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?

Just because it's never happened in your experience does't mean it has never happened.

Yep certainly happens locally.

The whole issue that many are missing is the total lack of appropriate funding for SEN in schools. First to go are teaching assistants who are invaluable in supporting challenging behaviour.
Then there's a vast reduction in the number of places in specialist provision meaning that more children are being left in mainstream schools without the resources to support them. This is heavily weighted against SEMH needs.

Oh, and not all academies are the same! I work in one. We have set up a Nurture unit to support children with a number of SEMH needs that can't cope in classes of more than 4 or 5 other children. We get no funding for this, apart from via EHCP, which as we know are harder to obtain than hens teeth!

The fact theres specialist autism provisions suggests your school is perhaps more clued up on autism and isnt the type to send kids to isolation for not making eye contact/saying thankyou in the corridor/ not having 2 compasses.

It depends why they are in isolation for me. If they are violent or massively disruptive, then something needs to be done and exclusion has to be an absolute last resort, we've also heard plenty about the link between exclusion and knife crime so for me isolation is the lesser of two evils.

For uniform infractions? Absolutely unacceptable and I have no idea why schools (academies, mainly, referring to England) are allowed to impose disproportionate punishments of this nature.

So sitting firmly on fence.

There is a difference between deliberate uniform infractions and ones caused by poverty. I am not a fan of uniforms, but if a kid has deliberately flouted the uniform, I don't see an issue with them being in a booth like this doing work for the day.

Is this used for minor infractions with kids whose parents refuse to let them attend detention?

Kneel at that school, certainly, but in my current school we don’t have autistic provision but autistic students do not end up in isolation. They have all the support available - but support in schools is at an all time low.

I’m frustrated after all my years teaching that the students in those isolation booths swear up and down that they did nothing wrong - I deal with it daily in my form. Students who are breathtakingly rude, who steal, who vandalise, who disrupt and disrupt and shriek at the injustice when their behaviour has consequences. Most parents are well aware of the truth, but there are always some who are convinced it’s everyone else’s fault but their child.

Schools are not shoving children with SEN into sensory deprivation booths; schools are using isolation as a consequence for repeated horrific behaviour. The campaign against isolation is misguided and will only push a situation already in crisis closer to breaking point.

They really really are. Local experience ans its why I am not sending my suspected asd child to my local school.

One of the difficulties is that classes don't have just one kid with SEN in them anymore - you could have three with ADHD, one with emotional difficulties, two with ASD and a couple with anxiety. And two little shits.

Add into that a low level of literacy, dyslexia and, all too often, shit home lives and as a teacher tries to get the class settled, something happens and it kicks off, especially if there is always one or two who can be relied upon to not just disrupt other kids' learning, but are also quite unpleasant to the other children on the whole.

What else can a school do with somebody who, for example, will argue that everybody's picking on them, but apparently forgets that they repeatedly call another kid a retard because they find writing difficult, sings 'Dead Mum, dead mum, dead mum' at the kid whose mother died of cancer last year and gets in the face of another who has ASD and screams two inches from their face until they are practically catatonic with terror?

It's not fair on the other kids to have to put up with that.

It's not solitary confinement, it's a room which is peaceful and low on distraction/stimuli/sensory input - and many students have been known to deliberately play up in classes, just so they can get themselves somewhere where they can work uninterrupted (resources for each subject are provided).

Schools are not shoving children with SEN into sensory deprivation booths; schools are using isolation as a consequence for repeated horrific behaviour Bollocks. My child has never been violent. Never displayed horrific behaviour. Yet he is in isolation repeatedly for very minor infractions. These reasons have all been confirmed by the school.

And yes its absolutely. because schools arent coping with sen provision as an academy without local authority support/finances/ money etc.etc. There truly is a funding crisis and parents arent aware. They just complain when it goes wrong for their child.

