Am I being over sensitive?

Oldernotwiser

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

He says that the teachers show him respect and in turn he is respectful to them also.

Rather the wrong way round, I'd've thought!

Curious_George_2

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!!

which is fair enough and good for you, but the OPs son didnt forget his homework, he did it, i think thats mostly why people think the punishment was harsh, when i was at school it was made very clear if the teacher didnt think you had put much effort in and the marks reflected that, but we were never punished for working on something for 2 hours!
i imagine the teachers would have been right in thinking if they gave detention for people who handed homework in what on earth could you do to the kids that made no effort??

i think the extra punishment is fair enough for 'forgetting' a previous detention
thats not on

this thread is great... i love seeing so many parents so interested in their childs education,
my parents didnt give a monkeys about mine, they rarely went to parents evenings and if they did it was a huge pain, i dont remember ever being asked if i had any homework, let alone if i had done it!

BARGAINHUNTER!

Thank you all for your replies and views. I went to work today and spoke to some of my collegues for their views. They all agreed that although the detentions were harsh, to let that side of it go as they are designed to teach my son a lesson (not leave things to the last minute, put more effort in and don't forget detentions). Everyone I spoke to said that the scraping of the chewing gum off of the bottom of the desks was not right.

As it happened, I got called into school this afternoon as another of my children had a headache and needed a paracetamol, which I had to go in to give him. Whilst I was there I asked the receptionist if I could speak to the Head of Year. I explained everything to him that has happened and asked for his thoughts, and he said that the scraping of the chewing gum from under the tables was not acceptable and he would be speaking to the Head of Geography and asking them to investigate further. He has said that he would contact me in the next few days to let me know what had happened. Im not wanting to get anyone into trouble, but hand on heart I do feel that the scraping of the chewing gum was done to humiliate my son, and he had already been punished for forgetting his initial detention by being given 4 more. So in total for handing in a piece of substandard homework on time he has been given 7 lunchtime detentions so the chewing gum was a step too far.

I have never been into school before to complain, in fact I have always been extrememly supportive, and I re-iterated this to the Head of Year. It was just that I felt so strongly that what had happened was wrong that I had to speak up for my son. I had a chat to my son this morning about the detentions, and he knows that although I feel that they are harsh, I support the school on this point. I also told him that life isn't fair sometimes but it is ok to speak up and tell me if he feels something isn't right (scraping chewing gum).

Acc72

BARGAINHUNTER! wrote: »

Everyone I spoke to said that the scraping of the chewing gum off of the bottom of the desks was not right.

he said that the scraping of the chewing gum from under the tables was not acceptable and he would be speaking to the Head of Geography and asking them to investigate further.

the chewing gum was a step too far.

So, what does happen to chewing gum under desks ?

Does it magically disappear overnight ? or does somebody have to scrape it off ?

Why do so many people think that a child should not be subject such horrors, but it is ok for somebody else to clean it up ?

I personally think that this is a good "punishment" - it is something that the pupils will not want to do, and it won't exactly casue them any harm !

Kirri

How does your son feel about his next geography lesson by the way? Do you think this has had a positive effect on him?

Interesting that the head didn't agree with the chewing gum, worth speaking to him then.

I still think there are better ways of encouraging better work than the teacher's method. I'd have hated the lessons myself after that!

Kirri

Acc72 wrote: »

So, what does happen to chewing gum under desks ?

Does it magically disappear overnight ? or does somebody have to scrape it off ?

Why do so many people think that a child should not be subject such horrors, but it is ok for somebody else to clean it up ?

I personally think that this is a good "punishment" - it is something that the pupils will not want to do, and it won't exactly casue them any harm !

I would expect a paid adult cleaner to do it, they accept cleaning as part of the job, toilets and all, if they didn't want to do it they can discuss this adult to adult. Some children would be too scared to refuse to do this in a school situation and given the health and safety fears these days, it's surprising that the teacher thought this appropriate in the first place.

BARGAINHUNTER!

Acc72 wrote: »

So, what does happen to chewing gum under desks ?

Does it magically disappear overnight ? or does somebody have to scrape it off ?

Why do so many people think that a child should not be subject such horrors, but it is ok for somebody else to clean it up ?

I personally think that this is a good "punishment" - it is something that the pupils will not want to do, and it won't exactly casue them any harm !

I would imagine that the chewing gum is removed by cleaners who are paid to do this job, know that this is part of their job and have the proper equipment available to them to enable them to do so safely and hygenically. I doubt they are handed a metal spoon with which to remove it!

BARGAINHUNTER!

Kirri wrote: »

How does your son feel about his next geography lesson by the way? Do you think this has had a positive effect on him?

Interesting that the head didn't agree with the chewing gum, worth speaking to him then.

I still think there are better ways of encouraging better work than the teacher's method. I'd have hated the lessons myself after that!

Funnily enough my son really enjoys geography as its a subject that he has a lot of interest in. He dosen't like the teacher though (he didn't really before this happened - he has said to me before that he shouts a lot (not at my son!)) but we have had a chat about how you don't always like everyone you come into contact with and as long as he behaves in class and does his homework and tries his hardest he will enjoy the lessons more and he might find that he likes the teacher after all!

BARGAINHUNTER!

bandraoi wrote: »

First, if he had three weeks to do a project, he was obviously expected to spend more than two hours on it. No matter how hard he worked in the two hours, it's unlikely that it met any sort of a standard.

By your own admission you didn't see it before it was handed in, so you have no idea what standard it was at. The issue here is your sons performance, which didn't meet the standard required. The work of the other children is totally irrelevant. The three detentions are perhaps slightly excessive, but it is within the teachers authority, and I think you should think extremely carefully about undermining the teachers authority with so little cause.

As others have said "forgetting" a detention, is just pulling the !!!!. If he genuinely forgot it, he should have addressed the situation at his first chance and not just before his second detention.

To be honest, it sounds like this teacher is trying to get your son to grow up and learn how to take responsibility for his own work and his own actions. If anything I would ring the teacher up and thank him for putting in the effort.

I appreciate the time and effort the teacher is putting in, and if the teacher chooses to discipline my child by the detentions, so be it. My son has accepted these and reasons behind them being given. Its the scraping of the chewing gum that I have an issue with.

tiamai_d

Acc72 wrote: »

So, what does happen to chewing gum under desks ?

Does it magically disappear overnight ? or does somebody have to scrape it off ?

Why do so many people think that a child should not be subject such horrors, but it is ok for somebody else to clean it up ?

I personally think that this is a good "punishment" - it is something that the pupils will not want to do, and it won't exactly casue them any harm !

Hmmm.... maybe because someone gets paid to do this job? Someone who will also be provided with PPE (gloves, masks, antibac spray, scraper and a detergent for this job) and who has been trained to do it. Same as 'what happens when a kid vomits in a classroom' or 'who cleans the toilets'. I'm guessing that person who gets paid to do this, knows full well what the job entails and is willing to do it.

I don't think a child should be made to clean pub toilets either or hell, since you say that children should be subject to such horrors cos other folk are expected to do it, why don't we just send them over to Iraq?