Harsh punishment at primary school complaint

[Kasiapol28]

Hi there, sorry for the long thread...

I am after some advice on how to proceed with the school. My son ( 11 yo, year 6 ) is a bright boy and does well at school, even passing the grammar test for a local school. He has had 2 parents meeting so far this year and at everyone his teacher has praised him on behaviour and his work. No issues mentioned.

His heart is in sport, he plays football out of school and and this year he was chosen to be a sports ambassador at the school ( along with 60 others ) which meant he was able to to go to football tournaments, athletics..e.t.c .

Although the selection for teams is meant to be fair for everyone, the same 6 boys always get chosen and then the spares picked from the rest of the kids. These 6 boys are very close friends with my son.

However since January the school have been excluding him from certain sports events due to 'behaviour issues'.

On both occasions the school did not even bother to contact me to tell me that my son had been excluded from the events and at no point did they contact me to tell me they were having concerns with his behaviour. So obviously I was very taken aback by this. How can I work with him on his so called ' low disruption behaviour' as they called it , if I don't even know it is happening.

I wrote to the headteacher as I felt this was a very harsh punishment, to which he even replied that although he felt my child's behaviour was not extreme he was not following the school values and so the punishment stayed.

The reason he was not allowed to attend the latest event was because he was not tucking his shirt in, had not worn a tie on one occasion, and was causing ' low Distribution in class' year leaders words.

The issue is that they chose to announce who was going to the event on Monday of SATS week and the event was happening on that Friday which was also meant to be a celebration day at the school for finishing SATS with bouncy castles and all sorts. This caused a lot of necessary stress during what is a hard time for him during SATS week.

When my son heard the news that he was not picked and his group of friends were going to the event he was heartbroken. It has effected him all week and he has been in tears and feels left out and will not have anyone to share the celebrations with. I have not sent him into school today as he was so upset last night, seeing him in tears like that broke my heart, he is a good boy, doesn't swear at teachers or hurt kids, I just feel heartbroken for him.

Is it just me or does that seem rather extreme punishment ? Surely missing some lunch/ play or even a phone call to me so I could help him work at it would have been enough for this type of behaviour ?

This is why it's a good punishment for him. If he's so devastated about missing things then he has to behave. Lesson learnt.

If he was behaving the teacher wouldn’t need to tell him to be quiet or tuck his shirt in would they? And yes it may stop another child gaining extra support as the teachers attention is taken up with your sons stupid behaviour. He KNOWS he needs to tuck his shirt in, he KNOWS he needs to be quiet and not talk and he KNOWS he should be wearing a tie, but he chooses not to. If he was mine he’d have been in school today instead of being allowed to stay home. What’s that teaching him?

No bloody wonder teachers are leaving the profession in droves when parents won’t fully support punishments given in school.

You do not seem to grasp the amount of time teachers spend on low level disruptive behaviour instead of teaching children that really do want to learn and aren’t arsing around.

I'm not saying he didn't do anything wrong I am saying the punishment was too harsh and school should have let me know at least so that I could deal with the fall out during SATS week

Hey @Kasiapol28 Primary teacher here. You’ve had a lot of harsh responses, which can feel upsetting, but if you stick with the thread, hopefully there’s some stuff you can take from it.

This event on Friday - will all 60 ambassadors go? Are they watching or participating in a sport? Is it like a team selection for a particular event?

At this time of year, I imagine it’s either athletics or cross country? The school will have a set number of kids they can take. The school will select largely on ability, but also on attitude. So (using cross country as an example) they would take the five fastest, then maybe a couple of other Sports Ambassadors. If your son isn’t one of the top five, then realistically he isn’t going to go to all events. However, the best way to get picked will be to demonstrate great attitude and enthusiasm.

My reading of this situation is that your son’s exclusion isn’t a punishment. He doesn’t quite make it on ability, and then when teachers are weighing up how to fill the last couple of places, they will have welcomed the chance to give a spot to a child with a great attitude.

Of course I could be completely wrong here! But it doesn’t feel like a punishment as such - more like not be selected for something. A punishment would be a withdrawal of something he had already been invited to.

As I said previously this is not behaviour that is happening constantly just over the last couple of weeks when they have ramped up their strictness, he is 11 and a human, he is allowed to forget to tuck in a shirt or forget a tie Jesus. Stop being lazy and read the whole thread. Then get back to me.

