Is it ok for the state to detain your kids at the weekend for nowt?

Micheal Gove is a blithering idiot.

He's just been on the news again. This time, his latest insane rambling suggests that school kids can be put on detention, including at weekends, without even telling the parents what's happening.

Well I'm sorry, but if my lads fail to do their homework properly or answer back as sometimes kids do, while I have no objection to the school 'having a word' or withdrawing some privileges, if he thinks I'm going to let them be detained when I don't even know what's going on, he's got another think coming.

I can see me appearing in court quite a lot as my sons go through school, because if they ever come home and say "dad, you know we were going to build that thing in the garden on saturday/go to such and such/visit auntie so and so? Well I can't now because I have to go to school instead for detention", I will reply simply "son, no you don't, and if you get any bother because of it, let me know, I'll sort it out".

This is stupid. Its unfair on the kids, unfair on the parents, and who's going to staff this? Are already busy teachers going to have to start working 7 days a week now? And what happens when the kid that it happens to has a dad that's less patient and reasonable than me? Is it fair to put the teachers right in the firing line knowing that some parents are more prone to aggression than reason?

 

It won't happen Clueless. The teachers would refuse and the unions would fight it.

 

However, the teaching unions are supine and powerless.

It's unworkable because many parents wouldn't support it. You would have to give the parents notice in writing -doable, but parents would contest it many, many times. It might work by pre-agreement where school and parents are working in close partnership - but families like that rarely suffer problems at school. It would only be appropriate for older age groups in any case.

Gove is living in a parallel universe where children are ousted from home at 8 years old and spend the next 10 years in the tuck shop, playing rugger, doing prep and being fags. The educational background of Tory ministers is apparently what is appropriate and attainable for all. I don't suppose there's any problems with weekend detentions at Eton.

 

I had a 4 hour detention once that was split into two 2 hour session I didn't tell my parents even though I was meant to do so. The teacher just sat me at a desk outside the staff room while they all just chilled and I did mountains of homework I hadn't done.

One of the lowest points in my teenage years.

 

To be fair, heads are being hounded as well, in turn they hound their staff. But teaching job security and conditions are at an all time low, and I don't see why this is necessary after 25 years of OFSTED. Is it a tacit admission that OFSTED hasn't worked? The government doesn't seem to know what it wants as far as education is concerned, so it produces endless crazy ideas which are not rooted in the real world.

I support his desire to raise standards for the least privileged in society but I fail to see how you can somehow make a child from a family of chronically unemployed drug-users equal with a child from a wealthy family of Oxbridge-educated ancestors (for example) just by browbeating the very people you are going to ask to carry out this magical process.

It's been a mystery to me why successive governments have attacked the teaching profession and endlessly reduced its authority and respect in the public eye, and then expect the same people to deliver high quality education and discipline. It is unbelievably bad for morale - personally, if I am given a sincere pat on the head from time to time I will do anything for them, like a flippin' puppy. Gove doesn't get this.

Given that there are so many education staff, by and large docile, conservative with a small"C", I've always been surprised why governments don't court their votes more.

A classic case of chucking out the baby with the bathwater. The fine points and nit-picking criteria are designed to raise standards. Just like various other initiatives like strict literacy and numeracy hour procedures which have been cast aside without any thanks or recognition to the staff that bust a gut to implement them as requested.

 

I can't get my head around Gove.
One minute I agree with him and then he comes out with rubbish like this! I have no problem with Saturday detentions, but the parents have to know about it. I did a few of them in my time and they were a pain. Far more effective than the cane which was nothing more than a badge of honour - get the cane and you had entered the pupils aristocracy.

