Reception kids missing playtime as a punishment, but being made to sit on chairs in the of the playground at playtime......

[DrNortherner]

Is this common practice/normal/acceptable?

Smacks abit of a public flogging to me. Just wanted some other opinions on this.

Thanks guys

I think missing playtime is a reasonable punishment, but they should not have been made to sit in front of everyone. I actually don't think that lifting a girl's skirt is really such a minor thing. If my ds (also in Reception) did that I would expect him to be punished.

I think that the skirt incident was serious tbh. It's teasing and humiliating - more so than being asked to sit quietly at playtime rather than run around.

I wonder whether going in complaining about the nature of the punishment will make you seem defensive and unsupportive of the school in managing his behaviour.

Your ds misbehaved, and then continued to misbehave during the sanction - when surely he should have been on best behaviour. Saying that he threw stones because he was teased suggests to me that you are not acknowledging he needs to take responsibility for his actions.

That would be fine if that was normal best practice voluptua. No one would have any problem with it.

But I really don't think that in this day and age, it oughtn't be too much to expect that a professional organisation like a school follow its own best practice professional guidelines.

God, it took so long for teachers to fight for professional status and that status is constantly under attack. When I hear about this kind of arbitrary, unprofessional discipline practice, it just makes me wince. It's so naff.

do you meant the whole class or just the naughty kids ????

DS's old primary use to work the smiley and sad faces and sad faces by the end of the week meant missing "golden time". if children are naughty they should be punished accordingly I think...but if it's the whole class I would suggest that something is wrong with the teaching......

no, standard practise in our school - I think it's an excellent idea. Blimey the teachers have to have something in their armoury to get control over 30 kids.

My DD hates missing playtime.

Agree MrsC

if the children are getting bored and resorting to silliness like this then a good run around would help them

this is likely to compound the problem - children need exercise! They can't sit still all day, especially not age 4 or 5.

Also feel it is unnecessarily humiliating punishment.

I'm not being arsey here, this is a genuine question, but all of you who think this is 'humuliating' - how do you suggest a teacher deals with this then (remembering that taking a child to one side for a one-on-one chat is just not possible without leaving the other 29 to a TA or even their own devices)?

I don't know Huw, but if the school system means that the only way of dealing with antisocial behaviour is to publicly humilate the child, then I would suggest something about it needs changing

Huw - be told off, apologise properly to the girls and miss golden time. Warning that if it happens again, the punishment will be more severe (longer golden time missed, for example).

That would usually be major enough for most 5 year olds.

you know, how many times are teachers slated here? lots and lots - you never hear about the fabulous teachers and best practice, it's always whinge whinge moan moan
give the teachers a break, this is one teacher in one school. so maybe not the best 'punishment' under the sun and she could have done better

and report to ofsted? oh please

well it's happened to my DD and I fully supported it.

They get 3 strikes and then out.

So,

'Come and sit down for carpet time'

'XXX I said come and sit down for carpet time'

'XXX last chance - carpet time'

lost playtime.

Completely fair in my book.

But Squirrel, what is the diff between missing golden time and missing playtime??

It's learning to take responsibility for your actions from an early age.

Not much difference I would have thought in terms of it being a public punishment, but I suppose it answers the exercise/letting off steam argument.

Agree Bozza - but it's no deterrent kids love playtime.

I think that missing playtime is an effective punishment but I don't think that sitting them outside is ideal. I think that the taunting was a little inevitable sadly, however I guess that there may have been an issue with supervision ie no-one to sit with the children in the classroom. As for the humiliation - I guess having boys lift up your skirt is fairly humiliating?

Teh exercise

And also the public supervision. I'd like to know on what professionally approved method punishment which allows 5 year olds to be taunted by other 5 year old for being punished, is based. If someone can show me the research findings which demonstrate that this is effective and appropriate, I'll withdraw everything I've said and allow DD to taunt and tease DS every time I withdraw TV time to punish him for something.

Don't think the telling off needs to be in private though.

I agree that this was a crap punishment because it was too public. It was setting up the two boys to fail - of course the other kids were going to tease them and of course, because they felt belittled and powerless due to sitting on chairs in public view, they retaliated in the only way they could.

I'd talk to the teacher and say that you think it was a poor punishment which actually compounded the problems. I think a better approach is like speccy's where there is a heirarchy of sanctions such as the smiley face being removed and placed on the worried, then the sad face etc.

A much more productive way of dealing with this would have been that 'sad face' approach coupled with a talk from the teacher which made the boys think about why it was nasty to lift the girl's skirts and how that would have made her feel, and which ended in an apology from them to the girl and I would think that this approach shouldn't be beyond a competent reception teacher!

More power to you, raise it and let us know what happens!

northerner has your DS missed playtime before? do you know if the sitting outside on chairs (which seems to be the main issue here) is a regular practice or a one-off due to short staffing or whatever?

In our school, if you taunt those who are missing playtime - you join 'em.

I think it's naive to think you can control a class of children using sad face stickers.