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 would find it HILARIOUS, if it wasn't so sad, that we live in a time where the slightest physical chastisement is denounced with horror, but schools are happy to subject misbehaving children to conditions worse than those we inflict on convicted criminals.

YNBU. I think you're right to complain.

As you've repeatedly said, you aren't complaining about your son being in isolation. You're complaining about the policy not being followed correctly.

Your son and the other children involved weren't disrupting a lesson or being disrespectful to adults. They were just being 12 year olds messing about at breaktime. The child who was hurt was one of the silly kids being typical 12 year olds.
For all of those reasons the punishment seems ridiculously OTT. But kids and parents need to support schools' behaviour policies and both your and your ds are doing this.

My dd hasn't ever been in isolation and I teach primary so we don't have isolation and I don't really know how it works. I accept the comments made by secondary teachers in terms of the difficulties in accessing emails and sending down work during a busy school day

But the descriptions of how isolation works in practice sound ridiculously extreme. I can't see the need for it to be carried out in such a draconian way. I wonder how those posters dismissing concerns would feel if they'd spent that many hours sitting in a booth staring at a wall in complete silence. If it's not practical to provide work for students, surely there could at least by a trolley of books so that they could have something to read.

Actually RobiticMary he couldn't handle it, he was terrified and had wet himself on the scanner, his whole body was shaking with tears pouring from his eyes, and at 12 years old he was curled up in a ball on his Dad, however not once did he complain.

In fact he did complain, he said to his Dad he was sorry he had got pee on his trousers, and made him smell.

However we are getting off point, I disagree with you however as you have already formed your opinion of my child on a one of isolated incident.

DS accepted his punishment, so even if I had told him that I was unhappy and had contacted the school, he, HIMSELF took responsibility for his action and took his punishment without complaint

DS has said he wont be throwing acorns around, or anything for that matter

Good. The punishment worked then.

.OP you could email the HoY and express concern about him not having work. The HoY will know the system is not perfect. If the policy is not manageable then perhaps it should change - we have computers in the isolation room that are restricted to 5 specific revision sites and word. That helps a bit.

But...if your child had put up his hand and waited patiently, I’d imagine the isolation manager would have come over, then your son could have asked for a book/work/whatever. Being told not to talk does not prevent him doing that. Did he try?

I wish children could work productively in isolation but I teach back to back all day Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday. Break time is spent setting up for the next classes, photocopying resources (no reprographics support, no text books) for the next class and if I’m lucky having a wee. Usually whilst I’m setting up/photocopying I’m also dealing with pastoral issues.

Get isolated on a Thursday or Friday and I’ll get work to you.

I would be going forward with a strong complaint.

Your son owned up that he might have caused another child injury and took his consequences without complaint.
I've always disliked the way schools punish one child more then the entire group involved, especially when there was no way to prove who actually did it.

His school failed to follow their own guidelines and caused your son injury. They now need to face their own consequences.
At minimum I would expect a review of their isolation policy.

“I think that you are right to complain. Detention doing extra work or cleaning classrooms or litter picking- fine.”

Fine to you but to the next parent they’d be up to the school claiming it goes against their child’s human rights. I’ve seen it happen.

Schools honestly can’t win. As a parent your job is to support the school as best they can with the behaviour policies they have in place. If you think some of them could do with a bit of tweaking then by all means send an email to the school suggesting that eg, they provide some generic learning resources in the isolation room if they’re not there already.

I don’t believe I am scaremongering when I say that if parents don’t start supporting the school and respecting their authority then in a few years’ time we simply won’t have a state education system. Because there will be no-one left who wants to do the job, and get moaned at and trodden over by kids and their parents.

Was the Acorn eyed boy also throwing Acorns??

I can't imagine he was stood still in amongst the group of 12 year olds whilst they attempted to purposely remove him of an eye.

I think teachers need to remove the stick from their backsides here.

The way I read this is it was a group of 12 year olds playing with acorns as if they were snowballs. No malice, just Tom foolery that went wrong.

It's unfortunate that your dd was the thrower of the one that happened to hit someone's eye BUT every single one of them were doing the exact same activity, including the one who ended up injured.

Why target one boy??
All it teaches is that;

1. It's okay to throw acorns as long as you don't hit the eyes
2. If you do hit and injure someone just lie and deny it was you

I also think that giving isolation in a small white box room with artificial lighting and no supervision or work is completely inappropriate.
It's nothing more than a tick box exercise to record a punishment against a potentially serious incident.

“schools are happy to subject misbehaving children to conditions worse than those we inflict on convicted criminals.”

Oh get a grip. Why don’t you visit on the next open day and visit the isolation room and ask exactly how it works instead of making assumptions and listening to a child who insists they had to literally stare at a white wall all day. Have you worked with teenagers? They have a tendency to exaggerate somewhat and complain unfairness at the slightest thing. Even the nicer ones.

Whilst I normally support the school in this case YADNBU. The posters describing a migraine as a "headache" are clueless. It seems a great shame that your DS was harshly punished for owning up to a mistake, especially when others who committed the same error got away.with it. Anyone of the pupils throwing acorns COULD have hurt someone, so why just punish one? All in all the school have been rubbish. Your DS on the other hand sounds great. Everyone make a mistakes, especially at his age, but facing up to them takes courage.

