To raise a formal complaint regarding school isolation

[HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend]

Last week a group of 20-30 kids were throwing acorns at each other in the school playing field, a child who also throwing the acorns, got hit in the eye which I've been led to believe required medical treatment, teacher asked who hit the child and DS said he believed it was his acorn, and that he was sorry, and did not mean to cause anyone harm.

He was given a days isolation plus after school detention, however on the day with only 10 mins notice.

His head of year called and said as he admitted it was him, they had no choice to follow the isolation process, however admitted they thought it was harsh, however rules and rules which we will adhere to and support the school with.

DS has NEVER been in isolation.

My AIBU is, Ds was made to sit in a 2 by 4 booth, being made to sit upright and face a white wall for the whole of the school day. NO SCHOOL WORK WAS GIVEN AT ALL

He could not tell the supervisor he had no course work as he isn't allowed to talk while in isolation, and tbh nor should even have to ask for course work, its the supervisors role to ensure DS has course work, which is the policy in DS school.

Only one teacher called the isolation supervisor to ask if DS was present, however did not send course work, not one of his other 4 teachers called to ask if he was present.

The isolation supervisor has confirmed all of the above is true his HOY has advised us that they have passed it on to the isolation manager who will be calling me, however even after chasing it up everyday for the past week and leaving messages for them to call me I am still awaiting the phone call.

My own DS ended up requiring medical treatment as he endured a headache with sickness and sensitivity to light, ds has never had a migraine before isolation, which the A&E doctors advised was the cause.

I wouldn’t send my child to a school where they treat any child like this. It’s appalling. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done. There are disciplinary measures that can be taken that don’t involve effectively imprisoning a child. This country has gone mad if we think this is acceptable.

@Balaboosteh The idea of isolation is that it is not meant to be fun. It's a sanction.What would you like to do with students persistently breaking schol rules, swearing at a teacher etc- give them a box of chocolates?
It's a shame the isolation supervisor has not chased up work, the schools I worked at always had either some work for students in isolation, or teachers could see who is going to be in isolation on the day and email work. Supervisor should see who is and who is not doing any work and follow up.
It should not really be the job of each teacher to ring up about every absent student to all possible school numbers to see if a said student is absent because they are somewhere else.

@MsAwesomeDragon : your school sounds excellent in terms of how this incident would have been handled, when isolation rooms are used and how they are used. I'm sure if all schools had behaviour policies which are administered like this then the vast majority of parents would be supportive.

My dd is lucky enough to go to another sensible school. I asked her about isolation rooms and she said that she has no idea what happens in them, but children are sent there for "defiance".
She had an operation a couple of months ago which involved having her hip broken. She's still non-weight bearing on that leg and her foot is swollen. Since then she's been wearing correct uniform on the top half, but leggings and trainers. Not one teacher has mentioned it. The Head and members of the SLT have seen her, but haven't said anything other than to ask how she is.

The petty and unfair reasons which posters have given for their children being put in isolation or threatened with isolation are absolutely shocking.
I'm outraged by *@FlashbyReputation's" comment that this thread should be published as an example of Batshit parents; The teacher recruitment crisis explained. How is is batshit to complain if your child is punished for dropping their dinner after being knocked into by a teacher or for having low absence because they were hospitalised after being assaulted by other pupils (an example from earlier in the thread)?

I'm a teacher - albeit in primary - and a parent who has always been supportive of my child's school, but I am absolutely disgusted by the way that some schools abuse their power.

Flash by - you cannot compare world events to this one incident - that's an ridiculous argument. If we all compared our comparatively first world issues to world events mumsnet would not exist!

Biscuit

I hope you never have to deal with any real breaches of human rights. I think you might actually dissolve in a heap of froth.

