AIBU to think seclusion is a ridiculous behaviour management policy?

[doggieflooflove]

Now I know In some circumstances it's necessary, but as a general behaviour management tool it's awful.
DS is in yr7. He unfortunately had his first experience of seclusion today after being involved in an incident last week. No fights, malicious behaviour etc, just some silliness that went too far. Now I totally accept that he should be sanctioned and take his punishment.
But a whole day in a room with just a work sheet to fill in, missing 7 lessons including a graded test?
Why not just send them to the seclusion room at breaks/ for lunch for example? For DS, it's not part or a pattern of behaviour or an escalation. So a whole day of education missed for what?
Yes of course I'm hoping it will help him realise what is not acceptable behaviour so will behave better in future.
But really? Surely there's a better way than this unless its the only option left?
Help me accept this is the way it is at secondary please!

We always had the odd bundle in my day but is it happening too much at your son's school? Are they trying to stamp it out with harsh sanctions

In general it does sound like seclusion is used a lot by schools these days. I only remember it being used for serious incidents and it was called internal suspension. Did the authorities tell schools they had to limit how many kids got suspended so they just came up with another name?

I don’t know what you’re trying to gain by asking everyone if YBU or not. Some will say yes, some no. Do you plan to take this thread to the head and complain? Or ask for recommendations on schools which support your views?

I think schools are often too quick to isolate pupils and often dont look at the reasons behind it.
I use myself as an example I used to actively try to get put isolation because the bullying was that bad so I was able to get away from it there. I'm not saying its every child but sometimes it is a cry for help.

Schools use isolation because there are plenty of teens who care about little except their friends, separating them from them can be one of the only consequences they actually pay attention to.

Re the possibility of going into isolation being a’cry for help’, possibly true in a few cases but in this one being part of a bundle seems unlikely to say the least.

No, OP I agree, that incident doesn't warrant seclusion for an entire day. That's ridiculous.

Teacher here. It works. They hate being away from their friends

I'd love some of these parents to spend a day in a school managing behaviour.

One person's silliness is disrupting anothers education

He was part of a dangerous physical altercation and the sort of thing that can unsettle classes for the day whilst those involved go into classes and repeatedly discuss how funny it was. The school have shown they don't tolerate dangerous physical behaviour. Your son will learn.

Isolation rooms have high sided desks that are rather similar to some of the study spaces in my university library. It's not sensory deprivation to sit at a desk and work independently, and that kind of hyperbole makes it harder to establish where there are very real concerns about settings.

In general it does sound like seclusion is used a lot by schools these days. I only remember it being used for serious incidents and it was called internal suspension. Did the authorities tell schools they had to limit how many kids got suspended so they just came up with another name?
It's used more because schools have correctly identified that learning can be disruption for all by a range of persistent behaviour that is a lower level than a serious incident.

At my school before a student is removed from a lesson:

1. Informal warning
2. First formal warning
3. Second formal warning and a move of seat or spoken to out the room
4. Moved to another classroom close by
5. Removed by behaviour team

If 1 student does that 5 lessons a day then that 1 child has disrupted learning 25 times. If your child is in a class with 4 students doing that, their learning could be interrupted 100 times in one lesson. That's a lot of learning time taken up dealing with what someone people say is low level or silly behaviour.

Our school set trigger points for going into central detention and isolation because lesson disruption is considered a problem. We generally have very calm lessons.

you are only thinking about your son here, his loss of learning, his isolation. What about the other hard working children in the class who are sick of 'silliness' and 'high spirited behaviour'?

It seems to be the risk of whatcouldhave happened that got him into so much trouble.

Yes, sounds about right to me.

Kids will be kids tbh. People in the comments act like he's a grown man who purposely tried to hurt someone. Kids always do dumb stuff that results in consequences.

