Detentions as a punishment

[SweatyLama]

I didn't grow up in the UK, but my children were born here. This year, my DS started secondary school for the first time, and I discovered that they have a system of punishments in place. Is this a common practice in all state schools in Britain? I really don't like this system ( I mean punishments) and find it degrading and outdated.

So what if your son would become one of the quarter of children who didn't learn and just hung out in the reception all day? Would you be happy with that? It sounds like the school are putting in strategies in the hope that he won't become one of that quarter of children. It worked for you but would your son make the same choices? Maybe with some discipline that quarter of students would not have turned to crime.

To be fair, some of the kids I teach are actual criminals. Detentions don't really work for them.

How do you make that out? We're only "punished" if we do something wrong, the same as in "real life". Children / young people need to learn about life and not do the things they're being punished for.
Of course if the school seems to be exceeding its rights you can complain, but I doubt they are.

They do but ime (worked as a gap year student in one) although punishments like detentions are on the book, they are seldom given in private schools. OP, your DS would probably have a different experience of education in a private school and I think that's a bit sad personally. In private schools, parents are paying a lot for their children's education and while they want their kids to learn in a calm, purposeful environment, they also want them to be happy. They have the paying power to vote with their feet so it's in the school's interests in keep them happy. So private schools tend to be more light-touch with rules. And there is more money/resources, so teachers are less likely to hand out detention for say, forgetting a pencil. If pupils are disruptive, the school will make a cost-benefit analysis and may ask their parents to remove them. This option isn't open to state schools except in extreme circumstances.

One of the reasons why private school pupils turn up at university with so much confidence (even if sometimes unfounded) is because their whole education is largely based on the idea that it should be a conversation or exchange of ideas between teachers and pupils. Many good state schools also follow this approach but it's harder with bigger class sizes, shorter school days, less teacher time and more discipline and welfare issues. Reverting to the 'students sit silently or else while teachers give instruction' model and imposing harsh sanctions for minor misdemeanors is often the only way to maintain order. If you're in a class of 10 and your English teacher also teaches you cricket and you see them twice a week at homework club or in the boarding-house where they can help with your homework (not an uncommon set-up), that's an entirely different, more relaxed dynamic between teacher and student.

Op you have taken the assumption that all children want to learn. They don't. Yes of course there are plenty that do but a significant amount that don't.

The best we can do for these children is to aid them in GCSEs even if we have to, and we do drag them through this. This means having sanctions. Also it stops other childrens education being hindered.

The other day it was wet lunch. Teachers going to the toilet and having lunch had children chopping the top of the glue sticks off and throwing them at each other. This is the good kids too!

Pp said watch educating Essex I think this is a good shout.
Also teenagers are not primary kids. Whole new ball game.

Detentions usually just massively inconvenience parents tho. School pick ups take a lot of organising for working parents and the lateness can't be accommodated easily.

Then perhaps they will put pressure on their child to not piss about?
Schools can only issue detentions. Parents can confiscate x-boxes, change the WiFi password, ground them and a whole host of other stuff that the kid cares about.

'Thats not true. Women experience hormonal and mood changes every month, but that doesn't stop them from making the right decisions.

@SweatyLama Are you actually comparing grown women to teenagers? Not even comparable. Not quite sure what you're thinking to gain from this thread as you clearly have your opinion on this, using your own personal experience as gospel but disregarding everyone else's and even saying my own opinions are 'not true'. You clearly don't think detention is good - others do, and the UK school system clearly does too.

@CrispieCake of course private schools issue detentions, like any other school they teach children who need to learn how to operate in society and sometimes get it wrong. Parents who pay that amount of money expect their children to learn in a disruption-free environment so they can be happy while learning.

I'm not disagreeing with that but the entire context within which detentions take place is different. They are reserved for serious matters - being rude to a teacher or not listening - and teachers who gave them out for things like forgetting a pen would soon get into trouble. It tends to be children who are already on a path out of the school who frequently end up in detention in private schools.

Of course private school parents (indeed most parents) want their kids to learn in a disruption-free environment, but in a lot of private schools, especially the more academic ones, there just isn't the need for the very harsh, constant punishments that some state schools may need to impose to keep order. The kids might chat and not listen sometimes, but they're usually quite good-natured (even if sometimes a little entitled) and they do usually want to succeed so they can move onto what they want to do next and they understand that they need the teachers' help to do this. So while there may be low level inattention and disruption, it doesn't tend to escalate hugely.

It's hard to describe but although many private school parents do have a lot of respect for staff and teachers, many also see them as service-providers, essentially. They're providing a necessary service and, just as you wouldn't disrupt an engineer come to fix your swimming-pool because you're paying them and you want results, equally you expect your children to knuckle down and pay attention to their teachers because you want them to get the results (and usually the children want this too). So broadly parents will support the school and expect their children to do so as well. But they're not going to put up with their children being yelled at, given punishments for silly infractions or having their confidence undermined because they're paying customers and that sort of response undermines what they're trying to achieve for their kids - they want them to be happy, confident and academically and socially successful. A zero tolerance bootcamp environment isn't really what most private school parents want for their children. And the schools are dependent on the parents paying the fees so are motivated to keep the children happy.