 

Bring back the CANE or the TAWSE for the Scottish softies up here

If the teachers do not wish to do it I will do it for them

Nothing like a good thrashing and a Raw behind, to make them think twice about disrupting the class again

Jack Mc Thrasher Hammocklashing

 

I have gained two funnies on the list
Well it is not funny, it is what is needed

I will now go into the old diatribe it never hurt me (well it did at the time)

As long as it is controlled and only dished out when required

History, when we used to have wooden benches, china ink wells, it was err good fun to flick ink soaked blotting paper at someone, or throw the broken pen, that now had two points and stuck in things like a dart (or as a mature adult see's it take someones eye out)
I was caught and got two of the best on the hand with a cane, by the extremely evil teacher who had an extra thin cane, that came back up and caught you on the knuckles too
I never played around again ever

So how did I get caned again, well this is where the control comes in, I was twenty minutes late into school, Why, well I travelled three miles by bus, and the bus broke down, so outwith my ability to stop
It was wrong I was caned that time, and this is what must be taken into consideration

Next one BAD BOY decided it would be fun to nick the chain of a teachers bicycle, he actually took the wheel as well, and as the North East main railway line ran alongside the school yard thought it would be fun to watch as the Flying Scotsman express passed over the wheel

He was caught, and the whole school was summond to the hall, where across a jumping horse he was given SIX of the best across his backside, Pain and humiliation, He turned into one of the best pupils with better results in exams than the school could ever have dreamed of

The canings hurt at the time but the pain was soon forgotten, the lesson never

If I went home and told my DAD then it was certain I would get another dose, Though you HAD to tell your Mum or Dad as it would be lying if you did not
(Oh we had both MUMs AND DADs in those days , The majority of single parents Widows or Widowers)

Now if you had been told off and told your parent, That parent would be down to the school seeking compensation, along to the council seeking a bigger house in a better area because of the school
Little Jack is now late for work three times a week, abuses who he wants, and has no respect for anyone or thing including his PARENT

Jack McH

 

Sorry Jack, I think you're wrong.

Re being caned in humiliated, well I was lucky, the cane was banned 2 years before I would have been old enough to get it, and then all forms of corporal punishment banned literally just before I was old enough. By old enough, I mean 11 I think it was, ie it was already banned in primary school but not secondary.

However I did know many older kids that got it. With the exception of the odd one good kid who got brayed for, as far as I could tell, no good reason, and then was emotionally destroyed as a result, the majority that got brayed actually got brayed regularly because they were generally bad kids. All it served to do was drive a bigger rift between bad kid and everyone else, and make for a tougher bad kid. I'm sure that was the case for all of them, but its what I saw.

That's not what I see when I sometimes go into my son's school. Inevitably, sometimes kids have to be told off, and sometimes the parents have to be told what's happening. I've seen parents genuinely worried having been told that their kid has stepped out of line. The usual response when the teacher tells them is that they dig for more information, because they want to understand the problem so they can fix it. That's the case now, and it was the case when I went to school. I have no doubt that the time will come when I get told my son has stepped out of line (and I don't mean just a casual telling off - he's already had a few of those). I must admit I'm not looking forward to that, but if/when it happens I'll be asking a lot of questions to find out what's what, but I wont be pointing any fingers in any direction until I have all the facts.

 

I agree that there's a collapse of traditional systems of authority in society with no clear replacement but I can't agree that violence is the answer. It always has a destructive effect on the individual, who are already pretty disaffected and damaged. And for the vast majority, it is just not necessary, strong boundaries and appropriate and consistent penalties are enough.

I'm sure Clueless Jr will be toeing the line in general, he was as good as gold on the one occasion I met him!

It is a fairly common syndrome (and class is no indicator) that parents will disbelieve reports of bad behaviour in their children and blame everyone in sight except the one who actually did the misdeeds. The result is, that the child either gets away with bad behaviour scot-free, or at least feels supported in behaving badly because they know their parent is reluctant to blame them. So the behaviour gets worse and they turn into arrogant little so&sos.

I know it might be very important to a parent that things should be seen to be fair, but when it comes to low-level misbehaviour like not doing as told or messing about in class, the child has probably done it a hundred times before parents are called into school to talk about it. So calling for staff to account for themselves is an unhelpful response to say the least.

It might be slightly different if an unusual incident has occurred - but if you want to question if your child has actually done what they are accused of try not to let the child see you interrogating their teachers. It just sends them completely the wrong message.