Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

What are after school detentions given for at your DCs school?

57 replies

LynetteScavo · 19/11/2015 19:12

DS2 has been given an after school detention for not having his book in class. Personally I think it's a bit harsh as it's his first offence, but then I'm the one having to re-organise my plans and spend a couple of hours collecting him.

My friends son in Y11 (at a different school) has been given an after school detention for getting an A on a past GCSE paper, when he was expected to get an A*.

What's normal at other schools?

OP posts:
GinandJag · 21/11/2015 21:18

I am not a fan of detentions. I would never give them if put to me, let alone after school. I have only said what the policy is at the school I am current on a 7-week placement at. An after school detention would be for repeated misdemeanours, not a once off forgetting your protractor. In fact, most equipment is provided, so I can't imagine any sanction for not having something other than an exercise book.

At the school I am at detention is the first line of punishment - 30 minute lunchtime, escalating to after school of varying lengths with increasingly senior members of staff. I am quite shocked by this and do see most of my colleagues tied up with supervising lunchtime detentions most days. I don't know why they don't collaborate and have a rota. Hey ho, I am new to the state sector.

At my last school, a note in their planner did the trick, and failing that, a loss of s house point.

QuestionsAboutDS · 21/11/2015 21:29

At DS's school his detentions are mostly for saying "no I refuse to do that piece of work", so he's detained until he does it to teach him that it's not optional. Which is clearly enough justification for serious punishment, but it's bloody cold for me then standing out in the street for 20 minutes waiting for him. I get that it's meant to be a motivator for me as well as him, but it's the luck of the draw whether the parent in question is standing in the street waiting to collect the child and freezing her tits off or sitting in a nice warm car listening to Radio 4, or still at work and not inconvenienced in the slightest.

GinandJag · 21/11/2015 21:39

AQ, my children are in Y9 and L6 and three beyond school age. So far we have had a total of two after school detentions (both for missing homework). It's not good to ASSume.

Original poster
LynetteScavo · 22/11/2015 14:05

Well he's been given another detention for forgetting a book on Thursday Angry. So not only did DD have to miss her after school sports lesson on Friday, she will miss her Tutor on Monday.

This isn't sustainable, as it's unfair on DD and I can't afford the petrol, so will now check DSs bag every morning.

He seemed to quite enjoy the Friday detention. He completed his weekend homework then spent an hour chatting to a friend whose parent was stuck in traffic. A lunch time detention, missing socialising with his friends would have been much more painful for him.

The school which gave the detention for the A is a grammar, but not the one mentioned up thread.

OP posts:
gamerchick · 22/11/2015 14:17

Anything and everything here. More serious crimes like wearing the wrong shoes earns them a 2 day internal exclusion where they're kept in isolation and a formal meeting with the parents before they're allowed back in.

You have to treat them like infant school age in comp. check they have everything, wearing the right things, have completed every scrap of homework and personally see they get to school on time.

In other words, wipe their arses until they leave or they'll never learn how to function or take responsibility for themselves in the real world.

Whatsername24 · 22/11/2015 14:31

My son's school has a same day detention policy and parents are sent a text to inform them.

I had a text just after they started back in September, informing me that he had a C2F detention after school. I had no idea what a C2F detention was so emailed one of the deputy heads - a new broom, if you like, who joined the school at the start of 2015 and has implemented all kinds of changes.
He looked into it and it was half an hour for not having his shirt tucked in at the back - a teacher somehow spotted it through the flap in his blazer.

IguanaTail · 22/11/2015 16:18

A lunch time detention, missing socialising with his friends would have been much more painful for him. - schools have to provide students with enough time to eat their lunch. Any remaining time left over for detention would be unlikely to be long enough. In addition, teachers are required to have a lunchtime break.

QuestionsAboutDS · 22/11/2015 16:21

So it looks as if enough schools send out text notifications of detentions that I could reasonably request DS's school to do the same then?

IguanaTail · 22/11/2015 16:23

At my last school, a note in their planner did the trick, and failing that, a loss of s house point.
And maybe that system worked there. At some schools a note in the planner is jeered at or ripped out - parents at some schools couldn't give a rat's behind if a teacher writes a note in the planner and if that is part of the school's sanction system then it relies on parents at least caring or bothering to read the note or voicing some disapproval. Again, losing a house point means absolutely nothing unless the school community has bought into that as a reward worth losing.

MrsUltra · 22/11/2015 16:34

I can't afford the petrol, so will now check DSs bag every morning.
looks like it worked then Grin
I work in lots of schools ( supply teacher) and there is definitely a correlation with behaviour - in the schools with the least disruptive children, relatively 'minor' offences incur detentions. In the worst, with fights all the time, missing pens and books don't even register on the radar. So OP you can take some comfort from the fact that his classes are likely to be calm and purposeful.
Having said, that it is disruptive when you have given instruction and children pipe with 'Miss, have you got a pen I can borrow?' I now send them down to reception to borrow one, leaving their phone as security for its return, and then they have to take it back (and probably stand in a queue of others) in their own time - eg break/lunch/after school.
If a parent is inconvenienced, they are more likely to back the school up in avoiding this timewasting.
If they haven't go their books, and have to write on sheets of paper - they are likely to lose the work and have nothing to refer back to.

