School Punishment.

M

Melendez

At the Start
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Son and heir (aged 9) came home with a load of homework to do for the weekend (normally they get none at the weekend) and had to write an apology to his teacher and the driver for singing on the bus during a school trip. I thought this was a bit over the top, but didn't like to interfere and told him he deserved every minute of it. Yesterday he came home with another load and apparently he and his melodic cohorts are the only ones in the class getting homework on this, their final week of the year at school.

I'm strongly tempted to write a note telling the old bag to get a life. High spirits on a school trip, whatever next. I don't like to diminish the authority of the teacher in Son & Heir's eyes though, sets a bad example.
 
What were they singing? Bit of a difference between "Ten Green Bottles" and "Unclefucker".
 
Originally posted by Gareth Flynn@May 30 2006, 04:02 PM
What were they singing? Bit of a difference between "Ten Green Bottles" and "Unclefucker".
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:lol: I was thinking along those lines too, it depends what they were singing.
 
That occurred to me as well, but his instructions on writing his apology didn't refer to bad language and he only admits to doing those horrible school rugby chants (which, in my opinion are far worse, but the school does seem to encourage them).
 
I find it ridiculous that his school are punishing him for this, having just got back from 4 days in France with 32 kids myself. During the journey, they were loud and sang some silly and sometimes rude things but kids will be kids and to punish him for this is heavy handed and wrong. They are on trips to enjoy themselves after all.
 
On the face of it, seems OTT - the regime at the school I went to was pretty strict (and this was, dare I say it, 30-odd years ago) but we were at least allowed to sing some fairly rude songs on our end-of-term/year/whatever trips. Does depend to an extent on what they were singing - I don't think for one minute that we would have got away with anything that was, for example, personally offensive to the teachers. (In fact, I do remember the sh*t hitting the fan when the annual House Revue, put on by the Senior Common Room for the entertainment of the staff and the Junior Common Room, turned into a rather close to the mark send-up of the House staff .. :D )
 
Got to disagree Brian. If indeed that was their felony, then the punishment is far to lenient.
 
I'm obviously one of the old school. I don't allow any noisy behaviour when I'm supervising school trips, even on private coaches. If I'm reading Mel's post correctly, the unfairness lies in making some who were singing do the punishment but not others?

As far as giving out homework in the last week of term goes, it sounds to me like the teacher is doing her duty while a number of her colleagues aren't, if they're not giving out homework.
 
Damn right DO, teachers do little enough as it is, the idea of them not gicing out homework as it is the last week of term is farcical. I wouldn't consider not doing my job to the best of my ability just because i was going on holiday soon. Surely there are grounds for disciplining any teacher for failing to do their job?
 
Without wanting to divert the argument too much, setting homework in the last week of term can be a rod for your own back. I set homework every week for every class but in the last week of term it is tricky, as I am restricted by the homework timetable as to when I can set it and over a holiday, somewhere in the region of 90% of kids would lose it, thereby necessitating resetting the work or chasing 200 kids for detentions. 20 takes about a week of my time to catch up as they are elusive buggers!! It is impractical, although if I can set it and collect it in the same week, that is the ideal scenario.

In terms of behaviour on school trips, I do insist on high standards whenever we are in public but on the coach, so long as the driver is ok, I tend the let the kids let off some steam.
 
Originally posted by PDJ@May 30 2006, 06:44 PM
setting homework in the last week of term can be a rod for your own back.
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I agree, but I must be lucky to get nearly 100% conformity from my lots. If I give an important piece of HW over a holiday period I make sure the parents get a letter explaining the nature and purpose of the exercise (and to dispel any notion I'm just being a b@stard by giving HW over the hols) and ask them to sign the pupils' work. Again I'm lucky in that I get nearly 100% support from parents.
 
I don't. At my school that would be an exercise in futility. When they have 2 days to do homework, around a quarter will lose it so 6 weeks would be rather pointless. I do set it over the Christmas and Easter holidays but only for Key Stage 4 as they have oral exams immediately afterwards.

Nice Dylan Thomas quote, Gareth.
 
I keep forgetting the kids only get 6 weeks or so over there for summer. We had two months in primary and three months in secondary. Try getting homework off one of us after that!
 
Would think it would be pretty hard to set homework for a senior school over summer, most years you don't know if you'll have the same teacher for a particular subject the following year (at least the school I was at were like that).
 
In the end I sent him in with a note...

Son and Heir has not done his homework with my agreement. Please ring to discuss. And left my wife's phone number.
 
Originally posted by Irish Stamp@May 30 2006, 09:45 PM
most years you don't know if you'll have the same teacher for a particular subject the following year (at least the school I was at were like that).
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Up here, our timetables change at the end of the exam period, typically the end of May, so we have a run of four or five 'productive' weeks leading into the holidays. In this situation, especially with classes going for exams the following year, it isn't ureasonable to try to take steps to prevent pupils forgetting the groundwork they've been doing for those four or five weeks.
 
I don't have a clue which kids will be sat in front of me until the INSET day at the beginning of September. The only class I will keep is my Yr 10 class going into Yr 11. The others are all up for grabs.
 
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