Okay well we are all telling you that you’re wrong, the punishment was perfectly appropriate in that it wasn’t even a punishment - it was a loss of a privilege. But of course you’ve let him stay at home with mummy, terrible lesson there!

Also SATS mean fuck all to the kids, they are for the school, so it’s their results they’ve affected, if they have.
Maybe he’ll remember his tie next week!

Thank you, it is a sport he is good at and would usually attend and the teacher himself said the reason he missed out was due to behaviour over the last couple of weeks that they were trying to nip in the bud. So I suspect he would have had the place had his behaviour improved.

It is just a team going not all 60 children

With a bright, sports mad son who wouldn't do enough revision for GCSEs I begged his grammar school to do this as the thing that would make him do what he should be doing. If he wants to go to these events he knows what to do. With my son the school wouldn't do it (the silverware was more important) and he didn't achieve what he could have.

It his mind it was a punishment as he was something he really wanted to do so you are wrong there. People react to different to consequences some take them harder then others depending on how much it means to them.

It was behaviour that was out of the norm for him so I think we should have been contacted
What difference do you think your knowing about his behaviour would have made?
If you mean he would have behaved better had you told him to, but didn’t bother when the school was telling him to, that’s quite an issue, isn’t it?
You’re both in for a major shock to the system when he gets to high school.

Would you have backed the school on this if they'd have called you a week ago to say he's misbehaving? Because if you would've done, in this instance you probably should've put on a united front with the school and hope that he bucks his ideas up - then speak to the school about making sure you're kept in the loop so you can tackle it from your end as well.

You said, However since January the school have been excluding him from certain sports events due to 'behaviour issues'. so is it since January or the last couple of weeks? If they have been working on his behaviour for months it is understandable.

If they had called me to tell me about his behaviour I would have absolutely supported the school and possibly asked for a meeting so that we could all sit down together to talk through the changes and find out what had caused the change.
I do still support the school in their values and make sure my son knows there are consequences but just not happy with how far they took it it was unnecessary. His behaviour has been great since Monday so I know he will get through it and be amazing at secondary school.

Parents like you are one of the reasons I'm no longer a teacher.
So draining.

Right, so he’ll tuck his shirt in, wear his tie and keep his mouth shut. And he’ll get to go next time. Not rocket science. You’re doing him a massive disservice by pandering to it

No sorry I will explain. Since September Golden child. January we had one incident, nothing to do with ongoing behaviour, it was just a single incident and it was dealt with nothing major and I had no issue with the him being excluded from the game. My issue is that they excluded him but did not tell me. So he just came home one day and told me he wasn't allowed to go and not call me to tell me anything about the incident.
After that Golden child again throughout the year up until apparently the last 2 weeks.

They are bullying your child

possibly asked for a meeting so that we could all sit down together to talk through the changes and find out what had caused the change
Seriously, op…. Just ask your child why he’s arsing about in lessons.
If the school knew they’d presumably have managed to stop it by now 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think the schools are to big and the teachers don't have enough support and they don't have the time anymore to focus on children individually, it's sad parents and teachers should work together.

No…
That’s not it.

Your sense of entitlement is quite bizarre.

The school doesn’t have the time to ring you every time your little prince causes low level disruption, because they are trying to get on and teach. He’s plenty old enough to understand behaviour rules. Stop blaming them and excusing him.

Perhaps read the from the beginning and then give your advice then you will know more about whats happening here otherwise it's just a waste of time for you.

My little princes disruption is not an everyday occurrence, it is a change in behaviour that has happened just recently. So yes they should call me. That's just my opinion.

I meant would you have agreed with the school that he'd have to miss the sport event because of his bad behaviour if they'd called you last week?

Do you think the fact that he IS good at sport, has been chosen as an ambassador and he's passed the grammar school tests has gone to his head?
At my ds school they're really super strict on behaviour, more than one behaviour mark means exclusion from the trip. It's an all boys school and they do have problems and some terms there's only a handful of kids from each form on the trip because so many have been issued behaviour marks.
Some kids are just always misbehaving and others get too big for their boots and think they're untouchable, the second category is worse as some parents seem to think that as long as their boys are doing well behaviour doesn't really matter.