Surely you bed internet access or you don't?

[LynetteScavo]

DS (Y11- should know better) was looking at an irrelevant website during a Btec PE lesson.

He has now had internet access removed for the rest of the week, as a punishment.

What happens now if DS needs internet access during another lesson? DH said it's a bit like being banned from the library for looking at a book irrelevant to the lesson.

DS says it's fine as he doesn't think he's going to need to use the internet anyway.

Is this a usual punishment in secondary schools?

Standard in the schools I have worked in. Punishment should match the crime. The Internet isn't a necessity, if he needs to complete research in another lesson he will have to use other resources. I took Internet access away from some of mine last week. They moaned all week about using books etc. I've now given it back to them - they might think twice about abusing it again! They are free to use the Internet as they wish (within normal guidelines) at break time, but in lesson it is for what we are doing in class.

PS - I would ban a child from a library for a short period of time if they were looking at books irrelevant to the lesson - I would praise their interest in books and remind them they need to go at lunch if they wish to look at other books. If they continued I wouldn't hesitate to ban them for a few days.

Computer use in lessons is a privilege not a right. If it is abused, it is of course withheld. If someone is reading a novel in a maths lesson, it would also be confiscated, obviously, if someone is texting during a french lesson, their phone would be confiscated too!

If a pupil is banned from computer use, they will need to use text books, and horror of horrors, hand writing for the duration of the ban.

Incidentally, a pupil abusing the internet, apart from wasting their own time, the teacher's time, and causing a distraction in a lesson, can also get the school into trouble.

Use handwriting?....But, but I don't think he actually can write!

DS had very firmly told me not to bring it up with the school - he knows he's in the wrong, so lesson learnt!

I am impressed and slightly jealous that the IT technician has the power to prevent single pupils from using the internet.

Oh yes - IT technicians can have so much fun. In my school, we can take control of students' computers remotely (and I'm not even a technician) Last year I had to supervise yr 11s doing revision. Lots didn't do revision - they played games. I took great delight in taking over their computers and then doing nothing so they lost their game whislt frantically trying to figure out why the computer was suddenly unresponsive. Of course, they couldn't tell me the computer had gone wrong in case I realised they were on games