Isolation rooms in schools

[Chichi444]

Hello !

So my sons school has very strict behaviour policy which includes Isolation rooms which pupils are sat in without the freedom of leaving even for just going to the bathroom unless accompanied by a member of staff and and are expected to remain silent and have no school work given to them and these pupils are given no movement breaks.

This punitive measure is given for even the most minor slip ups such as not having the right uniform or for more serious behavioural issues.

My 11 year old son in year 7 and he was given two consecutive days of Isolation which he sat for 7 hours in a row without movement break so altogether 14 hours , for nothing which was severe enough for to be punished that way.

I was told that he was to sit a third 7 hours in isolation.
Ive decided to challenge their decision as I feel the reason for it didn’t warrant such harsh punishment.

Ive wrote to the principal requesting to review but meanwhile my son isn’t in school as the school told me that whenever he returns to school he will have to sit the isolation.

Now what I’m asking is has any parent out there ever challenged the school on such matters what was you experience and eventually the outcome?

Any input would be so helpful thank you!🫶

That's great.

Where's the money coming from to pay the additional adults needed to actually do this well?

If a child is sent out for behaviour, there are no additional adults spare to facilitate a meaningful regulation and restoration. At most, you'll get a 30second chat with a member of SLT before they have to go pick up the next kids that's been sent out.

School staff do actually know what to do. They don't have the funding to do it.

Ofcourse in a school that has an attitude of removing every Tom, Dick and Harry for minor infringements SLT are going to be spread thin. Like I say it comes from a place of adapting your methods, understanding behaviour, deescalating and better education for teachers. Blame and push the government rather than blaming the children.

I get it. The funding is shit. But passing the book to the DC and giving up isn't good enough. My nephews school has the attitude of 'well what do you expect us to do'. I notice they have way less EHCPs than my DCs school and are stuck in a cycle of bad behaviour. The school need to find solutions that work. In my experience the schools that do well are the ones that put in the leg work when it comes to getting the support and funding in place for their children. The schools that put in the ground work and push the LA the most.

Right, @Thedefault so you do actually believe that a pupil who swears at a teacher should be removed from the classroom despite your suggestion that teachers who remove these behaviours from the classroom are ‘in a career they are not suited to.’

I don’t think anyone on this thread believes it’s appropriate to stick that kid in a room on their own for 7 hours with nothing to do.

I believe removing a child from the following lesson is excessive. I stand by my claim that swearing is an occupational hazard in teaching and believe that a teacher that cannot cope with a disregulated child is in the wrong career. That particular poster claimed that there aren't any other jobs where people would have to put up with that, whereas most do. The difference is we cannot just remove the swearer from the situation in most circumstances. I think teaching is one of very few jobs where we can seemingly cherry pick the work we want to do whilst simultaneously claiming to have the hardest job in the world.

Again you are only focusing on the impact on the child and not the message sent to the rest of the class. Swearing at a teacher should be seen to be taken seriously.

You are not considering the message that is being sent to the rest of the class.

The teacher that acts like being sworn at by a child is no biggie is a poor colleague and a poor role model.

I haven't said swearing should not be dealt with. I have said a secondary school teacher should expect that this is behaviour they will encounter in their career.

You’ve said that removal from the following lesson is ‘excessive’.

Like I said, taking it seriously sends a message to 29 other children.

Also, being sworn at by a kid is shit. Yeah it happens, but it’s still shit when it does and prissily talking about being in the wrong career if you aren’t just fine with it makes you a bad colleague.

I believe it is excessive. I know it is shit. I am stating the claim that noone else has to deal with swearing in the workplace on a Mumsnet forum away from children is incorrect. I am not saying we shouldn't take the behaviour seriously infront of children. Many schools manage to find a way to educate even their difficult children.

Many schools manage to find a way to educate even their difficult children.

Who is this aimed at? What is it in relation to? Because you seem to be suggesting that having a kid removed from a subsequent lesson for swearing at you is failing to educate them.

How would you feel if he put a search for ‘naked girls’ into Google?

He wasn’t googling these terms, he was putting them into google translate. Why would he want to translate a racist term into a different language?

The previous post said 'noone has time for more than a 30 second chat' with the removed child. That suggests they are missing out on that lesson rather than given it elsewhere.

About their behaviour?

No one has said that this child shouldn’t be doing any work.

I would hope he would be sat down and it be explained why he shouldn't do that.
Not sit in silence doing nothing for 21 hours (total).

