Ban the Booths

[PlayNtag]

banthebooths.co.uk/

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

In my school, children who have to wear different schoolwear (or wear their shirts untucks) for a medical need, whether that is a sensory issue linked to ASD or a broken ankle carry a card. Teacher asks them wear xyz is, they show the card and there is no issue, more often than not we are also informed by email.

Students who chose to come to school in the incorrect uniform (nearly always repeat offenders) are isolated with their form teacher.
Parents and students know the uniform rules and chose to flaunt them, normally its long talon like nails in bright colours, wearing jeans or trainers nothing to do with blazers or specific skirts that mnetters often complain about. If you wear a uniform to work you cant rock up in what ever you like for both H&S reasons and because you are representing an organisation, its the same thing.

If we isolated those in the same place as those isolated for poor classroom / unstructured time behaviour issues we would run out of space very quickly.

woman19

I'm not sure why you think that it would make an interesting test case. Many parents still send their children to their rooms or use the naughty step.

Bot of these use isolation as a punishment/sanction.

Bot of these use isolation as a punishment/sanction
Perhaps both teachers and parents who do this need to learn how to teach or parent with a bit more humanity and intelligence?

It is, I understand, a technique allowed, but monitored, in british prisons

In schools and in private homes, using such a technique means they are arguably breaking ECHR law.

Oh bloody hell ‘arguably breaking the law’ by putting your kid on the naughty step is the stupidest thing I’ve read today.

The whole tuck your shirt in thing feel totally unnecessary and it's time school stopped using uniform infringements to punish kids - it is such a stupid thing to get excited about. How on earth do other countries cope without uniforms.

National do read the thread. Noble has explained quite clearly that it has buggar all to do with shirts, and lots more to do with outright defiance.
Loads of people have to wear uniform ( of varying degrees of strictness for work)
And woman19 how on earth could it be a test case. Child made to sit quietly and work by themselves, the horror

Further links for parents and children who would like to litigate over this practice in a school setting.

UN:

lawstuff.org.uk/my-rights/what-are-childrens-rights/
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 19 seems relevant in this case.

unchildrights.blogspot.com/2009/03/summary-childrens-rights-convention.html

European Convention on Human Rights.
Article 8 seems relevant
www.crae.org.uk/childrens-rights-the-law/laws-protecting-childrens-rights/european-convention-on-human-rights/

Domestic British legal protection

How does the Government make sure children in the UK have rights

In 1991, the UK Government agreed to make sure that children have all of the rights listed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Government should make laws and do other activities, like teaching people about children’s rights, to make sure that children’s rights are protected

The Government has passed a law – the Human Rights Act 1998 – to protect human rights generally, but have not passed a law specifically on children’s rights. Some of the laws the Government have passed help to protect your rights, like laws that say you must be given special help if you can’t live with your parents, for example, or laws that make discrimination illegal

A good human rights lawyer should be able to put together a case pretty simply on this one.

Teachers who promote this practice are presumably covered by their trades unions for any legal actions against them.

We have tried for my younger sister who has had extended periods in isolation. But it hasn't worked. But good luck anyway!

NationalAnthem if you send your child to a school with a uniform then you must accept that they have to adhere to that uniform. In the same way that if you wear a uniform for work, you do. No point refusing to wear your uniform for your job in, say, a bank, and use “goodness, how do they ever get work done in the bookshop across the road where no one wears a uniform” as your reason.

The campaign link, that the OP gave, itself refers to the dubious legality of the practice.

The use of these booths is currently unregulated and unreported. We believe they are a breach of the UN charter on the rights of the child, disproportionate and unnecessary. Booths are not used in custodial settings yet some schools have large isolation suites where children might be held for long periods. Recent Freedom of Information requests by the BBC show that in 500 schools using isolation booths 200 children had spent more than 5 consecutive days in isolation in the past year

How many people work in offices where there are partitions between desks? Quelle horreur.

Oh bloody hell ‘arguably breaking the law’ by putting your kid on the naughty step is the stupidest thing I’ve read today

Are you a teacher?

Maybe you don't understand the serious position a teacher or school would be in if it was found to have promoted this practice.

This thread is about the use of 'isolation booths' not a 'naughty step'.
It raises key issues of its:
legality
morality
and the loco parentis principal.

If parents regularly use 'isolation booth' type practices on their children I would imagine that social services would take a keen interest.

Completely agree with noble re shirts.
But I wish secondary schools had better systems of communication re those children who have RA under equalities act.

My ds has such an adjustment. He is otherwise a 'model pupil' as said by school himself. One day on his way through some double doors to queue for an exam the 'school uniform policewoman' barked at him to tuck it in and take plastic band off his wrist. He said he's allowed them. She then yelled at him. Being well behaved he complied.
He wrote nothing in the exam. With his fiddle and with shirt tucked in he couldn't focus.
2 years later whilst walking with HT through corridor she tells him the same.
In this case the HT told her ds is a pupil who has special arrangements and never to ask him again.
Literally the only thing I could get out of ds about his day. It actually means that much to him.

