Ban the Booths

[PlayNtag]

banthebooths.co.uk/

Has anybody's school responded well to petitions against this?

The kids at my school seem to try and get sanctioned so that they can go in to isolation as they like the peace and can miss lessons they don’t like.

When parents don’t / wont parent these same children and the police have trouble with them outside of school

What alternative do you propose to deal with students who are a real danger to themselves, other students and staff. Continuously disruptive and sometimes dangerous behaviour from students when they are already in a class of 30 and school budgets are next to non-existent?

What would you want done if your child’s education was constantly impacted by that student or they had been hurt?

My school has an entirely separate area to deal with students with SEN though.

Isolation areas have their place in a school's discipline system.
Some schools may well over use them, but that isn't a reason to ban them altogether.

So long as they're used appropriately, they can be effective.

I regularly sit in meeting hearing about children who spend all their school time in isolation for constantly wearing the wrong shoes to school or refusing to tuck their shirts in. I really don’t see what this achieves these children have already disengaged from education almost come from dysfunctional families I just don’t see how constantly putting them into isolation for relatively trivial misdemeanours is helping.

happy On the face of it that seems OTT. Is this a Michaela-type school?

otoh If the school has a policy of shirts tucked in, and a pupil outright defies a teacher to do so, what would you expect a school to do?

I’m sure that the kid who refuses to tuck their shirt in is a disciplinary delight otherwise.

joyful A sensible school would surely come to agreement re uniform with a pupil with SPD though?

In 14 years of teaching I’ve not met anyone who physically can’t ever have a tucked in shirt, so I think it’s pretty safe to generalise, and then make exceptions for extreme outliers.

I would never tuck my shirt in or wear “proper” uniform because I have sensory processing disorder, and was considered a model pupil (top of all my classes and in my school’s gifted programme) otherwise.

That’s a highly unusual situation.

I don't think they should be banned. They need to be used sensibly though.

They are usually a tool for discipline, but not always. I know of a child who chose to use one following the sudden death of a younger sibling and peace and quiet from the cut and thrust of the main part of the school was needed. It was entirely that child's own choice and provided a valuable piece of the coping mechanism. They could go and rejoin their friends in classes at any time, or visit them at breaktime if they wished.

I’m sure that the kid who refuses to tuck their shirt in is a disciplinary delight otherwise

And isolating them all day is the way to improve that? Secondary education is a fucking joke in this country at the moment.

My point was that if you have a kid come into your classroom with their shirt untucked, you tell them to tuck it in and they say ‘no’, then what do you think will happen next? They’ll come in, sit down and work beautifully, complying with every other instruction without hesitation?

A kid who says ‘no, I’m not going to’ to a teacher issuing a reasonable instruction is starting something. Some schools would rather that the teacher spends ten minutes trying to get the shirt tucked in while the rest of the class twiddles their thumbs, or tactically ignores the refusal to follow instructions so the kid then continues to flout rules to the point where the lesson is so destroyed that the behaviour system finally kicks in.

Taking that kid out of that environment may or may not improve their behaviour, but it will sure as hell improve the learning environment for the rest of the class.

And if you’re going to go ‘school uniforms are stupid, I don’t see why kids should tuck their shirts in anyway’ then replace ‘tuck your shirt in’ with any other reasonable request to follow a school rule that a teacher might issue.

Completely agree @noblegiraffe

wise words from @noblegiraffe

IME the parents of a child regularly refusing to adhere to school uniform policy who support their child in acting defiantly in the face of what they collectively see as a stupid policy, are generally incapable of considering the effect on the majority of the child's classmates who just want to get on with their lessons.

Most secondary schools near us now only have uniform up to year 11. After that the teens can express their individuality a little more (within reason). Is it so hard to conform for a few years ?

I will not sign any ban the booths petition because I want teachers to have a method of managing poor behaviour in order to benefit the kids who are willing to conform and learn.

Can you really not see the difference between “school uniforms are stupid” and “some disabled kids aren’t physically capable of abiding by extremely strict uniform codes”?

Have you never come across “reasonable adjustments” for disabled children? No one is suggesting that they are forced to tuck their shirt in.

We’re talking about the vast, vast majority who just choose not to.

The thing is joy this isn't a thread about whether some kids with particular SN can't follow normal school rules. Probably everyone is agreed that a school should make reasonable adjustments for them.

This is about how to deal with the kids who refuse to follow reasonable instructions and whether isolation is an appropriate option.

This thread is making the argument “any child who doesn’t obey a strict uniform code 100% is naughty and difficult and needs to be severely punished no exceptions.”

No one on this thread has made that argument.