A school troubled by bad behaviour has introduced two-hour Saturday morning detention for pupils. Staff at Caldicot school in Monmouthshire held strikes in response to physical and verbal abuse from pupils in 2023. Now parents have been sent letters telling them the Saturday detention will be introduced from this weekend. Pupils can be given detention if they collect bad behaviour marks, and acting head teacher Alun Ebenezer said the Saturday sanction was needed where other punishment, including being held after school, had not worked. This Saturday, six pupils have been told to be at the detention. Mr Ebenezer said most of the school’s 1,300 pupils were following its rules, but a handful of boys had to attend after-school detention on Tuesday.
The school hopes the Saturday punishment will prevent pupils being suspended, which is also known as a fixed-term exclusion. But failure to attend will mean exclusion. Other aspects of the school’s crackdown on bad behaviour see pupils having to clean tables if they have vandalised them, do supervised litter picking, and some parents are asked to go in to sit next to their children during lessons. Mr Ebenezer said Saturday detention had been in the school’s eight-page behaviour policy since September and the school “haven’t needed to use it until now”.
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