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!

If there was a school available to us that didn't use isolation as part of its behaviour policy, then it would have been high up on my list. But they all do so it's really an illusion of choice, not me actively choosing a school because it has that policy. Two local schools were discounted by me because isolation appeared to be their go-to management strategy

There were no seclusion rooms when I started teaching 40+ years ago. Children were sent home and their parents bore the brunt of their misbehaviour. That was apparently not OK, so the internal suspension model of having the pupil in school but not having the nice bits, i.e. socialising with friends was brought in.

The dramatising of this is into some quasi- torture mode is beyond silly.

I get what you are saying, but if your child was subjected to the bundle then you would probably want a tougher punishment. Seclusion is used these days where in the past you were suspended - bullying in the playground (that's what bundling is) was 1 day suspension at my school

You can use whatever minimising language you want but your son and a group of his peers deliberately cooperated in an unprovoked assault on another child, in a way that could have caused serious injuries, for fun. Of course the teachers seperated him rather than letting him hang out with his mates to plan their next attack.

It's mad that people have this attitude that physical assaults are acceptable as 'bundles' and 'boys will be boys' at eleven and yet wonder why they escalate to knifing each other as teens.

I think seclusion has its place. They should be given classwork to do though.

If I had 2 children who were sent to the isolation room, I wouldn't be getting snidey with strangers .
There aren't enough staff or resources, and there isn't enough money to deal with behaviour issues. It's swimming against the tide.

[quote Platax]The British Psychological Society is clear that use of isolation rooms as punishment should be banned - www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/use-isolation-booths-schools-should-be-banned-says-british-psychological-society[/quote]
That's really interesting, and it's bit the first time I've seen a call for it to be banned from a group with an understanding of child development.

I hope people on here can see the difference between me not being supportive of the school or that DS didn't deserve a reasonably serious sanction, and me agreeing that the school were right to sanction as DS did indeed deserve it, but just not overall agree with use of isolation (unless in specific circumstances).

You have to trust me when I say that DS knows full well I side with the school re his behaviour.

He does also know, historically, that I don't agree with seclusion as a discipline technique as this was part of our discussion about secondary schools from when we started to look at them in year 5.

@Mookie81

If I had 2 children who were sent to the isolation room, I wouldn't be getting snidey with strangers . There aren't enough staff or resources, and there isn't enough money to deal with behaviour issues. It's swimming against the tide.

What two children and who's getting sundry?

"Snidey"!

@nosyupnorth

You can use whatever minimising language you want but your son and a group of his peers deliberately cooperated in an unprovoked assault on another child, in a way that could have caused serious injuries, for fun. Of course the teachers seperated him rather than letting him hang out with his mates to plan their next attack.

It's mad that people have this attitude that physical assaults are acceptable as 'bundles' and 'boys will be boys' at eleven and yet wonder why they escalate to knifing each other as teens.

I his defence, the child who bundled had initiated one on another child first. Not saying it's right or acceptable but I do know (from the teacher) that was the case. No one has come out of this well!

My son is pleased this happens in high school. He had so many lessons disputed in primary he is pleased he can now work and concentrate because disruptive behaviour is not tolerated and they will get moved. Rightly so. Why should my child's education be ruined my others kids who should know how the behave by now?

doggieflooflove
The BPS were responding to a specific situation in a specific special school, that if I remember correctly was a huge safeguarding issue and children were either unsafe or harmed, but BPS somehow decided off the back of that they knew what was best on how to run schools nationwide.

When they made that release it was challenged quite a lot from a range of voices in education, but natural the Ban The Booths type activists seemed to think it was a trump card. Of course they also argue that study desks with desk dividers are 'deep confinement booths' and think that working independently in a study room where staff expect them to work during lesson time instead of taking to others is sensory deprivation.

Where there's poor practice, it should be challenged, but I find it bizarre that there's seriously adults out there who think that it's wrong to expect students to work at a study desk during lesson time without having a gossip to the other students who have also been removed from lessons due to behaviour. I'd genuinely like to see them run a school.

I'm in my twenties now but I remember being dragged by my hair out of school by an ex boyfriend making us late for school. A teacher witnessed me getting dragged back in and walked past when he had me pinned up against a wall. I was put in isolation due to being late. He wasn't. Personally I'm happy to see the children causing potential injuries being punished rather than the victims.

I am not saying your son is like my ex. But the injuries he could have caused by this "silly" behaviour could have been so much worse.

From that link The use of isolation booths locates ‘the problem’ within the child and fails to recognise the links between disability special education needs, poverty, inequality, lower wellbeing, poor mental health and children’s behaviour in school. We need to see a cultural shift on how schools support vulnerable children

Does your child fit in to any of these vulnerable categories OP? If not, the BPS’s concerns about isolation don’t apply to him.

The link makes it clear they are concerned these are used for the wrong children, not that they potentially harm NT children who think it is OK to pile on another child in the playground.

It can work well. I know a child who was put in the 'hub'. They had to copy work from a random text book. All day. They said that they got more done in that day than they ever do in class, but they left absolutely determined to never get 'hubbed' again.

I think that if a child gets 'hubbed' repeatedly, they really need to think about whether that child has additional needs.