Sorry, that was aimed at @SweatyLama , not you @twistyizzy

To me, the UK school system is teetering on the edge of breaking down. Some people react to this by blaming the students. Others blame parents. Yet others blame teachers. But it's a system-wide problem. It needs to be fixed from the top down.

The school environment, as it stands, is absolutely the wrong place for a certain % of students (most of these are SEN). But there are very few alternatives for those SEN students, and none are easy to access. So you get a LOT of SEN kids limping along in the current, one-size-fits-all system, and you get staff without training deciding that the best way to deal with them is punishment or more punishment. Meanwhile, the staff have OFSTED hanging over their heads so they're stressed about forcing students to meet arbitrary targets (thanks to that Pob-wannabe Michael fucking Gove and his "reforms"). And the system isn't funded well enough to deal with different types of learning styles, so thirty kids are lumped into one classroom, and if they don't learn well that way, some people accuse them of "not wanting to learn or succeed!" and hand out more punishment.

It's depressing. I feel bad for teachers and I feel bad for students.

But I'm also very tired of people defending the status quo. It's broken. UK teenagers are switched-off and unhappy. It's all very well saying "we must enforce rules" but then we see people like Boris Johnson getting away with partying during lockdown, and Michelle Mone walking away with a whole bunch of taxpayer £, and if there are no repercussions for the top echelon of people, then it does make me wonder why some people here froth at the mouth so hard to give little Johnny a detention for forgetting a green pen, because "rulez is rulez".

OP, I'm parenting a (suspected) ADHD child, too, and I'm reaching breaking point. My autistic child had a very supportive secondary and he's currently flying in sixth form having gotten great GCSEs. My younger one has an unsupportive school who is currently refusing to fill out the Conners questionaire to help her get an ADHD dx. This after refusing to refer her to CAMHS in the first place (I had to approach a GP). No real reasonable adjustments (they want a dx first).

Anyway, I'd advise you to pick your battles but prioritise your child's mental health above all. Because the system sure bloody won't.

That explains a lot. In the UK, children aren't allowed to just not go to school. Unless they are registered as home-schooled, they have to attend, and their parents will be fined if they don't. This is a good thing, because otherwise quite a lot of children will be deprived of an education because their parents can't be bothered to or don't want to send them to school (often for pretty awful reasons).

However, that means that you have a lot of kids in school who don't want to be there. This causes more behaviour problems, which need to be dealt with. This is very hard to do, but all children deserve an education.

Why can't you do the same? It was written above that pupils can come after school to do their homework in the after school homework club, if they lose something

"The same" as what?

A homework club is not the same as being taught by a specialist teacher! If the pupil missed the teaching section of the lesson they won’t know what to do, will they? If they could do it all without a teacher's input there would be no need for them to ever go to school.

Life changes, schools change, and attitudes towards children change. Fifty years ago, children had even fewer rights in school than they do now. And these changes came about through discussions.

But your "detention" 15 -45 min after school doesn't work too

You’d lose your job, not just 30 minutes of your time. The teenage years are the perfect time to teach them that their actions have consequences.

If pupils dislike it enough to want to avoid having to do it, it does work. As long as parents are supportive of the school rather than confrontational, of course.

I don't touch on the question of uniform. I understand how conservative the British are ))) Although I have thoughts about it.

Where's the money coming from for this supply of psychologists and psychiatrists?

I'm not a teacher, and I don't have the expertise to fully answer your question. But I do know that someone who behaves as you described wouldn’t go to detention. And I’m certain that a reasonable person, regardless of their age, doesn’t need a sanction for making a mistake—whether they’re late, forgot their homework, or lost their tie.

after he is fired from his job for being late )))
But I had the knowledge that being late was wrong even when I was a child, even without having any punishments for being late. Anyone knows 😉

That was a teacher using a euphemistic name for detention. The ´homework club’ was detention but she calls it that with her 16-17 year old students to emphasize that the problem is missing work and the solution is catching up in detention rather than the problem is breaking rules and the solution is being deprived of your freedom as punishment.

Basically you don't like the British school system.

That's fair.

I chose not to go to America because I didn't want my kids going through the American school system. Friends of mine went and home schooled.

If you don't like British state schools then there are many private schools, some of which don't have detentions (Summerhill for example). www.summerhillschool.co.uk

If you don't like any of them or can't afford them you have the legal right to homeschool which you do not in many European countries. You can educate your child yourself, or join a loose co-op of other parents.

But ultimately you are living here. The school system isn't the system you grew up with in your country (and as a British teacher I am horrified that a quarter of kids were allowed to just not go to the classroom).

You either stick with it and work within it, use your other options (private or homeschool) or ultimately if it is important enough to you then you could return to your country.

I suspect that your child would be one of the quarter of children that don't attend though. Results for kids with adhd even in the U.K. where they are made to attend school are not good.