cruikshank · 22/11/2015 16:48

The more I hear about discipline in secondary schools, the worse they sound. We have a school here that routinely puts pupils in isolation for a day for forgetting their planner, or wearing the wrong shoes ( don't even get me started on the whole fetishistic attitude the English have to uniform) - what the fuck good does that do? If I were in those students' position, I would lose all respect for adults that meted out draconian punishments for petty misdemeanours.

purpledasies · 22/11/2015 16:50

Yes Question I world take that up with the school. At both of my DC's schools (one state, one private) I have had an email when they've had detention. Otherwise I'd be worrying about why they'd not come home. I had a couple of days notice too. I think the school are very out of order not telling parents. Yes they want parents on board supporting the school, but it's not actually the parents (nor siblings) that they're supposed to be punishing. I think they're on thin ice legally of they're refusing to let your son go when you're there to collect him, having given you no information about the detention in advance.

cruikshank · 22/11/2015 16:55

looks like it worked then grin

I actually hate this sort of attitude - this gleeful kind of 'serves you right' bullshit that has no place anywhere outside of an Enid Blyton novel. It doesn't do anybody any favours and I'm not sure what lesson you want young people to learn from it other than 'get your mum to wipe your arse for you in order that you won't get punished'. Quite apart from anything else, at least the OP has the wherewithal to get to school and sort stuff out - what about parents who work? One of my colleagues got phoned (at work) and asked to take her ds's planner in in order that he could avoid being put in isolation. Of course she couldn't fucking do it - she was at fucking work. This attitude that there is always a parent at home who can run around in order to enforce petty fucking school rules pisses me off greatly.

IguanaTail · 22/11/2015 17:04

One of the government's pathetic and ridiculous ideas to improve discipline was to put "no-notice" detentions in place. The idea was plainly to inconvenience (and therefore alienate and annoy) parents. Also, there is no right of reply or appeal if the detention has been unfairly set. It does occasionally happen. To have no right of recourse and to upset and alienate parents seems to me to be a really stupid idea.

Original poster
LynetteScavo · 22/11/2015 18:06

MrsUltra, it's worked in so much as he will have his book in school, but it hasn't worked in enabling him to remember to have his book each day - a lunch time detention or ten would have done that. He will now leave Y11 having someone check he has his things each morning. It's hardly the best way to build independence.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 22/11/2015 18:10

Why didn't you punish him whenever his bag was inadequately packed then, if you wanted to avoid the after school detention?

Parents can impose much better sanctions than schools. Stuff like removing x-boxes, wifi passwords that the kids actually care about.

Original poster
LynetteScavo · 22/11/2015 18:42

I did give him a sanction. He had to pay for the petrol (one months pocket money). It wasn't effective.

TBH I'm surprised this hasn't happened before. He has problems with sequencing and remembering things. The amount of glasses, coats, phones, ties he's left on the bus is remarkable. I've stopped replacing them. Which probably makes me a bad mother.

I checked with school and they say this is a "blip" and he's not forgotten books before.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 22/11/2015 18:51

I mean if you now check his bag so that he doesn't forget stuff and get an after school detention, you punish him when he hasn't.

He gets punished for forgetting stuff (which you want the school to do but aren't willing to accept their punishment so have to do yourself) and he learns to pack his bag properly (which is what you want).

Original poster
LynetteScavo · 22/11/2015 19:08

I have no idea what you mean noble giraffe. ConfusedGrin

I don't do punishments, I only do consequences, hence DS paying for the petrol.

OP posts:
IguanaTail · 22/11/2015 19:34

It's not only your petrol that he's wasting, it's your time.

noblegiraffe · 22/11/2015 19:57

Lynette, you want your DS to face consequences for forgetting his school book to learn organisational skills.

However you are not personally prepared to accept the impact of those consequences on your life. Hence you have decided to check your DS's bag yourself up prevent future after school detentions. You then say your DS will now not learn to be organised as his mum is doing it for him.

So I'm saying that you impose your own sanctions if on checking his bag you discover it is not complete. He would have got an after school so you deduct him the petrol money and make him spend half an hour doing chores, as if he had got the detention, but without the inconvenience to you.

Ragwort · 22/11/2015 19:57

Nothing - I actually wish DS would get a few detentions, his school (Ofsted 'outstanding' Hmm - is more like a holiday camp Grin).

He was very late the other morning, I told him he would have to accept the consequences (he was deliberately late) ............... nothing happened.
He misbehaved on a school trip and was threatened with a detention the following day ............. nothing happened.

I am constantly laying down the Law at home, trying to instill a sense of responsibility in my teenage DS - I just wish the school would do the same.

cruikshank · 22/11/2015 21:10

I think there's a middle line between a school not doing anything and a school slamming children into isolation for forgetting their planner, which is probably the point at which they will learn to take responsibility for their own stuff. If a parent because of over the top sanctions feels the need to check bags and put things into them themselves for a person who will in a couple of years' time be old enough to vote/join the army/get married then this is teaching the pupil nothing other than that someone will always be there to pick up for them. This is a problem created by the school and not by the parent.

Original poster
LynetteScavo · 22/11/2015 21:20

Hmm......you may have a point, noblegiraffe.

OP posts:
SheGotAllDaMoves · 23/11/2015 08:36

Detentions at DC's school is usually a result of lesser punishments x 3.

One of the punishments, is highly effective (they give it a daft name which I can't rememeber). Basically, the student has to take a slip and get it signed in one day by five specified teachers.

Complete PITA for student, who has to waste their breaks/lunch tracking down said teachers, who then each ask them their transgression and give them a mini lecture!