At my school there is currently a child whose behaviour has led to him being offered alternative provision. His family refuse to transport him there and as he is still on roll we have to educate him. He cannot be accommodated in a class room due to persistent extremely poor behaviour. Where do you suggest he goes rather than isolation?

I used t work with children. I can think of several who would have ended up in these rooms for minor infractions. But it would have been repeated minor infractions all the time that were incredibly disruptive to everyone else.

Ours (like many others) is a "No Excuses" school - so isolation/detention first time, everytime. No excuses...

At the time I posted the post below other posters had been on the thread discussing the impact of isolation policies on them and their children. I don't see anything contentious in what I said.

It is great that you don't personally know of children with autism put in isolation when they have special needs but posters on here have said otherwise and it seems to be a factor in the families taking legal action against the department of education.. but
captain you just keep making out I am ill informed..and I know you hate emojis and fuck probably didn't want me to send flowers to teachers ...

I said :
And best of luck to all the other parents and children
 and teachers on here. Especially the children who are suffering as a result of frequent exclusions under the guise of "isolation booths"..

May the teachers you come into contact with have empathy and care and love for the children they teach (fingers and toes crossed)...

It runs like a bootcamp. But does get results. Many leave...

I answered for my child, not anyone else's.

There are plenty of kids in isolation who are NT and are capable of choosing to behave appropriately. 2 of my favourite students last year got 3 days internal exclusion (so, in isolation) because they decided - for fun - to sit on their mates' chest until he passed out. Because they were being numpties. They didn't like missing out on seeing their mates, doing their lessons, being able to chat during the day. They saw it as a fair result though. They didn't do anything quite so stupid again.

I don't think isolation should be used for small things - uniform, equipment, not making eye contact (who the fuck punishes for that?).

I would love for SEN students to be properly supported. So that poor behaviour caused by unmet SE needs doesnt occur in the first place - but this requires funding that schools simply do not have. That is the fault of the government, not the school.

It's not a perfect system. It's a tool, one if the few schools have left at their disposal. Some schools use the tool well / appropriately, some do not. But I don't agree that it should be taken away.

Yes, what Dobby said.

captainbrickbeard still interested to hear what you did with regard to the school that you left because you said a victim of rape had to endure having her rapist around??

So until the shitshower in Parliament sort themselves out, SEN children are fucked?
I might as well let my child stay up all night on the computer then. He'll end up in isolation tomorrow anyway. We'll just have to suck it up.

www.dropbox.com/s/tmr7cxzgwjli9d8/greatyarmouthcharterrules090917.pdf?dl=0

Have a look at this link - its got some of the No Excuses type language.

• always walk facing forwards, eyes front, single file.
• you dont even pick up a pen without being told to. Punishment for little infractions is important...

I havent got time to pull out all the small detail. But this really really does happen in this type of school. There's lots of them.

Apologies I see you tried to take it further.

Well thank goodness for those mothers who campaigned so one just hopes no one would ever be able to accept such nonsense now... You have to wonder who at the school made the call to put a rapists rights above the victims

finishers

I have knowledge of instances where students with asd have been put into isolation (a normal classroom with booths around the edges and tables in the centre, staffed) because they have caused very serious disruption (wrecked a classroom needing other students to be taken out for their safety, or hit a teacher or another student). Had it been a NT student they would have been sent home and moves made to permanently exclude but because of the SEN school did what they could to keep the student in school (if that is what the parent wanted). As terrible as it is, the reason for the behaviour doesn't make it any less frightening for the other students and schools can't just do nothing in these instances.

Banthebooths campaign is not talking about schools that have a room with desks and dividers and the children are sent there with work. For want of sounding like a broken record, these are literally self contained booths for a single pupil with nothing for them to do.

I am really struggling to understand why posters cannot grasp the difference. And whilst they won't get sent there for a pencil case error that will be one step on the very short road there.

P17 of above says about "Shape". The E is for eye contact. One is for always saying Sir. The same page it says if you answer without all these "we will punish you."