Seclusion is one of them and it isn't going to kill him. He was there for a day not multiple days/one week. It may seem extreme but not being able to walk to lessons with your friends in the corridor or not being able to have lunch with them is shit at that age.
I'm sure he'll think twice before doing anything silly again

It’s 1 day of missed school. He can catch up by copying from other pupil’s work. I’d rather my kid get the isolation and learn that it’s not ok to put other kids at risk or disrupt their learning. If every kid in the year did a one-off thing like that, there would probably be not very many incident-free days in the school calendar.

ds got in trouble for throwing equipment in year 7

it was a pencil

dd had to go to seclusion for wearing the wrong trousers

Take away his breaks for a week,

A nightmare to organise. It's not like primary where you just stop them going out at playtime and supervision can be done between the teacher and the TA. He'll be with a different teacher each day, and they'll have break duties, or jobs to do, or just need the toilet. He could be told to report somewhere, but he'll take 5 minutes to get there, and may need to be allowed to go and collect books for his next lesson.

stop him from going to sports clubs for a week or whatever.
Only works for those who are desperately keen on sports clubs.

Make him sit on his own at the back of the class.
That relies on there being enough spare places. Most classes are full - there isn't space for that.

For dangerous behaviour, the point needs to be made - that means a heavy-handed punishment, I'm afraid.

I do think it works better where suitable work is supplied to the seclusion room - and in particular he could have done the test. But that is also tricky to organise - a message to send work down will work if the class is spending most of the lesson doing a written task, but you can't send down a discussion lesson.

hopefully he wont join in a bundle again,
lesson learnt

When I was a teacher, I felt like the teacher up thread, who values the learning of the 24 in the class, and I would have loved to IMMEDIATELY get rid of the disrupters -their behaviour should have consequences for them, not for their peers.

Now ds is in y7 and experiencing the impact of the disrupters, I feel even more strongly about it. If and when he screws up, I will expect them to drop on him like a ton of bricks and I will expect him to learn from his mistakes.

I agree.

My daughter’s behaviour is getting worse but isolating her is a useless response. She needs nurture not isolation.

(She has some SEN and yes- I’m working with her on behaviour as much as I can too)

@Confusedteacher

So this is where they all pile on top of each other, right? Which could be frankly terrifying for some and very dangerous. It sounds like they are trying to stamp down on dangerous behaviour in the playground and making an example of this group of kids. I think it’s a fair punishment tbh. It’s one day, and he won’t do it again!

But it would be much more sensible to make a clear announcement that this sort of behaviour is going to attract punishment, and then have an escalating scale of punishments. Especially when they're dealing with Y7 children in their first term.

A nightmare to organise. It's not like primary where you just stop them going out at playtime and supervision can be done between the teacher and the TA. He'll be with a different teacher each day, and they'll have break duties, or jobs to do, or just need the toilet. He could be told to report somewhere, but he'll take 5 minutes to get there, and may need to be allowed to go and collect books for his next lesson.

Not in the least difficult - if anything, it's easier to organise in a secondary school where you have more staff and space, and frequently have staff with specific responsibility for behaviour. The school just has to arrange a detention room for each day's miscreants, and a rota for staff to cover it.

The schools described on here by teachers sound like brutal , lord of the flies, scary and overwhelming places for many eleven year olds . It’s absolutely a systemic problem of schools just being too big. It cannot be rewarding for teachers to see 300 pupils a week , how can they get to know them as individuals . It’s just about crowd control. When I was at school most schools were between 800 and 1000 pupils max but I know from working in school finance that financially schools of this size are only viable now if in a chain.
Our schools reflect our society , how have we got to a stage where the behaviour of our young people has become so bad and relationships between school and parents so mistrustful.

@AledsiPad

Absolutely nowhere in real life, bar prison, isolates human beings and denies them education for poor choices. Least of all ones who are children - 11 ffs - and still learning.

Seclusion is a fucking awful way of ‘behaviour management’ and a sign of a school that is failing at a base level to understand their children.

I despise it. I despise most things about secondary school in this country to be honest. It absolutely fails to set children up for college/university/life.

And yet we have the highest number of children going on to university and successfully getting degrees. How do you explain that?

My 27 year old DD used to misbehave in lessons so she could get sent to isolation where she much preferred the peace and quiet to get on with her learning. She got 12 GCSEs, 4 A levels, a first class maths degree and is now a very highly paid accountant.

If a child is ‘making poor choices’ in lessons, they’re not learning. But neither are the remaining 29 children. So what should the schools do? What do YOU thing the solution is?

@MrsLargeEmbodied

ds got in trouble for throwing equipment in year 7

it was a pencil

Your point is?

It's a lesson learned for him. Consequence for his behaviour. That's all.