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Original poster

IS this unreasonable school punishment techinique?

45 replies

StickyFloor · 13/09/2012 16:47

Twins are in Y4 in a mixed class of 30 kids made up of Y3 and Y4.

One boy who has just come up into Y3 is really naughty, not SN or violent or bullying, just quite immature and silly, won't sit still, talks a lot, calls out etc.

Since they went back last week the entire class have had to miss some of their playtime, lunch play and free play every single day because the teacher is punishing the whole class for this one child's naughtiness. Genuinely it has been down to the same individual, and she makes it clear each time that if he is naughty again the whole class will suffer.

She warns him each time, then adds on another minute each time he does something else so it just escalates and they are missing several minutes a day.

I just genuinely don't understand what she is trying to achieve here. Does she want the other kids to gang up on him? He clearly isn't being deterred by this punishment and the other kids are all a bit baffled about they they are being punished for his bad behaviour, when there is nothing they can do to control him?

So do I have a word, or is this some sort of new approach to discpiline that I everyone else thinks is clever? Please let me know.....

OP posts:
RedHelenB · 14/09/2012 09:35

Mmmm. It may be that they have been laughing at the child when they call out & she/he wants them to be aware of how THEIR behaviour can influence him to play up? I tend to only use the whole class punishment thing if their is so much disruptive noise that it is impossible to pinpoint the culprit(S) so it may not be quite as described? Either way, a well behaved class will be able to get through more work so I would impress upon your son that he needs to look away when this other child is acting up.

TroublesomeEx · 14/09/2012 09:43

I was actually advised to do this on my PGCE. The thinking behind it being that peer pressure from the other children in the class will encourage the one individual to behave.

I only tried it once after being told to when I queried how I could address the behaviour of one child in the class. So I did. To a chorus of "Daniel! Shut up!"; "God's sake Daniel, Miss said we'll all have to stay in"; "Miss, that's not fair!"; "I haven't done anything!"

It was the most useless approach ever!

ZiaMaria · 14/09/2012 09:50

"I was actually advised to do this on my PGCE. The thinking behind it being that peer pressure from the other children in the class will encourage the one individual to behave."

It's an approach that, as my FIL points out, only works if the rest of the class then has an opportunity to take the naughty child behind the bike sheds at break and impress upon him/her that they shouldn't do it again. Otherwise it is lazy teaching, which simply impresses on children that teachers are irrational and rules are not worth paying attention to as being well-behaved will not save you from being screwed over by the adults.

tethersend · 14/09/2012 10:00

Even if it did work as intended (it doesn't), it's an incredibly divisive technique guaranteed to alienate the misbehaving child further from their peers.

And of course, lonely, alienated, angry children never misbehave, do they? Hmm

TroublesomeEx · 14/09/2012 10:03

ZiaMaria I agree.

ethelb · 14/09/2012 10:05

I think the thing that no one has said here is that it actually alientates the child who is the first to confront the "naughty" child over their behaviour as they are such a "goody two shoes".

I mean how often at work do people confront people over their bad behaviour? Thought so...

TroublesomeEx · 14/09/2012 10:06

I agree ethelb. It also puts the responsibility for behaviour management onto the other pupils and alienates the 'naughty' child from their peers.

Which, IME, is rarely constructive.

catwoo · 14/09/2012 12:44

If she's punishing children who are being good, aren't they just going to think 'what the hell' and she will end up with 30 naughty children instead of 1

RaisinBoys · 14/09/2012 13:14

Ask to see the school discipline policy. Whole class punishments don't work and I doubt that they feature in the policy.

Isn't it all traffic light systems now and individual sancations?

However, I doubt that in this case 29/30 children are "good" and 1 "naughty". Never the case, in my experience.

RaisinBoys · 14/09/2012 13:15

sanctions

Original poster
StickyFloor · 14/09/2012 17:29

I agree that kids are extremely unreliable witnesses and of course are never going to admit that they were mucking about too. In this instance I can take what they have been saying at face value only because dd has SN and a full-time 121 who very red-faced confirmed (in my ear) that 1 boy is out of control and the rest of the class so far have been really well-behaved, sort of stunned by how badly he is behaving!

