You are head teacher of a school.

nanna8

Get the two of them to clean it up. One would feel resentful of the other but too bad, that’s life.

Absolutely not! That is unacceptable and it certainly wouldn't have happened in my school.

Get the two of them to clean it up. One would feel resentful of the other but too bad, that’s life.

Speak to their art teacher, to see if the damage looks like anything they've done in their class?!

I was frightened by my HT.
If I committed a minor misdemeanor, I was told to stand outside her office where everyone saw me as they walked past. I had to wait for a whole break time and when she eventually saw me, there would be a short reprimand.
The punishment was for things like being late, forgetting something or once for drawing cartoons of the teachers and being caught!

Sorry Biglouis your experience sounds awful.

As a former teacher tell them what an inconvenience they had caused and together they were to clean up also that you would be informing their parents. There is always someone in the class who sees the injustice of it and comes and tells.

These events happened in middle school so they did not affect my later career in secondary school. But I became a lot more worldly wise as a result of the incident, and more self assured. I got away with a lot.

At 10 I would not have said boo to a goose. At 11 I stood up to a bully and broke his nose. At 14 the maths teacher, who often picked on me in class, put his hand on my chest. I threatened him with exposure if he ever did picked on me again. I dont think he ever again addressed me or even looked at me in the classroom.

I had learned to stand up for myself.

I used to have to monitor detention and we scrapped the lines for dissertation on what the miscreant had done wrong, the impact of their behaviour on others and how they were going to improve their conduct.

Believe me, that was more mind numbing than lines, I hated supervising it, because I had to read it, sign it and send it home to the parents to sign.

My time would have been spent better teaching.

M0nica

I thought the point of lines was to set you a punishment that was so mind bendingly boring you would do anything to make sure you never had to write them again.

Some of us were slow learners 😁

Or had lines for a different misdemeanor!

I thought the point of lines was to set you a punishment that was so mind bendingly boring you would do anything to make sure you never had to write them again.

I still wonder what was the point of lines?
To instil in you what you must or must not do!

Whether it I worked on us at senior school, I don't know.
We wrote them down the page, firstly 100 x I, then 100 x must, 100 x not etc.

I would seriously think it is time to let it go

Yes, I agree. Whilst I've never forgotten the injustice and pain of being punished for something I didn't do, nor the other incident, and it made me indignant, I can't say it changed my life.

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!

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.

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.

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 am sorry for what you went through biglouis.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.
😁

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

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.

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.