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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

does anyone else's school still give lines?

18 replies

paddingtonbear1 · 26/04/2008 09:32

dd is my only and I have no idea about schools these days! She is in reception at the moment and struggling - she is young for year and immature for age as well. The school is fairly strict and results driven, and dd's teacher is quite strict with her - mind you if she wasn't I'm not sure dd would do very much! They do still give lines as punishment, quite often it sounds like, starting in yr 1 - a friend's ds got lines for pushing another boy. He missed his morning breaks that week as he can't write very well and it took him ages. I agree with some discipline but not sure lines are appropriate at that age? dd would probably be there for a month! Is this still the norm in schools now?
In some ways I'm dreading yr 1 as the teacher is supposed to be a bit of a battleaxe and shouts a lot!

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smartiejake · 26/04/2008 09:39

Lines in an infant school! FFS!

No it isnot the norm at all. This is archaic.

Yes discipline is improtant but Year 1s need to be encouraged to write not have it used as a punishment!

ReallyTired · 26/04/2008 09:53

I have seen children being given lines at the MLD school I work for. Although they are secondary school age they are working at about the same level as a year 1. They just have to write as much as they can in the time of the detention.

I think that making a year 1 boy miss his breaks for a week is excessive. However he probably deserved to miss one of his breaks. I don't think its appriopate for a six year old to be punished so hard.

How would you favour occupying a child during a one hour detention or a break time? There needs to be way of punishing kids who diliberately wreck lessons.

Thank Gawd I'm not a teacher.

LadyPenelope · 26/04/2008 09:55

Sounds very unusual - never heard of another school either private or state that does that. Think lines are well and truely out of fashion - and sounds totally ott to miss play time for a week because you push someone when you are in y1.

Original poster

paddingtonbear1 · 26/04/2008 10:03

yes I thought it sounded ott as well - in reception if they push someone they would do some kind of time out.
It is quite an old fashioned school in some ways. They do some RE as well, not sure how much is the norm for infants? My friend's dd (also in reception) was talking at Easter about Jesus being nailed to the cross, and mustn't that have hurt a lot mummy? But then it was ok because he got out of the cave! It sounds like they talk about the Bible a fair bit. It's not a religious school but the head is a strong Christian.

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ellingwoman · 26/04/2008 10:04

Usually the 'punishment' fits the 'crime'.

E.g. disrupting a PE lesson would result in being sent out then having to spend 15 mins of lunchtime doing what was missed.

I imagine he wasn't expected to miss all the breaks but just that it took him that long to do the lines. If he was refusing to do them, then he would have been asked to stay in the next day and do them etc. Hopefully your friend got to the bottom of it as on the face of it it sounds a bit harsh. BUT - if it does the trick and the school is oversubscribed then perhaps they are doing something right?

In our class the boy would have been expected to stay in and write a letter of apology to the other child and the teacher would ensure that they understood what saying sorry meant.

Original poster

paddingtonbear1 · 26/04/2008 10:10

you are right ellingwoman - it was only supposed to take 1 break, which isn't so bad. But because the boy can't write very well, that's why it took him much longer. It did put him off writing for a while after as well - he wasn't keen on writing much at all for a few months after that. I think it would have been better to just get him to do as much as possible in the 1 break, so still the punishment but not string it out so much.

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bigTillyMint · 26/04/2008 14:31

I am horrified - how is that going to help him to develop into a confident writer?

I agree ellingwoman, writing a letter of apology, but lines???

And RT, WTF are teachers in an MLD school thinking of?

wildhorses · 26/04/2008 14:35

All for discipline but giving out lines in the infants is not fair
At our school you get kept in on a break or miss p.e

TwoToTango · 26/04/2008 15:40

My friends son's school gives lines in some instances - Not KS1 though - think it starts in Y3

UnquietDad · 26/04/2008 15:41

We used to get lines.

I should have patented my "three in one" biros which I stuck together with packing tape to get lines done in 1/3 of the time.

ellingwoman · 26/04/2008 15:50

I used carbon paper myself

Seasider · 26/04/2008 16:34

Sounds far too harsh, not the way to get children to like writing either. You could bring it up with your PA and or Governors, if as a group of parents you agree there are other ways to control behaviour.

Blandmum · 26/04/2008 16:43

We are 'encouraged' to make students reflect on their poor behavior by answering questions (written) about what got them the detention (this is in a mainstream secondary)

Given that lots of the boys would simply write 'I didn't do anything wrong' or say 'I don't understand what to do' as a way of disrupting the detention I would often ignore the directive.

instead I used to have some book marks from the National Slate museum of Wales. They explained how slate was made. The students got to copy that out. And if they made any fuss at all, they got to copy out the other side, which was in Welsh!

No-one ever made a fuss!

Original poster

paddingtonbear1 · 26/04/2008 21:46

MB - I would like to see them copy it in Welsh!
One of my neighbours kids went to the same school - she said they used to give out a lot of lines. This was years ago though, I never dreamed they'd start in yr 1!

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ReallyTired · 27/04/2008 09:47

Why is copying out how slate was made in Welsh any less kind than lines. Frankly I can't see the difference and I think lines would be more constructive.

It has to be remembered that punishments aren't supposed to be nice. The kids that I have seen who have been given lines have not suffered any long term damage.

I think its more cruel not to punish vile behaviour. However any punishment has to be reasonable. A 6 year old child can barely write.

The kids at the MLD school I work at who have been given lines tend to have reading problems or cognitive problems rather than necessarily problems with forming letters. Infact many of them are very good at Art. I don't believe that a teacher would give lines to a child with dysgraphia. That would be unreasonable.

You also have to remember the victim. For example if your child had his/her lessons totally wrecked by distruptive children then they would lose out on life opportunities. There is a thread that asks if a child is entitled to the best education. The best schools give children boundaries and are prepared to punish bad behaviour.

christywhisty · 27/04/2008 11:46

At my dc's primary they used to have to write out the golden rules in playtime.

Hallgerda · 27/04/2008 20:55

My children have talked about others in their class being given "Numbers". I think it's like lines but with numbers instead of words, and I can't remember whether anyone got Numbers while still in the infants.

Nobody seems to have been bad enough to get Deuteronomy, so it must work

UnquietDad · 28/04/2008 09:39

That's an idea (on the biblical theme). If you're really, really bad you get Genesis (forced to listen to Phil Collins for 2 hours).

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