I also think that giving isolation in a small white box room with artificial lighting and no supervision or work is completely inappropriate

It will be a booth in a room, not an individual room! It’s a school, not a Japanese hotel!
He was supervised.

Christ... who'd be teacher.

Have you worked with teenagers? They have a tendency to exaggerate somewhat and complain unfairness at the slightest thing. Even the nicer ones

Indeed. It’s because their brains are basically like toddler brain so their emotional regulation is out of whack and they are egocentric in their thinking.

Rules and boundaries are a good thing. Boredom is a surprisingly effective catalyst for change.

I think the punishment was unnecessarily harsh. I have 3 dc, they do stupid things at times and occasionally hurt each other accidentally. Would I carry out this punishment in any of them? No!! If I did and they suffered the consequences the OPs son did, would I feel terrible? Yes!!
Children mess up and do daft things without malicious intention. This sounds a daft punishment. I'm amazed so many people on here are defending it!

cariadlet: I think you would be shocked at how quickly the behaviour of your year 6s deteriorates once they get to secondary and start following the crowd of older bigger kids in terms of behaviour. It only takes a half term for a lot of them to completely change. It’s really really sad to witness. And schools have tried various sanctions for many years, wirh behaviour declining all the time. We can’t bring back actual draconian punishments like the cane and nor woukd j want to, but for far too long the onus has been put on the teacher to make teenagers behave, with all the kids espousing their rights but none of them taking any responsibility.

If isolation is what has to happen to change the culture in many secondaries then so be it. Back them up, parents, because I don’t see anyone rushing to become a teacher these days.

Why don’t you visit on the next open day and visit the isolation room and ask exactly how it works instead of making assumptions and listening to a child who insists they had to literally stare at a white wall all day
I visited one. Exactly as described above 8 booths facing the wall.
Try reading this maybe then you won't be so patronisingly dismissive.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mental-health-children-uk-school-isolation-punishment-consequence-booths-education-a8423531.html

I have 3 dc

We have just under 1500.

It’s not the same as being at home.

All those throwing acorns should have been punished including the one with the injured eye. It was typically playful behaviour without malice but it could have severe consequences and so needs to be heavily discouraged.

I’m confused about the ‘sitting uproght’ th8ng. Don’t all students have to sit upright in chairs all day?

So a 12 year old has to sit in a cubicle all day, in silence, facing a wall. He is not allowed to communicate at all with the supervising adult.
I'm shocked. That is not my idea of a fair or suitable punishment. I assume he had toliet breaks and lunch though? Time to get some fresh air?
I imagined isolation to be working in a separate classroom during lesson time and being inside at lunchtime. Not being sat in a punishment booth.
These were 12 year olds pranking around. No actual maliciousness intended as far as the original post indicates. If they were actually trying to cause injuries my view would change a little but really a lunchtime detention for all involved would be more than sufficient.
No wonder the mental health of school children is in such a fragile state. The system has completely lost it's way.

When you say formal complaint do you mean having a chat with the headteacher? Anything more than that would be over the top.

Yes, kick up at them. Isolation is a nasty, excessive punishment and parents need to make a lot more fuss about it.
It's important to teach your children that 'authority' isn't always right and that it's OK to resist and object when you are being treated unfairly. Schools are altogether too enthusiastic about punishment for minor offences these days (kids get put in isolation for things like forgetting their tie or their planner.) It needs parents pulling together to oppose this sort of malevolent stupidity to put an end to it.

And, some of you, calm the fuck down. Chucking acorns at each other, without much malice, is an entirely normal thing for kids to do.

Agree all acorn throwers should have had the same punishment.
You're right to take it up with the school that they didn't follow their own guidelines.
I hope your DS and the boy who was hit are both ok.

BachAtTheMoon

So what would you suggest to replace isolation?

No wonder the mental health of school children is in such a fragile state. The system has completely lost it's way

The mental health crisis teenagers has precisely fuck all to do with isolation and everything to do with funding cuts in MH services. And poverty. And increasing drug use. And the fucking Internet/social media reducing their resilience to zero.

Schools are busting a gut to try and mop that shit up because that is now our responsibility as well as educating. Mainly without adequate training - my background pre teaching is in MH.

Please don’t lay the MH crisis at the door of schools. That is just bollocks.

SleepingStandingUp

No, the incident happened at lunch time last Thursday.

DS went to school on Friday, and in that time, went to registration and when he was getting changed for PE 1st lesson another child came to take him to the isolation building.

We were called around 10-11ish to advise DS would be kept in isolation and also after school detention until 4.30pm

DS came home and his Granddad (we don't finish work till after 5.30) called to advise DS was complaining of headaches, and said he was heaving, his Granddad gave him Calpol, however an hour or so later DS started being sick, his light sensitivity started around 11.30pm, and his head pain at this point was beyond painful, this is when we decided to phone 111, and we were told a doctor would call us back, when they eventually called us back they told us they were sending an ambulance, however at this point we had already decided we were taking DS to hospital.

Ds was able to leave hospital around 4ish on the Saturday afternoon.

I did not want to make a formal complaint, I still don't even know if I do, hence this thread, however the Isolation manager is refusing to take my calls, DS HOY is also unhappy, however as its not her department, she can do anything.