how common are detentions at secondary?

[Cocostardust]

I know this sounds like a bit of a how long is a piece of string question but I just want a vague idea of how this works.

my daughter has just started at Secondary school. She’s a really well behaved girl, genuinely very sweet and never been in any trouble.

they had a 2 week grace period where they didn’t get detention then on 16th (the day they started) she came home with one straight away. It was for misunderstanding her homework and doing it slightly wrong. She’d spent an hour of the allotted ‘10 minutes’ on it and tried so bloody hard. She was in floods of tears when she came home.

tuesday her friend got one for helping another year 7 yo class who’d got lost then today her best friend got one for forgetting to put her name on her homework. They made her stay and redo the homework even though it had already been done, she ended up not having time to have lunch so went the day without eating, is this normal for schools?

The reason I’m writing is firstly this all seems crazy to me. Of course the schools should be allowed to discipline the children but for forgetting to put their name on the sheet and misunderstanding something?? Surely the teachers should be having a quick chat with the children so they can explain themselves but they’re just handing out detentions like they’re sweets with a total disregard to how much this is affecting the children.

The meaning of detention has clearly changed a lot in 30 years and while I can accept that it doesn’t mean I can force my daughter to.

she has a nervous tic which over the past week has gone through the roof, we were at the point where she had almost got rid of it. She’s also struggling with the insane amount of homework they’re all getting.

as I said I understand they have to be disciplined but shouldn’t that be for when they’ve genuinely done something wrong? It feels like the school don’t give a damn about the kids and how they’re coping.

on a side note they went from outstanding to required improvement over the summer and part of me is wondering if it’s always been like this or if they’ve been told to crack down.

curious about what other think

lol that in Yr 11 you called school and got them to cancel a detention! My Ds (now yr 12) had red cards for ridiculous things in year 9 sometimes and I just told him that life isn't fair and some teachers are overly harsh/strict and he agreed and did the 30 min detention & obviously didn't want me contacting the school. They also need to learn life lessons (not in Yr 7 I agree) and if other kids are getting detentions for forgetting vital school equipment then why shouldn't your kid? It's irrelevant that's their 1st detention. Mistakes happen. All you've taught your child in this situation is that when they make a small mistake their Mum will wade in and fix it for them.

@KillerTomato7 ,

‘You, and many other teachers, complain about how parents these days often support their children rather than cooperate with school discipline.’

And therein lies the issue. Discipline is designed to support the pupil. If you start to feel that the choice is supporting your child OR the school, you have a real problem which needs to be addressed.

You need to try to work with the school first before adopting a confrontational attitude.

School policies don’t come out of a vacuum, they are regularly discussed at SLT meetings and then need to be approved by the governing body, which is a fair amount of scrutiny. Most schools also have ‘pupil voice’ and ‘parent voice’ where they regularly ask for input from all stakeholders.

I really suggest that those genuinely interested in education and want to see how schools work and change some things apply to be a parent governor. It is easy for a middle class parent to not see potential issues with a lack of what they would consider to be strict rules.

I would teach your daughter very quickly how to play the system and not give detentions any weight at all for her own mental health. Girls especially are prone to wanting to be seen to be “good” and punitive schools seem to affect them more harshly. If she knows that you don’t think she is bad or wrong for getting silly detentions then she will be able to cope a lot more easily. They don’t matter and she shouldn’t be taught to have respect for poor rules or punishments.

Also make sure she has snacks with her so if she is forced to miss lunch then she can at least grab a bite to eat.

Why we persist with failing methods when other methods have been shown to be more effective I don’t know. And bootlicking teachers who uphold these silly philosophical authoritarian wet dreams should be ashamed of themselves.

"Discipline is designed to support the pupil." This is just an assertion, though, and not a fact that can be assumed. Parents are only going to believe it if the specific form of discipline in question seems reasonable, and is carried out by people that have some track record of credibility.

If you handed out a detention for most of the things cited by the op, you wouldn't convince anyone that you were trying to "support the pupil." You would convince them that you are a ridiculous person who does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when an actual serious issue arises.

Yes I am a teacher. I have been for 25 years. I don’t know what the issue is with my daughter’s teacher but he’s very much hands off and do it yourself whilst I supervise. I know most people go into teaching to help students. I work in an sen school with challenging behaviour. I understand what children need in terms of support and this particular teacher I mention seems to not be one of the good ones.

