Children being kept in at lunch for spelling test mistakes

[loobee]

Thoughts please?
My 9 year old daughter has been kept in last week for getting less than 7 out of 10 in a spelling test. She practised them at home and got 8 out of ten (hard spellings!) but on the day she didn't get the minimum score of 7 and therefore missed 20 mins or so of her lunch break. As a result she didn't get to eat all her lunch and came home hungry with leftover lunch. She was upset.

I'm furious. She is being punished for under-achievement in the same way she would be if she was behaving badly, when she hasn't behaved badly at all AND she had practised them.

I've requested a meeting to discuss this with her teacher. Has anyone had similar experiences?

Surely this is against a child's right to being treated with dignity and respect, not shamed for their test results despite good effort?

I think you need to talk to the teacher and then to the headteacher assuming you get no good reason for keeping pupils in at lunch time.
You need to understand whether there was a specific reason for deciding in this instance that only achieving 70% or something else warranted being kept in and whether this is a class thing or a school thing.
Of course one would hope that all pupils would get all their spellings right but there is a reality which says this will not always happen. If the school as a whole has a strategy which says punish those that do not achieve the 70% minimum by keeping them in, then I would escalate this to the governing board as a written complaint because it is to me sending all the wrong messages to staff, pupils and parents about how the school operate. If the governing board cannot see an issue with this, then you have a decision to make, either live with the problem or find another school with a different (I think more appropriate) attitude.

I don't really agree with this as a policy but I do get the theory behind it.

If spellings have been set to be learned for homework then the check for whether the practice has been done is so see if they can now be spelled correctly.

For the majority of children with no SEN, regular practice of those words that they can't spell (might not be the full list of ten if they already know some) should reasonably be expected to produce a decent test score. Two errors are permitted.

I do think professional judgement should be applied as to the response and intervention/coaching would be better.

Oooooh if this happens so my DD I'll hit the roof, it happened to me constantly as a kid. Most of my detentions in secondary school were because spelling tests and I missed hours of lunch breaks in primary school. Making me write the ones I got wrong (at times this was the majority of 10 or 20) did nothing but make me find ways to cheat the flaming test.

I don't think this is best practice either. Would be different if for example you complained to the school she hides her spellings/refuses to do them etc.
As it stands this practice disadvantages kids that have chaotic home lives,have some form of SEN (not just dyslexia) or busy /disinterested parents. Not to mention some spellings are really bloody hard ,and knowing the rule (which should be the aim) is not enough. So for example if the rule is c making an s sound and get it right but write excellent with one l or concentrate and miss the r you don't get the point.

If spellings are properly differentiated then it should be possible for all pupils to achieve most right. I think you would be better focusing on the school with if they think their is an issue/does she need more support with spellings.

I don’t see why she didn’t get her dinner though if it was only 20 minutes!

I posted on this a few years ago as something similar happened to my DD (don't know how to link, sorry, but search for a 2016 post 'punishment over spelling test'). A few months later, the school was given a 'requires improvement' and the Head involved was quietly removed from post for his all round archaic approach to education. It's not ok, it's not good practice and you're absolutely right to be annoyed at what happened.

Sirzy most KS2 get 45 minutes for lunch, that's if everyone is on time and they start lunch on time. Then there's waiting in the queue,chatting with mates etc. Unless she was packed lunch which leaves 3 non lunch finishing scenarios.
1.she had lunch first and was worried about being late for the teacher/not getting any play so she rushed.
2.ate with the teacher but might've been put off it or the actual spellings at the same time and then sent out.

1. Was supposed to have lunch after but was either rushed by the others tidying up or she rushed herself because she's still a kid and wanted some playtime.

Do you live in a village called A......

DDs school is exactly the same, less than 7 and you have to stay jn

The thing many are missing is schools aren't always that great at picking up dyslexia. Or maybe they just want to ignore it. Thousands of people aren't pick up until Uni or beyond. But just because they are undiagnosed doesn't mean they aren't struggling. I'd be having major words with school.

This is awful. My dd would have struggled. I remember spending hours one night trying to help her spell 'cucumber.' She never got it right. I queried possible dyslexia many times over the years all through primary school and each teacher told me there were no issues. She went to secondary school, they tested her and lo and behold she has it. Meanwhile her confidence was rock bottom, she believed she was just rubbish at English and most of secondary was spent building her confidence back up. I dread to think what it would have done to her if she had been kept in for not being able to spell. It's just wrong.

