detention for mobile phone use

[neva]

It is normal for a school to hand out an after school detention for mobile phone use (in this case, sending a message during lunch hour - a first offence)? In this case, it is the school's stated policy, but I would be interested to know whether this is usual.

I had assumed that some work would be set during the detention, or she would be allowed to do homework. However, she was required to sit doing absolutely nothing for an hour. Is this the norm?

Banning the unbannable, I'm not a teen my iPod gets the better of me

You could phone the office and they would send a message.

Sitting doing nothing for an hour is a huge challenge for most children, the need to be relentlessly engaged seems to be a prime drive now.
So I do think it is a good punishment for the majority.
Sending text messages in school is one of the aspects of cyber bullying that the school can control.

'It's a bloody stupid rule, if I need to pick up DD from school, I need to tell her before the end of last lesson.
By the time she's booted her phone she's on her bus.'

Why would your arrangements be so last-minute, startail, and what happens when she gets home on the bus as usual, having got your message too late?

Schools keep (or ought to keep) records of warnings given out for breaking the rules, so moderating the sanction according to whether it's the first time shouldn't be a problem. I supported the school in going along with the detention!

At many schools they actively discourage you from contacting the office except in a dire emergency.One local to ours has told patents that they cannot guarantee to pass messages on within 24 hours .As the scho is a day school that means you will probably see them before they get the message

If I ruled the world I would get students picking up litter during detention and I would give a detention for the first offence, detention and confiscate over night for the second and detention and confiscate for a term for the third.

I can't understand how the teachers manage to teach sometimes, they need all the backing of parents

I'm stepping down off my soap box now....

We used to have to sort dirty laundry or clean the sixth form's hockey boots,offsted would be horrified

look to my earlier post neva in regards to the scenario of 3 or more members of staff - what would you have us do; teach or fill in paperwork on who we had given a warning to whilst walking down the corridor? Who would monitor this log to see if a students appeared on it more than once?

Students ought to keep the rules...

PFB?

Microchip the students, so you could just scan them and find out.
Brave New World Now!

In my school, we confiscate phones on sight (my record is 6 before morning break) and take them to reception where they are put in an envelope with the child's name on and locked away. The receptionist logs them. First offence - the child gets the phone back at the end of the day. Beyond that, a parent has to come in for it. Since we got really strict on this, very few kids risk being seen with their phones.

To be fair my ds's (very large) school keeps electronic records of warnings and detentions (as well as attendance and scores) held on a network, I've(obviously) never seen the system myself but if it is a well designed one then it should be fairly simple to keep track.

Seriously Neva - read the thread.

Cricketballs has already explained why it would be totally impractical to keep logs of every time you spoke to a child about some misdemeanor.
Others have pointed out to you it will help everyone enormously in the long run if you remind your child she chose to break a rule so therefore she gets the consequence.
Almost everyone on this thread agrees with the rule, and many have pointed out to you the reasons why - I'm sure you'd have a different thread to start if it were your dd being bullied by phone use.
Your dd's school seem unusually lenient in that they seem to have allowed her to keep her phone. Any phone misuse at with of my dcs' schools would involve the school keeping it until I am able to go and collect it for them which wouldn't be for many, many days.

OddBoots - I suspect most schools keep a log of detentions, but that's very different from 'each time you speak to a pupil in the corridor for some infringement which might be their first, or might be their 21st of the day'.

True, BackForGood.

A detention is meant to be inconvenient, not a time to do homework.
Was she bored for an hour? Good, the detention did what it was meant to do.
And yes, the rule is totally fair.

Good grief.

DS is starting secondary in Sept and already knows the rules re phones. At his school they will get a Saturday detention for school phone use. Kids remove the batteries before they enter the gates, they are so afraid of it going off, and getting a detention.

And I would rather the staff in the school use their time teaching and other useful things, not filling in paperwork logging that they just spoke to BluJunr in the corridor re phone, or if they see him with a phone they then have to go and check the central surveillance log to check whether any of the other entries about his behaviour cover phone use, before giving him a saturday detention.

neva - seriously - your general mindset over this sort of thing will not benefit your dd. Save it for real issues.

Just looked at comments- thanks all. The trouble is, most of us set a really bad example to children; constantly checking for texts, parents pushing babies around whilst speaking into phones, and I am sure it's not unknown for a teacher to let their phone ring in lessons. It's inevitable that children will follow suit. Until we change our own behaviour and start setting a better example, we should think carefully about punishing children excessively, in my opinion.

Those of you who think it is a stupid rule need to help out in a middle to bottom set of your average Comp. just watch the kids texting each other, disrupting lessons with texts from parents etc. (If you need to contact your child urgently phone the school and they will pass a message on.)

In detentions at my school - long before the days of mobile phones - one had to learn a short poem. When you could say it to the teacher in charge, you could go. I still know a surprising number of verses from The Bad Child's Book of Beasts!

DDs school also has the rule of phones being confiscated on sight. Even in the top set kids are constantly BB to each other or Facebook etc when the teacher isn't looking.

Sorry I have to laugh at the parent with the attitude of I need to contact my child to let them know of I'm picking them up (sorry on phone so can't quote properly!)

A few options for you. Be more organised and tell your child in the morning what would you do if phone was lost or broken? Phone the school. Is it really the end of the world if your cold just gets the bus home every night?

Don't get me wrong, I love my phone (as I said an on it now) but we managed before mobiles do I'm sure you can do without every now and then.

Do t like the rule, find a school with rules you do like

DS'school doesn't have rules like this, they just have a realistic view to technology. As long as they don't have the phones out in lessons and don't take photos without permission, phones are allowed. No way would there be detention for taking out a phone at lunch time.
Any bullying is stamped on from very high.