What would you suggest schools do in order to deal with disruption in lessons? (I’m talking about the wider use of isolation rooms now, not just the OP’s son)

Schools deal with vulnerable students in complex and difficult family situations. Students with attachment disorders. Students who have no consistent messages re behaviour outside school. Students with undiagnosed learning needs. Students with highly disrupted educational experience. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Schools offer Thive, some counselling, some mentoring, some key workers, some additional intervention - all from a pot of money which is probably a third what it was 10 years ago. Schools do this with a high degree of variability and skill, I accept that. I don’t know how to fix that, with no money for training.

None of that is a magic wand - it takes time and gentle, regular engagement.

So - in the moment, in the class where a child is destroying the learning environment for every other child (who also have rights, remember) - Biscuit, what do you suggest we do?

This thread has taught me a lot about the motivation of the anti-smacking brigade.

The punishment the OP’s son endured is infinitely worse than a smack; I really doubt the police would be allowed to make a prisoner sit up and stare at a white wall for 6 hours.

So, sadly, I think the motivation of many posters is having a go at parents rather than actually caring about children.

If this happened to my child (especially for what is a total accident from silliness, rather than any malice) I would be complaining very very loudly and high enough up the chain until my son received a meaningful apology and steps were put in place to ensure it never happened again (to any child at the school).

In my day isolation was just used for serious things. Wouldn't mind seeing its use extended to pupils who don't shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down in lessons after being repeatedly asked but not beyond that. Lunch detentions would have been a more proportionate response here.

And, as for what the school should have done, in this instance an apology and detention would suffice.

For worse cases the school has choices: suspension and/or the police.

Schools are places for learning; they need behaviour management policies up to a point. If it goes beyond that point there are authorities better equipped to deal with serious (criminal) behavioural issues.

DS was physically attacked in school twice on the same day last year because the child who assaulted him said DS was looking at him weird, DS had no classes with this child, and before his attack, had not even spoken to him the bully got 1 days isolation, I do think DS isolation day was harsh, however I still stood by the schools rules

@MsAwesomeDragon, hopefully when I have the meeting with the school, I will ask for clarity on the schools behaviour policy.

Flash honestly you post is frankly ridiculous, Exactly the same behaviour standards as everyone else in lessons - every one else would have been allowed to move between classed, had course work, been able ask for questions, not being forced to sit in a 2 by 4ft booth facing a blank fucking wall!!! for over 7 hours!!!

What my DS was subjected to was cruel and a cut throat abuse of authority!!!

A colleague of mine had a 15 year old student shit in a crisp packet and throw it at her. Seriously- this is what we are dealing with in some schools. Where are the defenders of teachers human rights?

Are you suggesting this is a daily event or an exceptional one? This is not new, there have always been pupils at this end of the behaviour spectrum. It does not excuse inconsistently applied and cruel punishments which in any other walk of life would be called out as abuse.

Read TittyFah's post. You could get similar accounts from every school which has gone down this total control route.

In particular it punishes the children of poorer parents with the endless petty uniform infringements and increasingly the punishing of children whose parents can't pay up for eg a term's dinners in advance. Its all about creating a feeling of no power and no control. The same techniques are used in prisons in some of the less savoury regimes.

Its also a model made for bullying and incompetence. At some point we will have to deal with the fall out from these regimes and look back on them in much the way we look back at caning now.

As a parent and a former secondary school pupil, I do not understand what benefit schools think there is to applying draconian punishments to minor misdemeanours. Otherwise children don't distinguish the difference between not having the correct bit of uniform and attacking teachers and you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.

In my school that is reasonable grounds for a fixed term exclusion.

Instead of being woe is me for your son that did something wrong, think about the other child's parents if the acorn your son threw lead to him being blind!!

