't having it and he had a fantastic year-probably his best in primary school and the teacher was well liked.

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