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.

But the school is not adhering to its own behaviour policy by not setting work? Why should op back the school when they can't get their own policies right?

*The problem with migraine is once you have it, it can lead to other things you cannot do.

It becomes a lifetime issue.

It is not just a headache.*

I don't follow? If you have a migraine it becomes a lifetime issue?

“Also ds has advised he was not the only child to endure the white wall hell (as he now calls it) he advised other students were subjected to this, “

Oh just listen to yourself! The language you are using. “Enduring”. “Subjected to.”

It was a wall. A WALL! It wasn’t smeared in excrement or covered in nails, or had a spotlight attached to it shining in your son’s eyes. Is there a reason your son couldn’t have read a book while he was waiting for work to be sent? (Which, by the way, as others have mentioned, takes time to happen. It takes a lot of staff time, effort and money to put these behaviour policies in place and to keep them running).

I suspect a bigger problem with the migrane will be the amount of pupils saying that they have one because they have been put in isolation.

Agree my child should behave, and he did not, so because of his admission, he sat in a 2 by 4 booth, facing aa white wall for the whole school day upright, and not once did he complain, he didn't even complain when he had his bloods taken or endured being in a big scary CT scanner while they took scans of his brain!!!

NOT ONCE has DS complained, its ME who is unhappy not of his punishment but how he was treated while in isolation.

DS school has lockers, his school books were in his locker, as he had PE for his 1st lesson the day of isolation.
This is why he couldn't read a book. Maybe you should try reading the thread?

If your son doesn’t know, that’s as it should be. If he were to know, it would undermine school authority. If there were future incidents, you’ve set an unfortunate precedent and he’ll expect you to mitigate any punishment he may receive. Having parents intervene doesn’t do children any favours in the long run. They end up lacking respect for authority, and it encourages misbehaviour as their parents can always sort out their problems.

If your son hadn’t misbehaved, he wouldn’t have been in there in the first place.

I cannot see for the life of me how this kind of treatment is any improvement on giving a kid a 'good slap'.
If isolation meant the child had twice as much work to do and was just strongly supervised I would get it. But sitting upright, staring a blank wall for hours is abusive in any other context. How can schools be allowed to do this?

And I agree bad behaviour needs stamping out but this is not the way to do it.

I wonder what would happen if a child disclosed to a teacher that they were forced by a parent to sit upright in a chair in silence for a whole day as a form of punishment? I think that might ring a few alarm bells.

I think it's a draconian form of punishment and totally disproportionate to the misdemeanour. Yes, there are discipline problems in schools but I don't think that this sort of punishment is the answer at all.

Endured a big scary CT scanner?

Seriously - you need to get a grip. You’re being ridiculous. He’s a big boy, he can handle it.

You’re focussing your attention on totally the wrong thing. Behave badly and there are consequences.
The teachers can’t be expected to abandon teaching and race around after one student who acted up and so ended up in isolation. If he plays up first thing how and when should they prep work? And how should it be sent down?
Get your kid to behave. Stop being that parent.

Having parents intervene doesn’t do children any favours in the long run. They end up lacking respect for authority, and it encourages misbehaviour as their parents can always sort out their problems.

My child unable to move from his chair or speak to anyone for 4hrs whilst in isolation to the point where he wet himself. At 14. I intervened. Should I have just let him suffer just to hammer home the point that he should never question authority?!

I don’t agree with the comments about kids being kids etc and that all of them get in trouble at some point. I don’t think some parents realise that there are many, many kids who never get in any trouble at all in school.

YANBU to query why he had no work to do. I don’t understand your concerns about teachers knowing he was there etc

Well he won’t be doing it again will
He, and no doubt will also put some of his friends off. Support the school in their disciplinary policy

Endured a big scary CT scanner?
I know plenty of grown adults who find them scary and claustrophobic

So with ten minutes notice he was oi en an after school detention
Then the following day in PE a kid came in and said he had to go to isolation.