@DangerousAlchemy ,

‘My Ds (now yr 12) had red cards for ridiculous things in year 9 sometimes and I just told him that life isn't fair and some teachers are overly harsh/strict and he agreed and did the 30 min detention & obviously didn't want me contacting the school.,

This!

I was often asked, when I was a form tutor, to try to get other teachers to cancel detentions, as they were ‘unfair’.

Firstly, I would ask them why they were unfair and, after discussion, they often agreed that the teacher had a point, Then we had the discussion about why they were so upset about it, as it was only a little bit of time and teachers are human and make mistakes. Again, mostly they took the point that, if they knew it was unfair, the only cost was 30 minutes and the honourable thing was just to do it. And, finally, there were a few occasions on which it was obviously an egregious mistake (teacher had completely misunderstood or recorded the wrong names) and those I generally did manage to get cancelled.

I think they were pleased that they had a sympathetic ear to discuss it with and were generally much happier after the discussions, even though the outcome was the same.

Most pupils are more concerned about the unfairness and what their parents will think than actually doing a detention. If you teach them about the system, human nature, self respect etc, they generally are pretty relaxed about the detention.

@CornishIrish did an excellent job linking the Spectator (not Guardian!) article https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-michael-gove-should-know-about-going-to-school-in-singapore/

All the bootlickers who welcome these authoritarian methods should stop and think for a second: would authoritarian and dictatorial regimes (China is a brutal dictatorship, let's not mince words) welcome a learning environment which teaches pupils the kind of critical thinking leading them to say: "Why? Wait a second, the authorities say this, but is it true? Where is the proof? Let's think independently, with our own brains"

I also wonder: these methods may be great for teaching kids how to solve the same exercises the teachers explained. But do they stimulate independent and original thinking? Will these pupils be able to, say, come up with a new, original elegant way to code an algorithm?

There is an amazing book: "Calling Bullshit", by two American science professors, which every secondary school pupil should read, which covers exactly this: how do we distinguish bullshit? How can we tell when we are being lied to? When the supposedly solid scientific evidence backing certain policies is actually a pile of nonsense https://callingbullshit.org/

@Newbutoldfather "And therein lies the issue. Discipline is designed to support the pupil. ."

In theory. In practice, not always. Eg we had already discussed how scientific research on uniforms is absolutely inconclusive, there is no clear evidence whatsoever that uniforms improve behaviour or performance. Yet English schools present the uniform -> behaviour -> performance link as if it were scientific. It's not. But I appreciate that convincing the Brits of this is harder than convincing a taliban that there is no god.

You talk about an ideal, non-existent world where policies are the result of enlightened, detailed, evidence-driven discussions. Sometimes they may be, but they are often not. Like with the policy on banning bicycles. Or giving detentions for wearing the cheaper, 99.9% identical Asda skirt instead of the one by the official supplier. Or the head decreeing what is the maximum number of layers and level of warmth acceptable for pupils outside the school.

Simplifying, we keep going from one extreme to the other. We went from corporal punishments, to inclusive non-selective supposedly nurturing schools where behaviour and learning were terrible, to authoritarian schools with batshit crazy policies devised by tyrants who didn't get enough love from mummy and who aren't getting enough action in their private lives. Yet this is not the only way.
You can absolutely have a zero-tolerance policy on missed homework and disruptive behaviour without banning bicycles or giving detentions if it takes you 2 seconds more to get a pencil out of the case (I think Birbalisngh does this) or if you feel you need to wear an extra layer in the winter.

The most passive students will be beaten into submission and learn not to question anything - which, again, is what dictatorships and authoritarian regimes like China and Singapore really want. But other students may simply question everything: this rule is nonsense, so why should I believe your other rules are any more sensible??

OmG! Sounds horrendous and I am getting anxious just reading your post! I would take it up with the school ASAP- this is simply not okay. Punishing kids for forgetting a name and helping others is almost bullying in my books. Write to her tutor, head of year and pastoral care (if you have one). Ask for a meeting . Sending love ❤️

Those examples are draconian and only - like you're experiencing - going to make the children upset, or more likely to act up.

