Just got back from school.
Tuesday night is department detention night. This runs in the same room as catch up sessions from DIDA/GCSE course work. A few weeks ago I made a naughty Y8 boy write a behaviour statement. He finished this very quickly I told him to write lines. I don’t normally do this in an after school detention, but I wanted to get on and help the Y11′s with their coursework. And the Y8 boys were demanding a lot of attention.
My head of faculty suggested that lines weren’t a suitable punishment. This left me thinking what are we doing on Tuesday nights? Detention and punishement or private tuition? Of course, either way, I’m not getting paid for it.
Tonight was the same (although only 3 Y11′s), naughty Y9 girl won’t work without constant attention. It didn’t feel like a punishment, it felt like private lessons. If only we could send parents the bill.
(image by flickr.com user WallyG under Creative Commons Licence)
Difficult one that. I guess the answer is the method that best prevents problems in the future?
In my opinion a detention is something because you can’t behave/control yourself. School work/private lessons etc should not be seen as a detention or punishment – to me it gives the wrong impression about what school work/education is.
A behaviour statement sounds good to me. Once it’s finished sit in silence for the remainder of the hour seems suitable. No Internet, nothing fun.
You can’t bill parents, but if they don’t sit in silence for the hour then you can phone them and tell them that you’ve just had them in detention (normally a surprise to the parents) and you can explain they were still unable to behave and that you’re contacting them because you don’t want them in a situation where they are getting themselves worse sanctions. The parents that don’t care won’t make a difference, but the ones that do should contribute to sorting the kid out.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I had a meeting with a parent of a Yr9 girl who has had to be removed from ICT class by a member of the SLT 5 times in the last 2 months. She was arrogant in the meeting and laughed at both us and her mum, however the outset was that she is to be taken out of class by the Head of Faculty and tutored privately so the class can progress without her. …. or another way of looking at it is that she is getting one-on-one with a private tutor while the rest of the class have to take a slice of my time. Some of the better-behaved kids would really benefit from that type of environment.
So what are we teaching the kids by doing this? Want VIP treatment? Just go mad and create havoc until you get it. Give me good old fashioned lines any day!