To think this is outdated and needs to be removed?

[ballybean]

My son's school has an all glass isolation room in the hall with three desks, children are put there as punishment? Teachers and students walking passed

Try walking in the shoes of those who work in secondary schools who have to deal with shocking behaviour every day. OP’s perspective is that of an involved parent with a well behaved child who might be ashamed to be punished by the glass exclusion room.

The exclusion room at my old school (workplace) wasn’t seen as a punishment but rather a place to hang out with equally misbehaved friends and avoid working. However, it was necessary for safeguarding and providing respite from disruptive behaviour in the classrooms.

The internally excluded students frequently disappeared to the ‘toilet’ (to vape etc). 90% of their parents didn’t care what they were up to and the children had no respect for authority. The Police were frequent visitors. One mother of a particularly intimidating lad, who was totally out of control, would ring them on an almost weekly basis, using them as a support service. He would frequently trash the house and attack others in the family. The school went out of their way to support these children with counsellors and bring in outside agencies - but schools are a place of education, not a replacement for good parents and an extension of social services. When the high threshold was reached for a child to be permanently excluded, they would move on to the next school to deal with.

Over half the school staff left within one academic year, burned out and demoralised. I fear for the future.

Excellent idea!

I think they should be doing something more useful, like cleaning desks, but no doubt parents like you would scream "HOW DARE THEY GET CHILDREN TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL!!THEY SHOULD BE SPOKEN TO GENTLY AND ASKED WHY THEY BEHAVE THAT WAY POOR LITTLE PEOPLE 😫"

I wish I hadn’t read this thread as it’s brought back bad memories. One option I used to think might be a solution is for the worst behaving children to be signed up to online schooling, to be supervised by their parents. Perhaps they might then support the school with trying to get them to learn inside the classroom.

I don't think it's punishing to be visible, it's a sensible safety measure. I lecture in a classroom with one open glass wall and all the visitors stare at us, I don't mind at all because it's good to be open and visible and for everyone to see the stuff we are doing! There's no need for privacy for studying or for teaching per se, I like open plan/visible teaching, there is for private life and sanitary reasons.

The panopticon/prisons like this are places people live, if they don't start acting well soon, then prison, where they have to share a cell with another prisoner (who might be violent, unpleasant etc) and you have to shit in the toilet with them watching, is going to come as a horrible shock.

There's a pretty huge gap between making badly behaved children do something that might be a bit embarrassing and hitting them.
The former I wouldn't have a problem with and if my DC complained I would suggest they take steps to avoid it, such as behaving

Exactly!

If lazy, disruptive kids just affected their own education they could get on with being tossers as far as I'm concerned - but they don't. They ruin lessons for students who are eager to learn, and for some of whom school is an escape from chaotic and unpleasant home lives. It isn't just disruptive students who may have unhappy/ neglectful homes - there are many children for whom school is the only place they can feel safe and have a degree of calm, get positive attention and be engaged in something. The discipline of the school routine helps and reassures them. When other students destroy this it can be terrifying for them.

My understanding of the panopticon is that it's from the prison design of Bentham and that it was designed for individuals in cells to be observed centrally, removing the opportunity for plotting or bad influences between prisoners.

They could be seen, but because of the cell's side walls and backlighting, couldn't be seen.

So they know what the sanction is if they misbehave? So they know how to avoid said sanction? I don’t really see an issue here.

Totally agree.

Not upsetting disruptive/badly behaved children does not take priority over my kids and all the other kids that love school and want to learn as much as possible. A teachers main priority is to teach, not to have lessons interrupted by a tiny proportion of the class.

I do agree with other suggestions aswell of getting kids to do jobs around school if they cant behave. Cleaning desks in break time would certainly have put me off messing around.

Oh dear, i understand you are upset because some poor little poppets are humiliated. I mean heaven forbid they should be punished for disrupting the education of other children or for being rude and obnoxious to the teacher. Poor little angels. Or have you ever thought the parent should be bloody furious with said brat and should be reading them the riot act and underlining that they expect them not to be rude to their teachers ? No of course not.