DS went into school crying about it today and dd's 121 asked if I was going to call in and have a word about it being unfair. I said I would see what happened today as they were all due to lose half of their 30 minutes golden time, and talk to teacher at the end of the day.......

At hometime ds came running out to say Miss let us all have an extra minute golden time today for being so good but X lost 20 minutes for being naughty all week.

So maybe someone else got in there first, maybe it was dd's 121, or maybe the HT got wind of it. Sounds like the teacher went a bit overboard the other way and completely humiliated X instead.

We'll see what next week brings, but thanks for all the comments I can raise next week if this comes up again.

OP posts:
holyfishnets · 14/09/2012 18:02

Some times peer pressure can push someone in to behaving but it doesn't seem to work with this boy.

slipslider · 14/09/2012 19:01

EBDTeacher - they did all join in and it was as a result of some performance poetry we had just been where they were clapping and cheering their peers for their roles. They then went to get their home things and they ALL joined in in the cloakroom. As for being embarrassed? I have no reason to be....they knew the drill, they thought that they were out of sight and mind being away from the classroom to get their things...sadly they didn't realise that I was right behind them! Unfortunately they were only sent together as we had run over and had to get ready for home in 1 minute! As for being seen to do something....not one other teacher was aware of it as it was stopped quickly before it escalated! Granted 1 classroom was within 10m of where it happened, they heard nothing! I am surprised at being asked if I am punishing them so they don't do it again...surely that is one of the reasons for punishment is it not?

clam · 14/09/2012 20:05

folkgirl dh lectures PGs and B.Eds in Education. He wants you to name and shame whichever idiot recommended that as an approach!! Grin

BlueMoon74 · 14/09/2012 20:07

Poor/lazy teaching. Complain. Not on at all for the other children!

TroublesomeEx · 14/09/2012 20:18

clam Grin The worst thing is, it was one of the lecturers in the classroom/behaviour management lecture that recommended it on the course as one option, it was then the class teacher in my final school teaching practice placement who told me to do it when one of the boys was playing up and really trying it on because I was the student teacher.

It didn't work. I only did it once Wink

JeuxDEnfants · 14/09/2012 20:19

Talk to the teacher, that's the only way you will know their reasoning.

thedogsrolex · 14/09/2012 20:46

My ds had a punishment in primary that i'll never forget. A lad had been bullying him for years. His teachers were aware, the head was aware. One day my timid little lad seemed to snap and when this lad hit him, he hit him harder. The next day his teacher pulled him up in front of the whole class, gave him a huge bollocking and humiliated him. The other lad, she quietly took aside during break and had a chat with.

I was sort of "oh well maybe ds fibbed/got it wrong" so I called the school. His teacher confirmed what ds had told me. So I asked why she'd dealt with it that way. She said it was because my ds was normally so well behaved she was disapppointed in him but she'd come to expect bad behaviour from the other boy so he was given a chat.

Wonderful.

Original poster
StickyFloor · 14/09/2012 21:40

THEDOGSROLEX I have had the exact same problems with ds being bullied by a boy for 2 years now. Every time he has walked away from trouble and come home in tears and the school did nothing because the buy had behavioural problems and was awaiting a Statement of SEN. I even said to the HT that I was concerned that ds would eventually start retaliating, as there is only so much a child can take.

Last term ds started to stand up for himself, calling this boy an idiot and telling him to go away and leave him alone, and eventually pushing him off him one day. On each occasion ds got a bollocking and missed playtime for being unkind etc because, in HTs words, ds should know better, whereas the other boy can't help it.

Another random mixed message for me to try and explain to my kids.

OP posts:
thedogsrolex · 14/09/2012 22:31

To add insult, after two years of bullying and his parents not being spoken to, this lad's mum was down the school like a shot demanding to know why her son had been hit Angry

Ah nothing to do with having his dinner money taken off him, going without and being punched repeatedly for years. I dont know if the lad had any kind of SEN but if so, it should have been dealt with, i'm sure there's measures they could have taken to keep an eye on them. Ds has dyspraxia so has his own difficulties but with him it's the opposite, he'd jump at his own shadow.

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