Head announced punishment in assembly

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Can I gauge opinions please:

Our head teacher suspended a student for three days and called an assembly while the girl was on suspension for the rest of the students, to explain the punishment he'd given to her.

Does this happen in any of your schools? A number of people have been really shocked, partly because it's so shaming, and partly because of issues with confidentiality. Are we right to be shocked?

Are you a parent or a member of staff?

It’s really impossible to comment without knowing the details of the case (and I am not asking). I have been aware of situations where headteachers have spoken to a year group to get ahead of the rumour mill.

I'm a teacher. Won't put the details but the assembly seemed to create a greater wave of gossip.

Depends on the context I would say.
For example, we had a similar situation yesterday where the deputy head told the year group that 4 students had gone but they weren’t named and it was said as ‘If you don’t start behaving then you’ll be next’ sort of way. This is fine, especially as behaviour is shocking at the moment.
It would depend on lots of factors, I can see why this was done if it is a serious incident.

Sometimes there is a need to get the message out that certain behaviours will not be tolerated. For example, if pupils have been posting stuff about their teachers online, they'll want the rest to know how seriously that will be taken.
Confidentiality is difficult - they needn't mention the name, but obviously students will be able to see who is missing. On the other hand, the rumour mill may be worse, so perhaps better to have fact from the head.

I can see that context is needed. It was a Y7 girl with sen who retaliated to bullies.

It does seems a bit ill-judged in that situation, yeah. I haven't experienced anything like that at my school, and I don't think our Head would do that, no.

I have seen this at a previous school where a student severely injured another during a fight (as in the other participant needed to go to A and E). The situation was explained because a lot of students witnessed the fight, and some of them definitely felt unsafe in school.

In this context, if a student would normally have a more severe punishment for the "retaliation", then perhaps the context needed to be explained? Or perhaps it was along the lines of violence is never acceptable? Or if there were rumours that she had been permanently excluded.

It doesn't sit easily with me but I can see circumstances where it might be appropriate.

I'm not sure about confidentiality, because it's normally obvious to the wider student body if a student has been suspended, isn't it?

I think for me, the bigger thing is how is the school going to protect her when she returns?

Thanks for the replies. It doesn't sit well with me, either. It gives extra fuel to the bullies who are trying to make the girl look bad and turn others against her. I don't know the legality of disclosing suspensions, but I know the morality of holding an assembly about a student when they are not there, and without any consultation.

I never even answer questions from individual students about another student's sanctions, even when they're self-evident. I'd consider it obviously wrong to do, GDPR wise or ethically.