Headteacher and five staff suspended!

[Educationalshame]

Have name changed so not to out myself. My children go here :(
I received a letter and that is it. Teachers will not really speak about it to me. What do I do?? Reading the attitudes of the other members of staff "What are teachers supposed to do?" Does not reassure me. Advice? Thoughts? Anyone..

what do your children say about their experiences at school ? If they are telling you they have mistreated then report their concerns if not wait and see the outcome of the investigation. In the meantime reassure them that you want to know if they are ever unhappy and that theres nothing they cannot tell you even when they have been a bit in the wrong. Teach your children to do whats asked of them if its reasonable and to tell you when things are wrong and you wont go far wrong - the most important thing is them come home to you and feel safe enough to tell you what concerns them but also what was good. If they cant tell you anything good be concerned!

Zzzz I have a dd with SEN, I would not do anything to anyone's child that I wouldn't do to my own, if that makes sense? It really isn't about locking them up for misbehaviour.

In the absence of facts, I suppose threads like this tend to become about attitudes.

Ok, to clarify, it was generally a one off, a "couple of occasions" referred to same treatment, different child. Anyway I'm muddying the waters and don't want to derail the thread.

zzzzz not sure what a totally non communicative child with no communication agreement would be doing in a school like this - thats not safeguarding! I would wonder about a parent allowing that ..... but OP if you have let your totally non communicative child with no means of communicating to you then I think zzzzz is right - you need to do something about that!

Well it means even though a child has difficulties there is an agreement about how to communicate with them - other wise everyone is just accepting 'they cant communicate' - and you end up with a 'voiceless child who cant communicate what has happened to them'. No one sends their child into this situation and allows it to be the case at home - EVERY child can be communicated with its about how you make that happen. The OP wants to know how she deals with their children in this situation - and if youre point is its no good asking them because they might be voiceless then the OP really needs to find out if thats the case and how to communicate with them. Having a problem with walking hearing or seeing shouldnt really stop parents asking them if they are OK at school and checking out how they are feeling.....

Whats the alternative though for the OP in the face of this terrible thing happening at her childrens school - shes got to send them there each day (or not) and shes asking what to do. The starting point has to be - if she sends them - how does she reassure herself they are OK and my point was she needs to check out if she has good communication with them and feels shes in a situation where she can trust that communication to reassure her they can tell her if things are OK - if not she cant really feel OK about sending them in. Sometimes the organisations under investigation are the safest places as everyone is watching - much safer than sending them to a new school who might well have issues undiscovered. The OP feels anxious about sending her kids into this situation and wants help and reassurance about what she can do given the crisis of confidence she feels (rightly) in light of whats happened. Im suggesting she assesses whether she feels she can trust what her children say in the sense that she feels they would tell her if they were unhappy or if anything was wrong.

It's against the law to imprison people, even if they are small and behaving really badly.

So why do we have prisons, secure units and secure children's homes?

I've read a few reports, they mostly state that he had got a knife from the kitchen, he was physically restrained, the knife removed and then put in a room, watched through a window for 40 mins until he was calm enough to come out.

On this evidence, I'm with the teacher who said what else could they do?

In an ideal world a 9 year old would not be locked in a room. But when it is the rights of 1 versus the health of 500 then there is no choice.

I have also read that the school ha s a unit for children who are disruptive and are sent there by other schools. If true, then I am not suprised they have a chill out room.

It is the parent of the child who has complained.

OP

Are your concerns about whether this is a routine punishment and that your children may be subjected to it?

I would ask your children if they know about this room, the chances are they don't even know it exists.

I would want to know what support had been put into place for this child to help him to control his behaviour, so that he didn't become so agitated that he became a danger to himself or others.

Learnandsay I am disgusted by your attitude.

I'd not in general believe anything in the Daily Mail, but five teachers and the head don't get suspended for no reason, and labeling what should be a safe space as the 'naughty room' suggests something has really gone wrong. Also the BBC report states that the action was taken as a result of an LEA visit, not because of a parental complaint. the investigation involves the police, so it's unlikely it was some trivial incident.

I had a teacher kicking shouty type of child for a while, and our local school used the calm room as a deescalation/reward for him, and over time he learned to control his impulsive outbursts. I am very grateful that they managed him so well, with understanding and obvious care for his well being.

"We did have excellent training. There are rare occasions which are not textbook and decisions were made in the moment. We always completed serious incident paperwork."

I understand this thornrose; I have been an ESBD and SEN teacher for a number of years. But you have to see that holding a child in a room alone against their will is illegal, and you lay yourself wide open to legal action by doing so. There are other ways of dealing with children who are very violent or out of control.

"So why do we have prisons, secure units and secure children's homes?"

This is why court orders are obtained in order to place a child in those settings. The rules governing schools and non-secure care homes are different.

If the school is an academy it would be the Secretary of State, I understand.

It's against the law to imprison people, even if they are small and behaving really badly.

I'm not a lawyer or a policeman but I think the sentence above is misleading.

So why do we have prisons, secure units and secure children's homes?

I think if we get into the ins and outs of what's legal and what isn't then we're going to get muddled up. I think an inquiry is going on at the moment in order to establish what has gone on and why.

learnandsay. In a school it is against the law to imprison someone.

As zzzzz says above, there is a process for people being incarcerated.

There is no muddling up, the law is clear. You do not lock a child into a room.

I'm sure that you don't lock a child there. But we don't know what has gone on. That's the reason for the inquiry.

"So why do we have prisons, secure units and secure children's homes?"

I just answered that- a court must make the decision to place a young person in one of those settings. The rules are different for schools and non-secure care homes.

It's quite simple- in schools, forcing a child to be isolated/alone in a room against their will is illegal.

The LEA visit sparked the enquiry, as they are the ones with the facts and legal knowledge and they were the ones that felt it serious enough to warrant 5-6 staff suspensions, Id say they felt there was evidence of wrongdoing.

Time will tell, but there is really no dispute over the legality of imprisoning a child regardless of your personal views on what should happen to such children.