@BoredZelda

From that link The use of isolation booths locates ‘the problem’ within the child and fails to recognise the links between disability special education needs, poverty, inequality, lower wellbeing, poor mental health and children’s behaviour in school. We need to see a cultural shift on how schools support vulnerable children

Does your child fit in to any of these vulnerable categories OP? If not, the BPS’s concerns about isolation don’t apply to him.

The link makes it clear they are concerned these are used for the wrong children, not that they potentially harm NT children who think it is OK to pile on another child in the playground.

No I disagree with you there. It talks about the impact of isolation in children with SEND, but also says that there may be support for their use for teacher / pupil safety and should be taken on a case by case basis. My takeaway from that article is that the BPS doesn't agree with their use. So my views appear to be the same as theirs.

To be fair OP, the BPS are not teachers, nor are they school leaders, nor do they have any experience running schools or designing and implementation behaviour policies in large organisations.
They released that statement after a specific case around the same time Ban The Booths was going on, and never quite seemed to demonstrate much awareness of what isolation is in typical school or how it's used.

I'm one of the first to question inappropriate use of isolation and very quick to talk about SEN support, but the BPS responding to a specific case by making generalised comments of a sector that isn't their own doesn't really hold much weight.

Opponents: of course any poor practice should be investigated, but why are you trying to ban students from working on individual desks in a study room?

The answer to that, which you've artfully failed to mention, @LolaSmiles, is that the students should be working in the classroom. Particularly the children with SEN who form far too high a proportion of those sent off to these spiffy desks.

He won't be behind in his classes, he has the duty to catch up. Find out what the learning was and make him do it over the weekend then he is up to speed.

Why are you letting him fall behind in his learning because of this day - be a parent and make him do the work in his own time.

The answer to that, which you've artfully failed to mention, @LolaSmiles, is that the students should be working in the classroom.

Not being in the classroom for a day is really not the end of the world. The excluded student should be given proper work to do by the teacher. That's what happens in the schools where I work.

And it's not always as simple as 'the students should be working in the classroom'. If they've just massively disrupted tge classroom, behaved abusively towards classmates or the teacher, then no they shouldn't be in the classroom.

There is no reason why exclusion rooms should be traumatic places of sensory deprivation, and I find it very hard to believe that a significant number of them are.

Exclusion rooms don't need to be banned, they just need to be set up and used appropriately.

The answer to that, which you've artfully failed to mention, @LolaSmiles, is that the students should be working in the classroom. Particularly the children with SEN who form far too high a proportion of those sent off to these spiffy desks
There's no artful anything

How many times do you believe it's acceptable for 29 other students to have their learning disrupted a day?

I outlined how many disruptions to learning would happen in my school before a child is removed from a lesson. Each step of the way there is an opportunity to make positive choices, and we have an excellent SEN base and SEN team.

What people who are flat out anti-isolation never seem to explain is how much learning hundreds of students should miss in the name of their cause. They claim to care about lost learning, but never for the 29 other children in the room How many children are you happy to miss out on the grades and education they deserve in order to keep a minority of students in the classroom based on nothing more than an ideological objection to students working in a study room at a single study desk for a short period of time?

How many victims of assault and bullying should have to remain in class with the perpetrators in the name of keeping everyone in the classroom?

How many times should staff accept being threatened, verbally abused and assaulted in the name of keeping students working in the classroom?

(And again, it goes without saying if isolation is being used inappropriately it should be challenged, but that is totally different to thinking students should be kept in the classroom)

As you're concerned about the lessons he's missed, then I'm sure you'll make sure he borrows a book off a friend and copies it all up and you check he's understood it, just like we had to do if we missed lessons for any reason when at school.
Then you can't complain he's missed lessons.

As for isolation my ds, who can be very silly, asked his teachers if he coukd have a desk on his own facing the wall when he was in year 7 because he recognised he worked much better like that without distractions.

Not you OP.
Another poster who had one child sent for throwing a pencil and another for uniform.

My takeaway from that article is that the BPS doesn't agree with their use. So my views appear to be the same as theirs.

Seems you are reading what you want to from it, confirmation bias.

It specifically mentions vulnerability. Is your child vulnerable? Is not then that link is irrelevant to your son’s situation.

@Platax

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

Lack of proper thought about university courses. There are too many courses which are prepared to take students with quite low A level grades, and children get steered towards them when they would really be much better off taking vocational qualifications. At the end of their course they end up all too often with, at best, a low level degree in a subject no employer is interested in, and massive debt.

This is true. I worked briefly in a crap University College that took absolutely anyone as long as they coughed up the tuition fees. I used to read first drafts of essays that my 9 year old could have written better. Some couldn’t string a sentence of English together. One trip to ‘study support’ and it was passable having basically been rewritten for them. They were a collage connected to the University of Birmingham and so some actually left with UofB degrees. I was ashamed to work there and left but that is another scandal of our time just waiting to be exposed.

Whether or not seclusion is sometimes misused or over-used, as far as I'm concerned this was an appropriate time to use it. If the staff knew that the boy who was the victim of your son's bundle had initiated a bundle first then I hope he was put in seclusion too. Your son sounds full of excuses for his own behaviour and you should not be supporting that.

If they were all being dangerously stupid then they all need a serious consequence, and a day in isolation would be about right.