You are head teacher of a school.

Punish neither and take a step back to think about it.

No HT worth their salt would go in all guns blazing and certainly would not interrogate them.

3 continue to interrogate them until one cracks

We have ways of making you talk 👹

Callistemon21

^3 continue to interrogate them until one cracks^

We have ways of making you talk 👹

Then Calli you would have the parents (and your bosses) coming down on you like a tone of bricks! 😉

Marydoll

Callistemon21

3 continue to interrogate them until one cracks

We have ways of making you talk 👹

Then Calli you would have the parents (and your bosses) coming down on you like a tone of bricks! 😉

I remember when three of us did something rather naughty (but worthwhile and justified) at school.

The form teacher was furious 😃 but not one of the girls in the class told on us, thank you LVA!
I think they would all have been Spartacus if interrogated.

I think it's important to follow the rules callistemon but also important to recognise the stupid rules and ignore them

Punish neither.
HT might suspect someone. But that is all it is. A suspicion.

If there was a history of the two of them going around doing that sort of thing regularly, that might be a different matter!

I knew a head who would tell the students that she was very busy at the moment and they would need to stay outside her room until she was ready to deal with them. Without fail the students would start talking, thinking she couldn't hear them. Often the guilty one threatened the other. All would become clear. She never said you did this or that but would ask why did you do that or how did you do that. It worked brilliantly,

Continue investigating and then make a decision on the balance of probabilities.

Judy54

Continue investigating and then make a decision on the balance of probabilities.

What if one gets it wrong and a child is falsely accused.
It's a dilemma indeed!

Ask for volunteers to help clear up the damage, not just these two but any others who are willing to help.

Fellow students will know who was responsible, because sooner or later someone will say something incriminating, if it was indeed an inside job. The word will get around. Then deal with it.

Tell them it's unacceptable, and that you intend get to the bottom of it. But without cctv you may never find out. I've had a couple of those incidents and eventually the culprit confessed, (junior school age).
I would let it drop. The only time I'd dig in is if a child's personal belongings were involved.

Likely that both were involved anyway. How often are these incidents in schools the responsibility of a lone operator?

Galaxy

I think it's important to follow the rules callistemon but also important to recognise the stupid rules and ignore them

Just to clarify - we didn't deface the school in any way!!
No damage was caused.
😁

Why should other students clean up someone else’s mess as a parent I would object very strongly to that tactic. It’s a dilemma put them both in separate rooms and suggest to each of them the one in the other room totally blames the other. It’s just a suggestion it might cause an admission of guilt then a clean up and everyone can move on.

What if one gets it wrong and a child is falsely accused

This happened to me at 10 years old (1950s). I wont go into the details. There were no witnesses because it happened at the end of the day when most people had already gone home.
The teacher decided to favour the other child because she was pretty and came from a religious background. She bullied me into making a false confession just to get away from her. My family just chickened out and failed to intervene. There was a great deal of respect for teachers as authrity figures back then. My grandmother wanted to bring in her solicitor to the school governors but my father forbade it. The stress brought on a breakdown and I probably failed the 11 plus because of it. The experience changed my entire personality.

Today that teacher would rightly lose her job and be publicly shamed.

In the circumstances you can either punish both or neither if there are no witnesses or evidence.

Redhead56 What is the harm in asking for volunteers to help clear things up? I accept that we do not know what the damage was so this this might not be appropriate.

As a child I would certainly have volunteered and I would have had no problem at all if my children had volunteered to clear up vandalism.

biglouis I sympathise with what happened to you as a child. I think we are much of an age and that kind of favouratism being shown by teachers was all to common at the time.

Neither I nor DH suffered as egregiously as you did, but his headmaster banned DH from using the school library when he was in the VI form because he was not prepared to apply to Oxbridge to read maths, which he did not wanr to do, but insisted on applying to other universities to study engineering

These were the lines I've never forgotton that were given to me and in fact our entire class at our very strict convent grammar. No-one owned up to the minor misdemeanour of knocking on another classroom door as we filed along the corridor on lesson changeover. I've never forgotton them!
" Churlish and inconsiderate behaviour by the minority inflicts on the majority, a punishment that could have been avoided had the minority exercised a little self control and honesty."
We had to write this 100 times.
I still wonder what was the point of lines?

I don't think Heads should lie to pupils Redhead even if you strongly suggest!

I am sorry for what you went through biglouis.

BigLouis, I'm so sorry to hear of your experience, it must have blighted your experience of school.

I found myself in the OP's situation, a number of times, it was a difficult, frustrating and time wasting.

I'm sorry that happened to you, biglouis

Many teachers and HTs could get away with bullying children more easily then.
I remember a couple of incidents from primary school which still rankle today but nothing as bad as your experience.
However, I was hit very hard with a ruler for someone else's misdemeanor and the other one I won't relate on here. Same headmistress, though.

I’m sorry this apparent injustice seems to have preyed on your mind for 70 years OP.
Times have changed, they and we have all moved on. Who is to say how or whether your life would have panned out better or worse if things had been different.
I would seriously think it is time to let it go.

Churlish and inconsiderate behaviour by the minority inflicts on the majority, a punishment that could have been avoided had the minority exercised a little self control and honesty

So true!
And the point of the lines?
Well you have remembered them!