Am I being over sensitive?

poet123

It very much depends on your definition of severe. I would say strict rather than severe,which is no bad thing imo and is indicative of a good school. Discipline is an important factor in producing well rounded productive adults.

Money_maker

Unless this was a child who got detentions regularly there is no way they could forget it. Neither of my two have had a detention (yrs 7 & 8) and they would be wetting themselves if they did.

My son had a project to make a castle. He spent hours on this. The only help I gave him was with the hot glue gun. His friend did his in a couple of hours the day before. Children who did not complete the project were invited to an after school 'castle building club' which they were expected to attend.

I suggest you keep a closer eye on your childs homework and offer some encouragement and support.

Minxy_Bella

NAR wrote: »

Sorry but I'm not going to take this !!!! without reply!



No it doesn't - his standard of work was unacceptable!


Accepted.


If parents feel this way too, is there any point in trying to educate the children?


He was given 3 weeks to complete the task so obviously more than 2 hours work was expected. You call the teacher a bully - you have never even met the man! Shall I call you a failure of a teacher? Tags are easily attributed.


He cares enough to try and ensure the boy does his best. Did you get loads of rollickings from your HOD then?


Forgot my foot! He was trying it on, maybe with some help of his peers, but I applaud the teacher for taking a stance so early in the child's secondary education.


He paid lipservice to the homework, which he now realises through his punishment, is not going to be accepted.


Respect has to be earned. Taking shortcuts and ignoring those in authority is not the way to gain respect!

Whilst I agree with some of your points - which you seem to have not noticed - the tone and aggression of your response can only lead me to surmise that it is not possible to debate on a civilised level with some people.

My point is - you do not need to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

On a more positive note - it's nice that the teacher is getting so much support - that makes a change :rolleyes:

DKLS

I don't understand the fuss, and I don't think the punishments dished out were unduly harsh. The OPs son should have had some of my teachers and he would know what harsh was :eek:

I scraped off loads of chewing gum at school, picked up sack after sack of litter around the playing fields for the major crime of wearing black socks, when they should have been grey.
Its actually nice to hear about a school that is instilling some discipline in the children.

Why are we so afraid of discipling children in this country any more.

maryotuam

My DS got one detention in secondary school and hated it so much he never got in trouble again.

Primrose

Unpleasant though discipline and punishments are, I think we can all see what happens when children remain unpunished and undisciplined - they roam the streets like ferral animals and have no respect for individuals or society as a whole. Children need to learn boundaries and respect them. If I was disciplined at school, my parents accepted that it was probably for a good reason and reinforced the message. I soon learned that if you step out of line you get punished and it was a really good introduction to how one would be treated in adult life.

mrcow

Minxy_Bella wrote: »

My point is - you do not need to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

No you don't.

But perhaps if you use a sledgehammer for your first nut, you won't have to crack any more nuts ever again.

Whereas if you just use a nutcracker, you'll be sitting there regularly cracking nuts until year 13 when you could be doing something more constructive.

It's not everyone's style. I personally use this type of method with my parenting. I'd rather have one effective remonstration and solve the problem in one go than have the type of constant naughty behaviour that some end up with that ends up feeling like some sort of Chinese Water Torture for everyone involved.

I'm often told I'm too harsh on these boards - but it's what works for me as everyone knows that I mean business and expect a certain level of behaviour. Interesting enough - no one ever tells me that I'm too harsh to my face - they just compliment my children on their behaviour lol (perhaps I really am that scary! [...goes away to have some inward thinking...]).

poet123

I agree,I have actually asked the school to increase the detention time for one of my sons as imo it wasn't sufficient.He never forgot his homework again!!

Another time a teacher mentioned one of them wasnt concentrating in class,and said she was thinking about moving him to the other side of the room,I asked her to do it immediately.

My kids know that if they get into trouble at school they are in trouble at home. I have only ever had one issue with the school giving out a detention,and that was because the offence was mine(forgotten slip)and I made it clear to my son that if I had given him the slip and he had forgotten it the detention would have been fair,but as he had asked for it,and I forgotten to drop it into school as I said I would, then he wasnt to blame.

bestpud

poet123 wrote: »

I agree,I have actually asked the school to increase the detention time for one of my sons as imo it wasn't sufficient.He never forgot his homework again!!

Another time a teacher mentioned one of them wasnt concentrating in class,and said she was thinking about moving him to the other side of the room,I asked her to do it immediately.

My kids know that if they get into trouble at school they are in trouble at home. I have only ever had one issue with the school giving out a detention,and that was because the offence was mine(forgotten slip)and I made it clear to my son that if I had given him the slip and he had forgotten it the detention would have been fair,but as he had asked for it,and I forgotten to drop it into school as I said I would, then he wasnt to blame.

Well, I hope you received a detention for that, poet!!!

KarrieBee

OP I don't think the initial punishment was unduly harsh - in a way you could read it as a acknowldgement that your son normally works to a much higher standard, so in this case it was obviously that he hadn't put enough effort in. And if he missed a detention it was also only fair that he was disciplined for this.
But I really think that scraping chewing gum off desks is a humiliating and unneccessary punishment. I also went to a 'good' school with good discipline and high academic standards and to be fair I was never given a detention but I never heard of chewing gum scraping as a punishment - partly because we weren't allowed chewing gum perhaps! It just strikes me as unproductive when it would be more appropriate to make pupils redo work which is shoddy or do additional work, to ensure that they realise that working below the standard to which they are capable is not acceptable. What does doing something unhygenic and menial teach children?