Isolation booths

[Pliudev]

Ok I'm ready to be shouted down by long suffering teachers but isn't the use of isolation booths an infringement on a child's human rights? I've read today of a child who attempted suicide while being kept in one of these punishments booths for prolonged periods. And of a boy who spent 35 days in one. What have things come to when schools can inflict this kind of punishment? In both of these cases the children had mental health issues. If parents isolated their children in this way wouldn't that amount to abuse? And isn't it an indication of failure on behalf of schools that there seems to be growing use of this kind of punishment? And how can schools justify fining parents for taking children on holiday if it is ok to suspend their education for long periods in isolation?

I completely agree OP. We wouldn't treat adults this way. And putting a child with mental health difficulties in isolation is just barbaric.
It always seems to be the MAT s who use these tactics. Thank goodness they didn't exist when my children were at school.

Well why dont you suggest some alternatives finishers?

And isolating for talking or pencil cases is appalling. These shouldn’t be even on the radar.

So what’s the answer then? I’m genuinely curious what a teacher should do if one pupil is disrupting the entire class from learning?

Putting children with mental health issues or SEN in these is awful, yes. What should the schools do instead?

What did the students in these articles do to end up in the inclusion unit in the first place?

Madam well I guess you go tell that to the parents of a child that tried to commit suicide - ffs what an insensitive comment.

barbariabmum you can keep your shitty sarcasm

finishers

If by your post you mean me, I am not an apologist and am pissed off by being held to account by my reasonable requests for (any) information of an OP, looking at you Pliudev who posts a rant with no evidence whatsoever that has been back-filled in by others posters.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3226324/Students-removed-class-Magna-Academy-Poole-not-having-right-length-ruler.html

Apologies it's a daily mail link - and not the school in the OP but I remember being fascinated by the story at the time. The head is going on to be in charge of the MAT and a role to spread their practice further.

It really is an approach thats spreading.

Won't click on DailyFail, but is that what the OP is referring to?

The first answer is limiting isolation, 1 day, 2 days... Fair enough, days and weeks and months? No fuck that..

That points to massive failures on the schools and teachers part to deal with behaviour issues.

Why aren't they telling the parents? Why aren't they trying different methods of discipline? You beat a child once, they learn to fear, they don't learn to behave. Put a child in isolation repeatedly day in and day out, what's that teaching them?

Take them out of the class they're disrupting, get them a five and doing something, cleaning the school, sweeping the school hall, working in reception, helping admin with menial tasks etc etc etc.

There's more ways to help a disruptive child than isolating then for so long they attempt suicide.

The people to really blame for this, they're easy to track down, they're called Tories and Tory voters. Austerity, cuts, cuts, cuts and more cuts. The voters wanted this, so well done them.

Finishers you seem very wound up. I’ve worked in a inclusion room and it was as described by another poster a room with a room of desks often all occupied staffed by people looking directly in their direction so presumably the school in question had an unmanned isolation room in which case that would be a dereliction. Take a breather

echt

You're not actually real right?
You ask for links and sources but:

Won't click on DailyFail, but is that what the OP is referring to?

I fear they would see admin or cleaning the hall as a prize to strive for.🙁

And they wouldn’t be allowed to either due to Health and Safety risks

echt if you read the guardian there is an article there.

Sorry, but this is, once again, someone who has no experience in teaching bashing practices that are necessary due to poor parenting, austerity and a lack of regard for education.

Should we scrap the entire practice because a child with mental health problems was put into isolation when they should have been identified as a risk? Of course not. Knee jerk reaction from an extreme-case scenario.

Children who are sent to isolation are not done so without reason - when you're a teacher, you're held accountable for the children is your classes' progress; why would you want to send a child out when you know that their education is going to be impacted unless their behaviour is negatively affecting the progress of the other 20 odd pupils?

In an ideal world, they wouldn't be needed. But due to, as I said above, poor parenting; no respect for education; and no money for specialist provision, there is no other recourse for a teacher.

And saying 'we wouldn't treat adults this way' is a ridiculous argument. I wouldn't expect an adult to hold my hand crossing the road, tell me where they are at all times or do what I asked - but it is fine to expect children to.

Isolation booths are not like solitary confinement in prison. It's a room with lots of desks and dividers between them. Anyone who makes them out to be hell-holes has only ever read about them.

So yeah, In summary, I think you're being unreasonable.

I think some people live in a bubble and don't encounter the sort of behaviour that leads to students needing isolation.

