School Discipline
In which ways does a school discipline children?
The ways in which a school may discipline children will be a part of their whole approach to managing behavior. The emphasis these days is on promoting the positive, and obviously there needs to be something in their policy and practice around what to do when children stray outside the desired behaviors. The opportunities they have to enforce sanctions are obviously of a non-corporal nature. Schools take very seriously the directives of government, linked in with the Children Act and the United Nations rights of the child, and so the punishments have to be humane, they have to be fair and in no way belittling of the individual, but fit for purpose. They usually take the form of something like time out, loss of privileges, actually setting tasks like community tasks around the school, and these are designed to give the child time to reflect on their misdemeanors, and ways of helping them to learn from the situation and behave better.
Should I try and influence the way my child's school disciplines children?
It is very important that you are involved in your child's experiences at school and this can take many forms. You need to be aware of the school's perspective and practice around discipline and management of behaviour. You can do this in lots of ways through reading the letters the school will send out through gaining as much information as possible about the school and it's policies. You might be more active and become involved as a governor or a member of the PTA. These are all opportunities to understand how the school views children's behavior and how it manages that.
I don't agree with the way my child is disciplined at school, what should I do?
Always get as much information as possible about the details of the particular situation that may have given rise to these concerns, and about the school's general approach. The best way to solve any disagreement is to actually share your misgivings and to gain a full perspective from the other side. Your best bet is to approach and talk to the members of staff that has most knowledge of the situation. If it's primary school, it will be the child's class teacher. If it's secondary school, it could be the form tutor or possibly the head of year. If you can keep it at this level, at this point that will be a good thing and you may well be able to work it out with these other professionals and obviously with your child involved as much as possible. Sometimes that isn't enough and you may need to go higher in the schools hierarchy and perhaps talk with a more senior member of staff.
The school says that my child is a disruptive influence, what should I do?
Get more information. That's a very emotive way of describing a child, and it's a very all or nothing way of describing a child. You, of course, know your child in much more depth, their short comings and their strengths. And, for them to be labeled and described in this way is not particularly constructive. It may just be a miscommunication or a misunderstanding, and therefore by getting information and actually talking it out you may well be able to make the situation better. If you do find that it has an element of someone's personal dislike, then this is the time to involve somebody else who's less involved. This could well be a senior member of staff.