Thanks all.
I'm going to see the teacher and discuss my concerns.
Appreciate your perspectives.

So what did dd say they were doing when they were kept in? I'm sure it will just be extra spelling practise and not a punishment as such.

Err no way would my child be kept on at lunch. Children are legally entitled to recreation time, it's absolutely vital for their physical and mental health and there is huge amount of evidence that in the UK kids don't get enough not all kids will do well on spelling tests. It is absolutely not fair to remove lunch from those who find it more difficult. It will also create anxiety and turn kids off literacy.

Kids should have at least an hour for lunch to eat and relax. No wonder mental health is so bad for kids in this country. I really don't think anyone with a modicum of sense would believe this was a sensible policy.

So what did dd say they were doing when they were kept in? I'm sure it will just be extra spelling practise and not a punishment as such.
If it is something that she doesn’t want to do, and she is being deprived of her free time in order to do it, then it is a punishment!

sirzy Have you ever heard of spellings be differentiated? How would that actually work in a classroom - do the kids do nothing whilst waiting for their words, or does a second distinct activity get done in parallel or what - it's going to be loads of teacher time simply to administer a test.

Spellings are awful homework - undifferentiated are extremely horrible, penalising almost everyone if rote learning spelling actually achieved anything (the words would not be the right level for almost anyone) and given that rote learning probably achieves nothing anyway it really penalises those at the lower end who invest lots of time and still fail.

And it's absolutely a punishment, not "extra teaching", in any case even if it was extra teaching, losing lunch time is not appropriate for that, and if 15m tuition is an effective way to teach the spelling required for those words, then why not do that for the whole class rather than waste everyone's time in homework, and whatever strategy a parent might know for learning.

That doesn't sound like a policy that is going to help the children. My DD had spelling tests but as a PP suggested, they were differentiated (three groups) so the chances of success were greater.

My DD has always lacked a little bit of confidence, they did move her into the top spelling group once - she didn't do well so they immediately moved her back to the group she was comfortable in, because they knew that she'd do better overall there even if they did think she could cope with the slightly harder spellings. They were very good at seeing the whole picture in that respect.

Every school I have worked in differntiated spellings. It isn’t hard to do

How are they tested Sirzy ? The three groups is very unlikely to be actually differentiated, just a smaller range of differences.

Spellings are differentiated in both my DC's classes. Some get more than others. That said even with the differentiation there is no way in hell I'd allow this to happen to either of my DC. I wouldn't even approve of kids being kept in at lunch for bad behaviour (although I'd support an alternative punishment) because research shows it's bad for mental health and is likely to make behaviour worse. I would 100% not support any punishment for test results. That would have made me incredibly anxious as a child. We already have sky high levels of anxiety as a result of education in this country. It's stupidity like this which causes it.

The mistake is thinking that everyone is capable of retaining information like spelling which doesn't isn't true any more than it's true that everyone is equally capable of doing well on a maths test by practising at home.

You need to ask if they keep people in over Reading if they haven't read at home or if they are not good at it? what about science? geography? do they keep people in who are not as good at Pe? because she could have been getting 100% at home but still make a few mistakes on the day pressure (the added pressure they will be kept in at lunch if mistakes are made) even when in silence there are still distractions.

Because if that wouldn't be acceptable then it's not really acceptable for spellings?
To me it's a horrible policy they may as well say if you're clever you deserve a break if you're not you don't. It's likely it will be often the same children missing their lunch week after week which really isn't a nice thought, it may be the ones that are not good at spelling or parents don't help them will always be kept in which isn't always the child's fault.

We all learn differently we are all good at different things! someone could really struggle at spellings but excel in other areas like pe and then you have the opposite child who's excellent at spellings who maybe doesn't engage in Pe.

If its a punishment for something your not very good at its really not going to make you good at it! way to point out children weaknesses and make them feel worse about themselves it's a long day for a child they should have breaks and have some fun with friends have a break but then get down to some good work again. I doubt after being kept in they are really in the mood to get back in that focus again.

DD's school doesn't differentiate for spellings.

Ds school differentiate but he is only yr 1. Each child has a keyword book. A list of words is stuck in it. Every tues and thurs someone (dont know who) goes through each list with each child. If they get them right they get a new list. If not they keep going on the old one. They were done daily in reception by a support teacher.

Yes! but you are an adult not a child whose brain is still developing.

We can not complain that our children are growing up too fast and then in the next sentence treat children like working adults.

Op did you speak with the school?