There should be a national out cry about school funding. Those of you expecting schools to support students, please explain exactly how. We have no money for extra staff. We have no money to buy in Ed psych support. We have no money for specialist teachers. We have no money for textbooks fgs.

Schools have to impose sanctions. Schools are somehow becoming responsible for all sociatal problems. Parents are generally unsupportive of schools and don't impose consequences at home. Therefore schools take this role. This week the government has said schools should be legally accountable for knife crime. Since when did that fall anywhere near a teachers remit!

Take them out of the class they're disrupting, get them a five and doing something, cleaning the school, sweeping the school hall, working in reception, helping admin with menial tasks etc etc etc.

You can't do that.

And yes, exclusion for a day or two and then back to class is great if the behaviour doesn't continue. But what if it does?

What if that child is so disruptive that no other child in the class can learn? Or they are bullying another child to the point of self harm or suicide? Is that ok?

There needs to be proper alternatives but they cost money and the government simply aren't willing to provide it. Instead individual schools are being criticised for trying to manage as best they can with disruptive often violent pupils who need 1:1 and sometimes 2:1 support in a classroom that is 1:30. The system is wrong but that is down to funding cuts, not individual schools.

I was a teacher until a few years ago, and I’ve staffed an isolation room. I can only really speak about the schools I’ve worked in, but the isolation rooms aren’t like a prison cell. They’re just desks, with walls each side so the students can’t interact. The students are provided with work to complete. It’s onviously not anywhere as good as having a taught lesson, but they’ve generally been out in isolation because their behaviour is completely inappropriate for a classroom and they’re preventing the others in the class from learning. You’d have to have done something pretty disruptive to end up in isolation.

Having said that, it’s not much of a surprise to hear that students with SEND that, if not properly supported to be in a classroom, are more likely to display disruptive behaviours, are disproportionately affected. As support services to schools and the LA services themselves have been decimated, alongside school budgets, schools are being asked to achieve the impossible. The situation in schools are dire. Because of public sector cuts everywhere, students are coming to school with greater needs (not necessarily talking about SEN), the resources to support them are disappearing. With academisation, LA services are removed, so expert support/guidance for particular needs is unavailable. There’s a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, which means many children are now being taught by unqualified staff or supply, who just don’t have the same knowledge as a qualified teacher, class sizes are increasing. All of which means schools are less effective in supporting SEND children, or bereaved children, or children with any sort of need, however temporary or permanent.

People seem to think kids only get put in isolation for violence or disruption and yet at my dc school I know children who have been in there for the wrong haircut or forgetting a planner more than once.
It's mental.
At the same time the schools are too big and there's not enough space and no football at break (for letting off steam). The whole place is run like a low security prison. If I won the lottery I would go private in a heartbeat.

Madam

Based on your sarcasm on this thread I can only hope that you don't interact with children at risk of Inclusion now.
I don't need to apologise for my views.

Bearing in mind that the OP has said zip about what they are actually referring to :

The first answer is limiting isolation, 1 day, 2 days... Fair enough, days and weeks and months? No fuck that That points to massive failures on the schools and teachers part to deal with behaviour issues.

Possibly

Why aren't they telling the parents?

Schools never do that because they are bastards, and not bound by law.

Why aren't they trying different methods of discipline?

They can't be arsed

You beat a child once, they learn to fear, they don't learn to behave

They can't hit kids now. Do keep up.

Put a child in isolation repeatedly day in and day out, what's that teaching them?

It's not beating. Possibly at the least they aren't stopping others learning.

Take them out of the class they're disrupting, get them a five and doing something, cleaning the school, sweeping the school hall, working in reception, helping admin with menial tasks etc etc etc.

Never been in school where this is allowed. The pupil must be given work related to education.

No sarcasm intended, not sure where you are getting that from you just seem pretty wound up.

Support for children with ASN is being cut in our area. It is bound to lead to more children with ASN not being able to cope with the classroom environment and becoming distressed. If that ends up with my DD (doing very well academically but suspected autistic and starts hearing voices, self-harming and talking about suicide when she is distressed) being put in one of these booths, it will be a breach of the Equalities Act.

It breaks my heart to think of distressed children being put in these conditions because the money is not being invested in helping them. No wonder our teenagers' mental health is crashing... What a way to treat people.

echt if you read the guardian there is an article there

finishers I get it. It's the lazy, unattributed rant by the OP that boils my piss. Had they got off their arse, so much of this this thread wouldn't be going round in circles,