You are being very unreasonable. Schools are allowed to give after schools detentions on the same day and they are allowed to put students in isolation with no warning. Your being ridiculous, and sending him to A&E is even more ridiculous. You just wasted valuable time, money and resources just because you want to make a point

The thing is, if you foster or encourage a culture of brutal punishments for minor offences, you end up with a far, far worse environment. Because cruelty doesn't work as a way of maintaining 'order'. Sooner or later, enough strong, intelligent people manage to convince the rest that they deserve better treatment from those who have appointed themselves as authorities, and then the best you can hope for is that change is achieved without too much violence.
The current trend for cruelty in schools ties in with the change towards education as a profit-making thing: nearly all the appalling harsh punishments and stupid uniform rules come from academy chains (you know, those organisations that are repeatedly being busted for providing shit education and for fraudulent accounting...). It also links in with the increasing brutality and coercion in things like the benefits system (people with terminal cancer being found 'fit for work' and having their benefits stopped, etc).
While I wouldn't go so far as to start babbling about global conspiracy by the lizard overlords, I think part of this is down to a lot of people with power having no clue at all about the real world. If you grew up rich, went to private school, got a job straight after university due to your family's connections etc then any bizarre fantasies about empire, the ruling class, the deserving poor, achievement on merit etc that you may have will never have been tested. So you think that what the lower orders need is Good Old Fashioned British Discipline because they are feral scum. And you are way too unimaginative and poorly educated (in the truest sense of the word) to be aware that this is disastrous.

Your being ridiculous, and sending him to A&E is even more ridiculous. You just wasted valuable time, money and resources just because you want to make a point

No, you're being ridiculous. OP did not take her son to A&E to prove a point. Do you really think she would have spent all that time up the hospital and put her son through that to prove a point? It is common knowledge that if your child has a severe headache, with vomiting when they have never had this before you get them seen. 111 were concerned enough to want to send an ambulance. Those symptoms can be a sign of meningitis but you think OP shouldn't have taken him in?

If anyone is being ridiculous it is you.

"They all should have been punished"

If 30 adults went into a field juggling with knives and one person got stabbed, the stabber gets punished.

If 30 adults went into a field juggling with knives and one person got stabbed, the stabber gets punished.

Not always true. Google “Joint Enterprise” or “Common Purpose”

Link en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_purpose

pouraglasshalffull Are you a mother? I hope you are not if you pathetically think I made my child have medical treatments to "prove a point" your frankly absurd!

Instead of being woe is me for your son that did something wrong, think about the other child's parents if the acorn your son threw lead to him being blind!!

If you had bothered to read the thread, you would know OP had spoken to the other child's parents, she is fine, and the parents quite surprised at the level of punishment.

@ReanimatedSGB I totally agree with you about brutal disciplinary measures being down to economics. I think what our current government has done, spectacularly well, is convince the vast majority that being poor (and the social results of this) is a moral failing. They've 'othered' certain socioeconomic groups so that if you are treated badly by authority then it is because you deserve to be treated that way, as has been so neatly shown in this thread. I do believe that is a global conspiracy in a way.

I think you should put in a complaint 4 levels

1 Punishment disproportionate to the level of offence. Unless there is a specific rule that he has broken that states that isolation is the penalty. In reality the throwing of acorns was the misbehavior and all participants should have received a serious telling off and perhaps a lunchtime detention.

2 DS was given little notice of the isolation, not briefed in what to take and what to expect.

3 He was given no work to do. While it would be unrealistic for every subject teacher to set work related to the classes he was missing, there should have been some generic work available. Other posters have suggested he put up his hand so the supervisor could come and find out what was the problem was and he could ask for work. I see 2 ssues with this. 1 He was not aware that he was allowed to do this. 2 It must have been completely obvious to the supervisor that he had no work and they did absolutely nothing to rectify the situation.

4 You should definitely include the migraine that was undoubtedly a direct result of this isolation. Not just a migraine but one so severe that doctors genuinely thought it might be something more serious.

It is very slack that they haven't called you when they said they would but I think you should put your complaint in writing anyway.

Reallybadidea: “think what our current government has done, spectacularly well, is convince the vast majority that being poor (and the social results of this) is a moral failing. They've 'othered' certain socioeconomic groups so that if you are treated badly by authority then it is because you deserve to be treated that way, as has been so neatly shown in this thread”

But poverty has always existed and much worse than today. School children have never behaved so badly than they do today so how do you explain the difference? I’m an atheist but maybe years ago, there was a certain code of behaviour amongst the general population of church goers which helped people stick to basic moral codes and rules of society.

