How do after school detentions work in your school?

[TheOrigRights]

I am curious to know how after school detentions are managed in your schools?
I'm not interested in why they are given, more the management of them i.e. how you are informed, how much notice is given, and how you are able to communicate with the school if you have a question, again not about the nature of the sanction but the management of the detention.

Thanks

You asked how schools manage after-school detentions and a PP responded by saying their school manages them by not giving them out. No need to be snarky about it. She was just answering your question.

If there are no after school detentions then there is nothing to manage. That was my question.

I didn't ask whether schools gave them out or not.

But yes, I should have just ignored it.

You sound ‘fun’ OP.
Are you always this unpleasant in conversation or just when people aren’t meeting your exact needs?

This thread is an eye opener for sure we are in Scotland and I’ve never heard of detentions here at all like during the day or after school it doesn’t exist

30mins or an hour, depending on reason. Same day.

One hour, after-school the following day.

Parents are emailed by the Go4Schools App that stores all reports, merit marks, attendance etc.

If you have a problem with it (clash with music lessons, other commitments etc) I believe you can email the Heads of Learning for the year group to discuss.

DD has never had a detention so I'm not sure what happens if you have lots of them, or if a parent tries to argue against etc. Her school are generally fair, so imagine they're fair here too as long as nobody taking the proverbial.

Both schools I've worked in gave 24 hours notice to parents.

First - 30 mins detention. Only exceptions were if the child got an LEA provided taxi, I think they then did them at lunch. Non attendance = 1 hour detention the Friday after with a member of SLT, which they were escorted to by their final teacher. If they refused/ran it was isolation on the Monday.

Second - 20 mins detention. Parents could phone the head of year to rearrange. Non-attendance = second chance, then 40 minute detention, then second chance at that, then isolation.

Behaviour was much better at the first.

We get an e mail on a Weds for a Fri after school detention (less serious offence) or for a Sat morning (more serious offence). We’re asked to acknowledge we’ve received it. It summarises why it’s been given and who to contact with any queries. DS (Y9) has only had two, both very fair and I had no reason to query/question it. The system works well in my view.

Detentions at lunchtime for lack of equipment/ uniform issues usually that day or the next and last 15 mins.

After school detentions 30/45/60 mins depending on reason for detention. All are logged on the school parent app, detentions will be sat anytime from the next day to 6 weeks later depending on how busy they are. We get an email the day before, FT will usually remind child that day. If you miss one it is reset for a longer time.

Mine walk to and from school so it doesn't really inconvenience me, they don't get many these days.

At my secondary, there was after school detention once a week, and parents were given at least 24 hours notice. Many (?most) pupils came on LEA provided busses, as students came from up to 10 miles away. The school was very clear that if you had a detention and would normally be on a bus, your parents had to arrange alternative transport - the detention was deliberately disruptive. However they were sparingly used, about 20 children/week in a school of 800.

They are pretty rare in my school, but they last an hour and parents are contacted at least 48 hours before. If that day is difficult in terms of transport, as we are rural, it can be moved to the week after, but other than that the parents have to deal with it.

We never had after school detentions and we home ed our kids so this thread is pretty my wild for me!
So schools can just keep your children for a whole extra hour without giving notice, and you're supposed to be ok with that? What if one of you had an appointment or it derailed after school activities for your other kids? I had no idea schools had the power to do this. I'm pretty shocked everyone just goes along with such a draconian system.
(Sorry, I realise this wasn't the point of the thread)

24 hours notice usually, text message sent home via the behaviour / reward app. Some parents haven't downloaded it.

I think the theory is that then you personally, as the parent, give your child shit for messing up your evening plans. They learn not to do it again because they get aggro at home, as well as at school. At least that's what happened with my DD when I was told she had a detention. I wasn't best pleased and she knew it. It never happened again.

The school know the usual suspects and those whose parents support their measures or not though. So if they rang me to say she had detention and i came up with excuses every time etc, then there'd be further sanctions in school I'm sure.

However, all these rules and expectations are laid out at every open evening and the Head tells parents "if you don't like what you're hearing and if you don't think your kids can stick to these rules, don't send them here".

I personally love the school and think they know exactly how to run an educational establishment.

@henrilechat they can be a complete pain for parents. Also at DC’s school, a Sat detention would usually mean missing a school sports fixture. So the DC concerned not only misses out themselves, but also let’s down their team mates and coach. Serial offenders run the risk of losing their place on the team. But that’s the point really. DS knows full well the consequences are not worth him playing silly buggers at school.

My kids' school is very strict and has a set of rules that if broken lead to an automatic, same day 30 minutes detention. Parents are informed by email and app. If it's a more serious infraction, or a second detention, then it becomes an hour. Again, same day. We live in a city and I don't think there are any school buses that serve the school but there are very regular 'normal' buses so I don't think many of the kids would have a problem getting home after a detention. We live in walking distance so it's never been an issue for us. A few times I have emailed the teacher who's given the detention just to clarify what happened as my kids don't always give me the full story but come home full of 'it's so unfair, I did nothing' so I like to be able to say 'well actually this is what happened and this is the reason for your detention so make sure you don't/do x next time.' Generally emails are responded to the same day or the next.

My husband once went to the school at detention time to find out exactly what happened as the email stated another child was holding onto our son and not letting him leave so he shoved this boy away to get away from him. School has zero tolerance for kids putting hands on each other but we honestly didn't know what they expected our son to do in that situation as it seemed pretty reasonable to us to try to get away from this boy. A teacher agreed that our son didn't have to sit the detention. That's the only one I've ever queried as to whether it should have been given.

Thank you for the responses.

Anyone else feel like we’re in the OP’s naughty list?! 😂

You can refuse consent for an after school detention, as the school has no legal power to keep your child without your consent.

Do this, if you need to

henrilechat
Thank you, it is good to know that schools in Scotland manage without detentions. Wasn't that a Scottish woman who went singlehandedly to great lengths to make sure that corporal punishment in the UK is abolished?
Hopefully, this draconian (I would say "barbarian") approach is going out of fashion.