I can't speak for everyone but I did find my speed awareness course humbling/awkward and I was embarrassed/nervous/anxious befor & during... really wouldn't want to do it again (not sure how much the fine was but it also cost me £100 and a half day leave from work)

it did feel a bit like being back at school and in trouble-(though I was/am a shy/well behaved and hate bring told off)

Of course not! The only thing that matters is Timmy doesn't get to feel bad or any consequences for violent or threatening behaviour. Other children and teachers should not expect to teach or be taught in a safe environment. Timmy is priority.

It’s interesting reading this thread about how schools are too lenient on badly behaved kids out of respect for their feelings at the same time as I’m reading another thread from a few days back where a child was given a detention (and the parent was asked to stop her after-school activities as further punishment) for wearing her house pin on her lapel instead of her tie…

Yes... but you don't tend to get to those kind of sanctions for the type of infractions that land kids in isolation in "zero tolerance" schools. You are absolutely not allowed to publically humiliate people as part of a disciplinary process at work.

Horrible practice that is being used by schools which are struggling to pick up the pieces that social workers, support workers etc., used to be able to do. But
since austerity Britain came in all of those sources of support went. So we
have ended up with schools with systems that simply don't work for some of our
most vulnerable and deprived children. I understand absolutely why mainstream
colleagues have brought them in, but I loathe them. I once came across a child,
with an EHCP mind, that had spent almost three months is an isolation unit in their mainstream school. A school run by the chain that is lauded by the DfE at the moment. Cost effective, yes, but not remotely inclusive.

Totally agree.
no one ever got shamed into behaving better.
it’s draconian, and schools are just shit.

They are put there if messing in class, distracting others etc

So by choice then.

I'd imagine by doing the above they've wasted enough of a Teacher's time so being able to be seen while sitting in isolation means the Teacher's can observe while doing the job they're paid to do and other DC can learn without interruption.

You know why many schools are "shit"?

Because many children behave like arseholes, and their parents don't support the school when teachers attempt to discipline them.

These children have parents who get furious when their child has detention, don't supervise any extra "punishment" work they are given, complain if they are excluded from extreme-curricular activities and all-in-all undermine the school's attempt to enforce discipline.

That's why many schools are "shit"

Shall we all write to our MPs and suggest opening a gulag? Get some proper discipline going. While we at it, let’s get some hostile architecture built in the playgrounds. Why not a guard tower with an armed guard?

I think we’ve got some good ideas on this thread for how to bring order to this chaos.

Oh Fgs maybe they need to feel ashamed to change their behaviour. No wonder some children are just so horrible today because consequences are so soft and not effective. If you don't want to sit in that glass room, behave yourself !

Yeah, agreed. Shame is a good behaviour modifier.

I suspect the glass box works on a number of levels. It's embarrassing for those kids that care/want to behave so it's a big deterrent for them, should they be tempted to behave in a silly way.

For those kids that do misbehave and feel the shame of being in there once, it probably works too.

And for the kids who are constantly disrupting they can be sent to the box. It means the kids who want to learn and not have distuptive/abusive/violent classmates ruining their education can lwarn in peace. Its unlikely those kids in the box will learn much, but the rest of the class can. It's far from ideal, but I'm not sure expecting teachers to be social workers, psychologists, mediators etc is ideal either.
I'm not.reqlly sure what else works, having kids standing in corridors never really worked when I was young, they just ran off, or made loads if noise. The kids who were very disruptive (not many) didn't attend detentions, ir just caused chaos when they did. Their parents rarely went to parents evening, and wouldn't care much. If they weren't allowed to go on activities it meant someone had to look after them, or they just skived, if they are rewarded for 'good" behaviour the other kids wonder why they're not.
I'm curious to hear other ways teachers can deal with disruptive teens, that are realistic.

Presumably the kids need to be kept an eye on but there aren’t free teachers available to sit in a room with them.
Schools used to leave kids sitting on a bench in silence outside the heads office.
This is much the same.

This could be a safeguarding issue and the school has no option. The fallout is that they feel humiliated. I suppose if they don’t cause trouble in class they won’t have to be there in the first place.

Precisely, and your point?

In social theory the panopticon is more of an idea of absolute surveillance than a description of the actual architecture. So, some lateral thinking required there.

Which school is this?
I'd check with the school what your son is telling you. It doesn't ring true. Kids aren't just chucked in isolation and left unsupervised apart from people walking past the school hall. There also wouldhf be room to section off a school hall like this.