I have two in Y11 and one in Y8. One of the Y11 had to wear lost property shoes on his first day as he went in wearing trainers (he had shoes, no idea why he felt it was better to do that!) but none of them have had detentions despite the odd uniform infraction. None of them are badly behaved but also your daughter clearly isn't either - I'd be really upset about this and would probably be asking for some clarity from the HOY. I'm very hands off in general when it comes to school but I will fight my kid's corner if they need me to.

(FWIW I just looked up some of the 'rules' in the handbook and it reminded me that I was absolutely NOT in favour of some of them - but it would seem the teachers are pretty level-headed and not going to award an in-school exclusion for not wearing a tie!)

Extremely common unfortunately and extremely counterproductive.

I would be a nervous wreck at secondary school these days. I don't think I would be able to learn in that environment and I did well academically.

My eldest daughter went to grammar school where actually they were just expected to behave and they were far more relaxed.

Unfortunately DD2 is not as academically able, though the teachers at primary school always absolutely raved about her attitude and effort and how kind she is. Her school was very draconian for rules and detentions, as is the norm these days and she developed anxiety and a real phobia of school. She is now home schooled as it was the only alternative.

Also DD1 got far less homework at grammar school as they'd learned their lessons about putting too much pressure on the girls in the past. I feel like the standard academy type school has not learned that lesson yet.

That’s madness. The school policy on it is also so vague and unhelpful.

I had about 3 detentions in my 5 years at secondary school.
1 was for not doing my homework - fair enough.
2nd one for my skirt being too short (I did used to roll it up)

The last one was the shit one - I had really bad period pains and obviously didn’t want to do swimming because of it. The PE teacher was really awful about it, she accused me of lying and gave me a detention after school
(or tried to) my mum went mad and escalated it to the headmaster. Detention was swiftly dropped but the pe teacher in question was really quite dismissive towards me from then on & gave me a crap grade at the end of term (despite previous high grades & being on lots of sports teams) She was a bad egg.
Luckily we got a different (nice & fair) pe teacher a few months afterwards.

Universities anonymise coursework for marking and markers seem to manage just fine.
Regardless, detention seems like a waste of time and resources when all it would take is just reminding the student to write their name on it. No wonder people end up not being able to effectively communicate with each other if they are shown from the young age that every minor issue requires a nuclear solution.

The problem with this forum,when education is discussed, is that it is 90% (at least) comprised of middle class parents of children who fundamentally behave at school and whose parents encourage them to work hard and do well.

I taught at private schools which had the same kind of pupils. The rules were overly strict at my second school. I very rarely gave detentions (my boss marked my lesson down for not lining the pupils up outside the lesson and doing a uniform check-something totally unnecessary in a lovely class who never caused any problems and genuinely enjoyed learning). Ultimately I left as I didn’t like the philosophy there.

I have also, however, been a governor in a primary academy school with a very mixed intake, and you would be surprised at how fundamental some of the problems were: unable to sit still in class, serious absenteeism and lateness, complete absence of work etc etc (leaving out the very serious issues referred up to LADO).

The rules have to be made so that they work for all the pupils, not just the well behaved middle class ones. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that some pupils (and clearly parents!) think that they are overly harsh.

But, ultimately, it is not the rules that set the tone of the school, it is the atmosphere within it. It is whether the teachers enter their lessons with a smile and a greeting and interact well with the pupils, whether those struggling are encouraged (even if they are getting a lot of detentions). It is hard to define a good school, but if you talk to pupils and teachers, you get a pretty good idea, which is why going to open days is really important, and trying to chat to some random pupils, not the hand-picked ones giving the tour.

https://time.com/5232857/michaela-britains-strictest-school/

Interesting article on Michaela giving some insight on why the school feels the need to be so strict.

I don’t know the school personally but that is the second article I have read that says the pupils are happy there.

And the results are undeniable, seemingly from ‘average’ students.

I am a secondary school teacher. All the examples you give are a ridiculous reason for a detention and very unfair and draconian.

@Newbutoldfather

I take your point that policies which work with well-behaved middle class kids may easily not work with other kids.
But our inability as a country to find reasonable compromises remains shocking! It's not like the only alternatives are the hug or the whip, with nothing in between!!

Like I said: you can be harsh and give detentions for mobiles, missed homework, arriving late, disruptive behaviour etc, without necessarily banning bicycles, giving detention (Ashcroft) to girls with period pain, issuing a decree on the maximum level of acceptable warmth in the winter, etc.