My kids always have pens, and I (nearly!) always had a pen. But I remember when I was at school, some people forgot them. Teachers would lend a pen.

I don't understand what's going on with teachers around this sort of thing these days.

This is the initial purpose of this post, that the child was isolated without work or movement breaks. I said I believe isolation has a purpose when reframed with intention. I believe when we use it too often it looses it's purpose. I have also said I can understand why some posters believe isolation should not be used, as lots of research seems to suggest that it is not helpful.

Yes but you are quoting people who are clearly talking about removal from a lesson for swearing, not the child in the OP not being given any work, people who have repeatedly said they disagree with this yet you are responding as if they agree with it.

It’s extremely tedious.

Removing a child from a lesson for bad behaviour is quite right, but sitting kids in silence on their own for extended periods is known to be bad for the child and cause increased behaviour issues.

If this is an accurate description of this school's conditions for a student in isolation, I'd say it was very unusual. I've taught in quite a lot of schools. In the ones which had isolation rooms, the students in isolation (often several at a time) were given work to do for each of the day's lessons. They were usually allowed to go to the toilet unaccompanied (but not during break/lunch), unless they were a flight risk or considered likely to go and vandalise stuff or fight people! They were taken to another room to eat their lunch.

I don't disagree with isolation rooms (as long as they don't have separated booths). They are not 'abuse', because the students are not actually isolated. They are always in a room with at least one other person. Giving them no work to do is absurd - I find it hard to believe any school would do that!

I would be interested to hear from some posters with their suggestions for managing behaviour in classrooms. Genuinely. I work in primary and at the top end of school we have no end of disruptive, disrespectful, violent and abusive incidents by pupils towards each other and towards teachers. We are so limited in what we can actually do to sanction them and the sanctions are so frequent they lose efficacy over time.
I am an experienced teacher in a great staff team but the children we teach now just don’t want to learn and so damage the learning of the other 25 children in the class.

I’m not sure how much some posters here understand about the funding problems and coalface reality of teaching these days (in some schools/some parts of the country).

If you find my posts tedious, you could choose to ignore them rather then extending the conversation by continually asking me questions about them. I am allowed to give my opinion on a post, just as you are.

FWIW, @Thedefault- I usually get sworn at in Arabic where I teach, & it does not bother me personally at all. When I get as far as the restorative conversation I gently explain that I do understand the phrase 'kus umak' or whatever it was, & do they think that was an ok thing to say?

They are usually fairly shamefaced at that point...

It's not about me requiring administration of smelling salts to carry on teaching, it's that I've got maybe 15 other kids in the room to crack on with the lesson with, so the child who has lost his shit, however briefly, has to be removed so we can all get on.

There's a whole ladder of warnings & reflection opportunities long before that for just being a low level PITA. I think I've made 3 removals this academic year.

We really aren't carting kids off wholesale to some kind of Sensory Deprivation Tank for dropping a pencil. They get escorted to the Isolation room, given the opportunity to write a reflective statement about what happened, given a worksheet which aligns with whichever lesson they should be in by then, & a restorative conversation is held asap. Quite often they're back in lessons within a couple of hours.

If the child is placed in isolation for a day as a sanction, it's because they're really not ready to be in class &/or their presence would cause problems for everyone else's learning. The alternative would be a fixed term exclusion, which would mean they'd be at home (or out & about) & definitely not receiving any sort of education.

Is a day of boring worksheets in silence optimum learning conditions? No. No one is suggesting it is. But it can be a better option than simply refusing the kid on site altogether.

This wasn’t an issue about causing issues with other dc though. It was searching for the translation of an inappropriate word. If the word wasn’t used, and we have to take it on trust that it wasn’t, then the punishment is over the top in my view. It’s not disturbing anyone else. However it’s clear he should be told not to do it. One could think he wanted to use the word in another language but without evidence of this, surely the school should abide by its IT policy? I doubt that eas isolation with no work.

"This punitive measure is given for even the most minor slip ups such as not having the right uniform"

I highly doubt this. If a pupil is in isolation for uniform issues it means they have skipped the break detention they were likely given, then the after-school one given instead, then probably the extended after school detention.

As a result if repeatedly sailing to abide by school rules they end up in isolation

It depends what the other incidents he was in isolation for were. OP has only told us about that one but says there are others

The incidents which the school says he sitting isolation for are not taking place in the classroom

one was for simply searching inappropriate language into google translate that was marked down as racist comment