Re isolation booths. They are useful tool in disabling if they are applied alongside effective pastoral care.

Unfortunately the only stories I ever hear are academies using them for send pupils as they work towards external exclusion and PEX. I hope it anecdotal because if it's not we are going backwards as a society.

Maybe you don't understand the serious position a teacher or school would be in if it was found to have promoted this practice.

What, putting kids on the naughty step? I haven’t seen anyone swooping in to arrest Super Nanny so I suspect you’re talking bollocks.

‘Isolation booth practices’ usually = taking a disruptive kid out of the class, putting them in a room to do some work, and because other naughty kids are in the same room, having partitions between the desks so they can’t wind each other up. All supervised by a teacher who usually has some sort of behaviour discussion with the kid.

Immoral my arse. And if we’re talking about the rights of children, what about the right of the 29 other kids in the class to an education?

Sorry, I didn't realise you were a teacher noble.

The law's the law though.

Saying ‘I think this is against the law’ isn’t the same as it being against the law.

Plenty of office workers work in ‘booths’. Do you think that’s against the law too?

I honestly wish someone, particularly non teachers, had a decent alternative!? My biggest class has 34 students in it. 34! Of course some have SEND, clearly I have no TA support. If I ask one to tuck their shirt in (which i don't because ours are Polo shirts) or sit in a certain seat/empty their mouth/put their phone away, if they refuse that instruction, a warning is given. If the persist they are relocated. If they refuse... off to the isolation booth they go. It is not immediate, they know the rules, and I have 33 other childrens education to prioritise

tbh noble you're not making much sense.

Great thread OP. I hope and expect that the campaign will succeed.

I send my kids to school with the correct uniform, they are hard working and a pleasure to tyeach - so I'm told but there is no choice - wear school uniform or don't attend school - this whole choice thing is such a joke!

And the telling a child to tuck their shirt in the minute they walk into a class is inflammatory - it just seems like such a pointless thing to get excited about - Noble gave the example and to me it just seemed like a recipe for disaster...every parent knows you fight the battles worth fighting, not bloody tucking shirts in.

If parents regularly use 'isolation booth' type practices on their children I would imagine that social services would take a keen interest.

What, like sending DD to her room? By herself? Shit.

As long as parents don't moan after the ban. If kids are disrupting lessons and your child isn't learning. If a child has SEND or other issues as to why they can't behave they need extra support. In whatever form they may take, smaller classes, TA support, specialist school even. Throwing them back into a mainstream lesson is not a better alternative to 'the booths'. It is not fair on them, never mind others. How about a petition to increase support for these kids? How about stopping to think about why the use of isolation booths has become so prevalent so quickly 🤔

Maybe if parents want to ban isolation booths then they have to agree to pick their kid up from school and take them home if they piss about and get chucked out of lessons?

@woman19

Teachers who promote this practice are presumably covered by their trades unions for any legal actions against them.

Teachers do not promote this practice nor do they send children to isolation.

Teachers report issues and the SLT makes the decision backed by the parents.

And yes we are talking about the naughty step, sending children to their room and any other practice that promotes "isolation".

And as someone that supports the removal of isolation booths what do you recommend that they are replaced with?

It's a totally ridiculous campaign led by a handful of consultants who don't teach anymore peddling their own ideological agenda against schools who do thibgs differently to their snake oil magic bullet of choice.

Starts off as some consultants bitching online about schools who they don't like and don't agree with (probably because if schools manage to have a calm school without buying their books and training programmes that might affect their earning power).
Then it becomes an issue with isolation booths and how the very existence of isolation booths is some kind of human rights abuse and silent working is so unfair. Then staff pointed out that there is a time and a place for them and you don't even teach anymore.

Then that didn't work so they had a few weeks of 'oh sorry we didn't mean all isolation dividers, we just mean deep confinement booths. Someone did a search for these online and couldn't find any, but snake oil reps need to find ways to sell their wares.

Then it became look for some examples of a strategy being used ineffectively, zoom in on a few case studies and spin the whole thing as ' but we are only doing this for the vulnerable children and the children with special needs'.

If a policy is implemented poorly or a strategy isn't working properly then it should be open for question, but I won't be paying any attention to a campaign led by a group of consultants with a vested interest in shaming any school who does things differently (even resorting to creating an anonymous Twitter page this weekend to publicise Ofsted notes from a school they don't like after doing an FOI request).

These are people who think having a menu of greetings on the door and letting pupils decide to hi 5 you, hug you, shake your hand, do a secret handshake etc is the key to solving defiance in your classroom. They are people who tell teachers that they shouldn't expect students to be polite and courteous until the teacher has proven to the student they are worth respecting. They are people who think that if a child is being defiant then the adults need to change and find out what the child wants and give in. These people are not and have never been about making reasonable and appropriate adjustments for students with SEND needs. Their whole philosophy is that it is wrong for anyone to expect basic levels of human decency and maners because staff must earn polite behaviour. And they want to charge schools a fortune to call them in.

I'm no worshiper of the heavy zero tolerance schools, but I'm highly cynical of the motives of those behind this campaign.