So he went, was given cold food at lunchtime, allowed a wee and was told not to talk or move. He had to sit in a chair, eyes open and look at the white wall.

No one knew where he was so at afternoon reg he was just marked absent

At the end of school he came home, and sometime after midnight when he'd been vomiting for 9 hours you took him to hospital as they suspected meningitis but diagnosed with a migraine.

Is that right?

I'm not sure unquestioning respect for authority is a lesson I want my kids to learn.

Do you honestly expect teachers to abandon an entire class to do nothing while they gather textbooks and worksheets to take to kids who cant behave?

In most schools pupils are expected to have a reading book on them at all times. Did your son not have one?

Sorry, bit you are being that parent. Behaviour in schools is awful and detrimental to pupils and staff. Your son misbehaved, he was punished. It was shit, I agree, but shit enough he wont be going back anytime soon.

Thats the point.

Actually I’m with you on this OP. Fair enough he should be punished but if you have a policy it should be stuck to, otherwise what’s the point? And actually I’m not sure that sitting facing a wall with no interaction allowed at all is fine in the slightest. I’d expect a teacher/supervisor to lob him a book once s/he realised he had nothing on him. I’d make sure it was a tedious book but at least something.

I think you’re doing the right thing by keeping your dissatisfaction from him though. I’d get him to move on from it but would want the school to in future stick to their own policy which they wrote!

If it is part of the policy to provide work, then work should be provided. If that can't be organised maybe they should rethink the crap behaviour policy?

“DS school has lockers, his school books were in his locker, as he had PE for his 1st lesson the day of isolation.
This is why he couldn't read a book. Maybe you should try reading the thread?”

Isolation rooms tend to have general resources available such as reading books, revision guides etc for those pupils who are waiting for work to be sent.

If your son’s school didn’t have SOMETHING to occupy the pupils while they are waiting for work then you could suggest to the school that they could put that in place.

if you’re absolutely SURE that no-one working in the isolation room checked that your son was occupied with specific work/general subject resource/KS3 revision guide/reading book while waiting for work from his teachers then it is worth speaking to the school. But please don’t view it as complaining about yiur son’s treatment, please view it as a chance for the school to see where the gaps in provision are. Therr may have been staff shortages that day, or an unusually large number of pupils for staff to arrange work for. You are not aware of the possible issues by the sound of it.

I’m sure your DS has learnt a valuable lesson here. Don’t admit it was ‘your’ acorn when there is no proof and the entire group is at fault!

Yes RoboticMary endured a big scary CT scan. That is incredibly dismissive - as a pp said I have known plenty of adults who are scared by them/the idea of them and in fact they aren’t undertaken lightly in children so he must have been pretty sick to get a medic to get one.

I think the OP is NOT disputing the punishment in and of itself, rather that they haven’t followed policy!

I think that you are right to complain. Detention doing extra work or cleaning classrooms or litter picking- fine.
Detention writing lines- annoying and pointless but ok.
Detention staring at a plain white wall- punishment designed to cause distress.
And for the people saying that she shouldn't have taken the child to ED- the doctors did bloods and a CT- were they overreacting too? Staring at a blank white wall sounds like a very likely migraine trigger to me.

YANBU

Imagine the other parent, whose child was assaulted, nearly blinded needed medical care. The only punishment for the aggressor was sitting in a booth for the rest of the day.

This is exactly what is wrong in schools today. One pupil assaults another, school tries to punish pupil. Then instead of supporting the school, the parent complains about the punishment. He was under peer pressure, they were all doing it, it might not have been him, the booth gave him a headache, the wall was to white, he wasn't pandered to enough...

Next time that pupil is in trouble whats the odds he says "You can not put me in isolation, mum says it gives me a headache". I despair!

Robot would you put your child in a small confined space for a whole day for a pretty low key misdeed. I guess not. As teachers we are in loco parentis so act like parents of a child and l would think it would be a rare parent who would administer such a punishment.

Exactly! Most people would say such a parent was abusive. So why are schools allowed to do it?