Are all Secondary’s this strict?

[Anythingisjustfine]

My DD started secondary last September. Although she’s happy there now most aren’t and I don’t like the feel or approach the school has, but I don’t know, does this all sound normal to you?

Children are receiving detentions at the drop a hat, for things as minor as touching a curtain or wriggling their feet. I’ve had to email several times and say my child isn’t going to detention because the reasons are so utterly ridiculous. It’s a general feeling amongst the kids that they don’t bother doing their homework or trying as they get detentions regardless. Then there are the negative points, children are racking them up in their hundreds.

the well behaved children are scared of putting a foot wrong, my daughter is permanently on edge and desperately doesn’t want to get a detention she’s wearing herself into the ground trying to please the school.

then there’s the homework, they’re getting 3 lots a night, some far longer than the allocated 10 minutes yet they get a detention if it’s not finished.

This isn’t just me, many of the parents feel the same. It doesn’t feel like a nice school where the children are being allowed to flourish, it feels more like a detention camp where they’re constantly being punished.

I expected secondary to be hard and I wanted my girl to be challenged but I also wanted her to feel safe, happy and unthreatened. The school quite literally feels like it’s being run on fear.

I’ve got another one starting here soon and my guts just telling me this is all wrong.

Is this just how it is now? Are all schools like this with the strictness?

Come on, OP, when I was at secondary school (and it was a comprehensive, not a grammar school), homework was a couple of hours' worth every night. 10 minutes is nothing! Kids have to learn, and if parents don't enforce discipline at home, then the school has to do it.

I guarantee the kid did not get a detention. For "touching a curtain".

Far more likely it was for repeatedly not paying attention. Schools have got clear guidelines involving warnings and consequences and usually there's at least two warnings before a detention is issued. " Playing with the curtain was probably the final instance of not doing what they were supposed to.

Another example would bea kid saying " I got a detention for dropping my pen". What really happened dropped pen and went to pick it up for the third time in lesson because they are passing around someone's shoe they stole out of their rucksack in the corridor....

Most schools set at least an hour homework every night ( across 2 to 3 subjects) so 30 mins is very light

It is hard for the non ND/ SEND children if they get punished for dropping pens or touching things they are told not to while other children don't because of their condition. Children are rightly not told about other children's medical or educational needs.
There has always been "that's not fair - (child x) was doing it and you didn't tell them off"
Schoolchildren have always pushed boundaries in class and been reprimanded - it doesn't help now that parents do not support the school when their perfect little angel has done something wrong and sometimes will go bleating to MN that their DC will not go to detention

I’m starting to see this in primary and won’t be sending my child to the state that adopts fairly military esque tendences. I get why they have to but it isn’t great for the ones desperate to be good and living on edge and I think it would be unhelpful for my eldest.

My daughter has a tricky primary class- they were arguably too lax but then adopted the harsher discipline approach including whole class punishments. It’s quite hard for a well behaved 8 year old to deal with being screamed at for something she hasn’t done.

It’s a rock and a hard place situation though- I get some schools have had to go very hard line to get anything done and no-one wants to see total chaos but then people seem to wonder why anxiety has risen and so many kids are school refusing.

I wonder how pastoral care or safeguarding works in a school of this type. As a teenager are you really expected to feel able speak to a teacher about something that's concerning you when they're also putting you in detention for foot shuffling or dropping a ruler?

I do think most state secondaries are like this because it’s basically crowd control so they have to be brutally strict. Unfortunately it’s the sensitive kids who suffer.

My DC were well behaved kids who wouldn’t have says boo to a goose and didn’t need shouting at, or the cattle prod treatment, but they had to endure it nevertheless. Two of them, who are adults now, are, I believe, still suffering ptsd from it. Five years of it takes its toll and I don’t blame kids who vote with their feet and refuse to go in. I wish I’d home schooled mine in retrospect.

I don’t recognise this sort of thing in the school my eldest have gone to- a local grammar with an outstanding grammar ofsted report. My eldest is finished now, middle one is y11. The eldest got one detention in his entire school career.

But the intake is fairly MC, with supportive parents, and low levels of poor behaviour/disruption. Whenever there was an issue (anxiety in the youngest, or a problem at home), the school were very supportive and I felt they really cared about the kids’ welfare and wanted to do what they could to help. I think my kids felt that too- that the school was on their side.

Interestingly, the other local school that other kids went to from their state primary seems closer to your school OP. A lot of disruptive behaviour from kids, detentions given out like sweets. Kids that were just below 11+ level and borderline, now barely scraping passes in GCSEs, and this being accepted as fine. I don’t know what the answer is. These were not ‘bad kids’ at primary at all. It seems in a lot of cases their behaviour and performance trajectory has nosedived since leaving primary. I don’t know what the answer is as to how to fix it. The behaviour is disruptive so the school are more strict… but then the punishments become meaningless so they don’t try.

Kids go home and tell parents that they are getting detention for no reason (touching a curtain etc). The reality is more like the child has been told multiple times to leave the curtain alone and stop messing with it. It won’t be a case of ‘kid touches curtain once and gets immediate detention’

I did it myself when I was a kid. Came home and told my mum that the teachers were so strict that if you dropped a pen, you got detention. That was a load of rubbish!
Parents tend to believe everything children say and fly off the handle about it. I can pretty much guarantee that if you were a fly on the wall in a classroom, you’d see the real reason why a child got detention for “touching the curtain”.

Agreed. Friends and family members who are teachers say it is the low level continual disruptive behaviour which stops the learning.
Big flare ups are rarer and will have a reason.

Sadly the Academies do seem to be like this.
I am sure it's partly why so many young people have mental health issues and also why young people leave school totally unprepared for real life

The overuse of sanctions takes away their effectiveness. The homework being an example. If they get a detention if the homework is not perfect or a detention if it’s not done they know there’s a 99% chance they are getting a detention. So human nature says just don’t do the work. I’m glad my DS’s school really successfully strikes a middle ground and only issues sanctions for persistent poor behaviour or one off really bad things that were obviously intentional. Other things such as making a poor choice get a warning and a chance to use it as a learning experience. Homework is an opportunity for teachers to see who is struggling not a threat to hold over everyone.

I don't think it is unreasonable request for most children not to touch the curtain? Why would they need to touch it?

Yep, this is how most (though not all) secondaries are. Exam factories with no view of the kids as individuals and full of teachers who hate their jobs and seem to find enjoyment in giving detentions. I’ve worked in enough of them and heard the staffroom chat to know. It’s precisely why I decided to teach primary, it’s not perfect, but much better.

Looks like a ‘zero tolerance policy’ school which are on the rise in UK. I went to the open day of one and the head was very honest about it and spoke a lot about it and their reasoning behind it. Parents on our local groups speak very positively about it because the kids are given a very calm focused environment and they want to control bad behaviour. Talked to few kids and they said they were very happy that there was no bullying and class disruptions.
Perhaps it’s not the right school for your child.

The seriousness of touchong a curtain and wriggling feet could vary a lot depending on context.

I agree with you OP. My DC's school uses detentions fairly sparingly and I'm sure that is more effective than what you describe.