DH grew up in relative poverty at times when his dad was out of work. 8 of them living in a tiny terraced house. This was only the 70s and early 80s. MIL once used dog food in a pie once by mistake and the dog got the tinned meat meant for the pie (I think labels had come off the tin or something which was why she got both cheap.). I don’t think think she could afford to go and get more tinned meat so they all ate The dog food pie unbeknownst to them until years later. (Everyone except MIL that is!!)

Every member of that family has grown up and is doing well in their career but have all moved out the area because it has gone from being a poor working-class Street where there was no trouble ans everyone worked hard and behaved themselves to one where there are regular drugs raids, Joy riding etc.

The level of poverty is the same but standards of behaviour has gone right downhill and it’s not a nice street to live on now, with dodgy neighbours etc.....

You can’t just blame poverty when thst’s always existed. But kids never ran riot in schools. So what is it thst’s Changed? The disappearance of corporal punishment? It’s my guess that it is. No-one wants to see those days back So we need to find another way to instil really good discipline in our pupils. At least schools are trying various methods. They have to try otherwise as I’ve said upthread, state education will all but disappear as no-one will want to work as a teacher. There is already a recruitment and retention crisis in schools and it’s getting worse. At my school and in many others there are non-specialists teaching subjects that they only studied to A-level. Because they CAN’T recruit.

It’s reall very scary and we are currently saving hard for our future grandchildren to go private.

Unless we find a way to keep behaviour in schools to an acceptable standard then we will end up with the wealthier amongst us educating their kids privately and the rest having no choice but to have their children educated by who knows what/who. The church again? “School for the poor”? They stoppped existing years ago but they will end up coming unless we get a grip on behaviour in schools, and society as a whole, quickly.

So for everyone on this thread who believes that isolation rooms of any form is barbaric, what methods do you suggest that schools use when they have politely and firmly asked a pupil repeatedly not to do something or instructed them to do something (I’m not talking about OP’s case. I’m talking generally BTW) and the pupil does not do it out of defiance. Give detention? The pupil doesn’t turn up? Exclude from school for a few days? The kids love that, Xbox at home, a lie in, daytime telly etc.

Exclude permanently? And where are these magic behavioural units that are perfectly staffed to cope with demanding behaviour? Where is the money that schools need to pay for their pupils to attend them?

Prevent SOME of the problems happening in the first place by ensuring that you only accept pupils who come from the perfect socio-economic background, none with high-leve SEN issues,no-one with mental health issues or family issues? Can’t do that (although I have my suspicions about how some schools operate to avoid accepting. some of these groups), and neither should we.

What about the rest? The ones who come from ok families, Miss and Master Average? But who more and more bleat on about unfairness, their rights etc but don’t want to know about their responsibilities. Who have grown up in a culture where people have to do very little to get rich. As long as you can witter on about crap on YouTube, or shag a muscley, orange, hairless (and brainless) nobody on a reality TV show then you’ll make money.

Our generation of young people are lost and facing an uncertain future. Their standard of education needs to be preserved. In SOME way.

Therr is no easy answer. If you think you have the answer then you’d better approach the D of E quick because they would pay you a lot of money to resolve these issues.

I hope your Son and other boy are feeling better today OP

Curly I am finding it infuriating that despite several posters - including you and me - describing in some depth the current situation in schools, the response is that schools are no better prison/torture and that we should cease and desist.

Curly - maybe we should start by fixing the environment these kids are growing up in, which tells them they and their families are scummy proles, trash, worthless, feral; which dumps them on sink estates or leaves them at the mercy of private landlords who won't undertake necessary repairs, so they are living in damp, cold, unsafe houses; which deters them from applying to university by making it something that will put them in debt for most of their adult lives; which offers them only zero-hours contracts on minimum wages, doing pointless shitty jobs where they are treated like subhumans... Why the fuck should these kids 'respect authority' when all their experience of 'authority' has been contempt, bullying, random punishment, the closing down of public services, etc.