That children at Micaela school are happy because a press article says so is bullshit. Seriously, you must be either naive or in bad faith to swallow that kool aid without questioning it. This is exactly one of those cases why the book "Calling Bullshit" is so beautiful and important for anyone to read in this day and age.

How about selection bias? The school would not have let journalists interview the kids who were clearly unhappy there. Would the unhappy have had the courage to approach journalists, after being immersed in an environment which punishes them so draconianly?
How about those who left? Was any of them suffering from mental health issues? How about the mental health of those who remain at the school?

I have a psychologist friend who says she would never ever send her child to a school like Micaela because this kind of draconian attitude to discipline can lead to all kinds of mental health issues.

I do wonder if the kids who graduate from these horrible schools will be the kind of adults who buy all kinds of bullshit vomited to them by politicians and managers because they are unable to think critically. Hey, look, they are firing my friend, but they told us we are one big family...

@ParentOfOne ,

‘That children at Micaela school are happy because a press article says so is bullshit. Seriously, you must be either naive or in bad faith to swallow that kool aid without questioning it. This is exactly one of those cases why the book "Calling Bullshit" is so beautiful and important for anyone to read in this day and age.’

But I do question it. I think the reverse is true. I have googled it looking for students who say that they are unhappy, but can’t find much.

‘How about selection bias? The school would not have let journalists interview the kids who were clearly unhappy there. Would the unhappy have had the courage to approach journalists, after being immersed in an environment which punishes them so draconianly?
How about those who left? Was any of them suffering from mental health issues? How about the mental health of those who remain at the school?’

All those are fair questions, but why are you assuming the journalist is biased? It is an oversubscribed state school, not a private school with a massive marketing department.

If you have evidence of bias or unhappy pupils, I would love to see it.

My DD has just started yr9, on the second day back she took her old blazer by mistake which didn't have the behaviour card in it that they have to carry with them at all times, she got an instant detention. They're really strict at my DDs school

Behaviour policy should be shared on the website so you could check there. I teach and the reasons given here seem very over the top.

It's pure laziness on the part of the teachers, in my day you actually got them for disobedience, rudeness and so on, not mistakes.

It's pure laziness on the part of the teachers, in my day you actually got them for disobedience, rudeness and so on, not mistakes.

I met a pupil who had attended Michaela. He said he’d not enjoyed the strict discipline whilst there, but felt he would never have gone to University otherwise. He was in his final year of a law degree.

@Newbutoldfather "I have googled it looking for students who say that they are unhappy, but can’t find much."

Ah, you have googled it... This is exactly the kind of critical thinking for which the book "Calling bullshit" is great.
Imagine that you hear about a company which notoriously gets its employees to work 80 hours a week, including every weekend. You wonder how healthy that is, but, hey, you have read an article where the journalist visits the office and says they all look happy, you haven't found anything online suggesting the opposite, so, hey, all is good, the article must be right!

Do you realise how flawed this line of thinking is? There are a gazillion reasons why people may not want to complain, or may not want to do it publicly.

@Pomegranatecarnage I met a pupil who had attended Michaela. He said he’d not enjoyed the strict discipline whilst there, but felt he would never have gone to University otherwise. He was in his final year of a law degree.

Did he say why he felt that way?

I have no doubt that Michaela will provide a better preparation for university than a failing comp where no one cares and pupils can swear at teachers without consequences. That is not the point. The point is that Micaela and this kind of failing comp aren't, can't be and shouldn't be the only options possible!

Were the only other schools available to that kid this kind of failing comps? If so, that was the issue, not that only Micaela's cultish methods were the only ones which could have worked.

Like I said, you can absolutely be strict and give detentions for missed homework, disruptive behaviour etc, without banning bicycles, giving detention to a girl who stayed home for period pain, banning pupils from wearing anything warmer than the mandated school coat and school microfleece.

One of the things which struck me as cultish in the Micaela documentary was that students are expected to stand up with their arms crossed when talking. The school forces this to avoid fidgeting. This is wrong on so many levels... It causes extreme anxiety to all the children who may need to fidget but who aren't disruptive because of this, and it actually teaches them a stupid, silly, unfounded approach which they actually have to unlearn when they graduate: crossing arms signals distance, it's the exact opposite of what you want to do in those cases. I would really want to understand why the only option that kid had to go to university was to be brainwashed into this nonsense by that cultish school.