"Isolation booths" - normal?!

[freegazelle]

Read this report about isolation booth use in an academy. Are these really normal in secondary schools now?! How are they legal? I don't know what I'd do if this happened to my DS.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/children-isolated-for-7-hours-a-day-in-consequence-booths-at-academies-mp_uk_5b33a1a5e4b0b5e692f35b59

If the kids are so bothered about learning then they should behave and they'll be allowed to stay in lessons.
The majority of the kids I teach who end up in iso do not have send they just refuse to behave.
Tbh I don't really care that much that they don't learn anything. At least I can get on with teaching the rest of the class.

Weird if that works. I would find it totally alienating, as Harolds said.

I don't think organisation problems like forgetting a pen, is the kind of stuff that should be "punished".

If they aren't given work, again, that's really awful. That isn't just isn't what school is for. I'd be absolutely furious if my son was punished for forgetting a pen by sitting in a room looking at the wall during GCSE period. Completely furious. That's not what I pay my taxes for.

You really think they'd have him sat with nothing to do during gcse's ?????

What if your son always remembered his pen? Maybe because his mum made sure he had a supply of pens in his bag?
But because so many of his classmates didn't have pens, hours of your sons learning time was wasted whilst the teacher sorted out all the other kids who didn't have pens/planners/books/rulers/calculators.
you get the picture.
How would you feel about paying your taxes for that?

Look at @blue post.

Obviously this policy applies to year 11s as well. I would think attending lessons during their exam years are pretty important. Yet they would be barred from school for a day for forgetting a planner?!

No wonder this country is going up shits creak.

The country is more likely up shit creek because parents make excuses for 16yo dc going to school without a pen!

Year 11 at my school spent break and lunch in isolation but attended lessons as normal.

I'd be absolutely furious if my son was punished for forgetting a pen by sitting in a room looking at the wall during GCSE period.

Is that likely to happen do you think?

We had these! I was in there all the time, it’s fine, you get lunch and have all your work with you so can revise, and usually the older kids get laptops! A whole day to catch up on stuff and just be in your own space I used to protest about not wanting to miss gcse lessons but tbh I did more work in there than I would have done in class.

My DS's school is like this the music teachers say openly its like a bootcamp and hate the head openly. They have also cut music, drama, food tech and wood tec from curriculum and replaced with more maths.

I would move my DS tomorrow if I could find a school that has a place, is any different or I could convince DH to send him to privates school.

Oh yes they have also cut out their break and now finish early wtaf!!

Sounds like the result of massive budget cuts fonteynmargot

I used to teach Yr 10 and 11 kids who never brought a pen. Or a school bag. Not a case of forgetting a pen, just can't be arsed as they can just borrow one.

Our iso room was for more serious incidents like racism, threatening a teacher (a kid said leaned in a told me he'd break my arm, when I was pregnant).

But the low level stuff was the worst. 10 kids haven't brought a pen, 5 have forgotten their book. 3 were off last week so have no idea what we are doing. That's just the start of the lesson.

Then you are trying to help someone/get feedback, but a few are whispering, breaking a pencil into a million pieces, calling out so you are expected to listen to 10 kids all at once.

On and on. And when they don't make progress it's all my fault.

People forget pens all the time! In my office of 30+ year olds there was always a shortage of pens.

In school I used to chew mine up and break them. Another disciplinable offence now according to another mn thread I saw.

@susej glad to hear that doesn't sound too bad

@Salve

Sorry to hear that, it must be tough.

At our school yes, yr 11s are put into isolation with no work for forgetting things. It's one of the key points that parents are objecting to in our case. I mean, yes, they need the correct books but forgetting one has much less impact on their education than a day spent doing nothing during exam year. To be clear, these are not students with behaviour issues who turn up with nothing as part of their ongoing defiance, but students who inadvertently leave a book at home.

A school that cuts break and finishes early has significant behaviour issues during break times, usually. They’ll give all sorts of reasons but that is mostly why that decision is made. A sign of a decent school these days is an hour long lunch break because it means they can trust the students not to misbehave during that time.

Thanks thefifthkey that's interesting.

Just had a fantastic report for my son top marks for almost everything, even teachers think he's great 'inspires other students' a 'great kid to teach' but he lives in fear of 1.5hr detentions for 1 piece of forgotten homework or being barked at for some incredibly minor offence no way to treat year7s. Institutional abuse springs to mind.

Congrats on your son's report @margot

The situation in the school sounds dreadful

It is hardly surprising, reading this thread people like myself believe selection is the only way forward !

Isolation booths make schools sound like 'Guantanamo Bay '. Isolating children in this manner is 'ridiculous' . Isolation bays being the only answer to deal with outrageous behaviour. This is because the orthodoxy of the educational establishment belief is entrenched in comprehensive education.

I think our beef is that they're not being used for outrageous behaviour but as an alternative to staff utilising classroom management techniques which is part of their job. Nothing to do with comprehensive education and everything to do with an increasing trend of schools being run as personal fiefdoms, which is actually the opposite of the comprehensive ethos.

Then to make things worse, some schools only way of controlling children is by adopting a Rudolph Giuliani type approach This by putting children in to isolation for forgetting a pen !

This totally stupid approach is facilitated by educating the most focused/academic , with the least academic and most destructive pupils.

Interesting that you presume that the 'least academic' are the most badly behaved ? My 20+ years of teaching tells me that is most certainly not the case.

Most schools also set pupils

@Harolds

Yep, an increasingly zero tolerance is being used especially within certain academy trusts, many of which aspire to be more like private schools in an incredibly superficial and misguided way.

But the thing is, no private schools I know of do this. They are more answerable to parents who are paying tens of thousands of pounds for their kids to go to class, not to isolation booths.

@lets what on earth does selection have to do with this?