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A survey analysed for the National Union of Teachers by Warwick University

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Behavioural Policies

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Excluded students more likely to get mental health problems

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Excluded students more likely to get mental health problems

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Schools Week

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Children who are excluded are more likely to develop a mental health condition than their peers who stay in mainstream, a leading researcher told the Mental Health in Education conference on Wednesday.

"It won't surprise anyone that children with mental health conditions, particularly the more disruptive ones - ADHD and conduct disorder - are more likely to be excluded," said Tamsin Ford (pictured).

The decision to move a pupil to alternative provision should be made for the good of the child and not the school, said Ford, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Exeter Medical School.

"Schools have to function, and managing behaviour in school is really hard, but maybe moves to alternative provision should be about meeting children's needs and not because they've had ADHD and they're being put in a situation they cannot cope with and not being provided with a sufficient remediation period."

Ford was referring to official exclusions, but her words echo the definition of off-rolling used in the new draft Ofsted framework: "the practice of removing a learner from the provider's roll without a formal, permanent exclusion or by encouraging a parent to remove their child, when the removal is primarily in the interests of the provider rather than in the best interests of the learner".

Moves to alternative provision should be about meeting children's needs

The research looked at 10,000 pupils aged 5-15 over two periods of three years (1999-2002 and 2004-07) and used in-depth multi-informant surveys and interviews.

It also found that children with a mental health disorder were more likely to play truant, particularly those with ADHD, and not all of them received effective treatment, Ford said.

"ADHD responds to various drugs, to treatment, and that costs a lot less than alternative provision, yet only about a third of them are getting into clinics - and clinics have long waiting lists."

A third survey was done in 2017, and the follow-up research at the three-year mark was originally commissioned to run in 2020, but government funding has stalled. "We have lots of people saying yes, we need to do this, and nobody coming forward with the funding.

"There is some academic work suggesting the outcomes for children and mental health are worse now, and if we had three samples over two decades that were followed up with diagnosis it's almost a complete dataset and we could actually unpick that."

Ford was speaking at the Royal Foundation conference at Mercers' Hall, London, attended by the Duchess of Cambridge.

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Excluded children more likely to get mental health problems

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Children who are excluded are more likely to develop a mental health condition than their peers who stay in mainstream, a leading researcher told the Mental Health in Education conference on Wednesday. "It won't surprise anyone that children with mental health conditions, particularly the more disruptive ones - ADHD and conduct disorder - are more likely to be excluded," said Tamsin Ford (pictured).

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The debate - tes

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'This isn't education; it's more like a custodial sentence'

There is good practice in many removal rooms. Adults work calmly with angry and frustrated children who struggle to follow direction. Mentoring and challenge ensures that students are returned to learning as soon as possible.

Then there are removal rooms where children sit in isolation booths abandoned, their education on hold. Often these are not children with the worst behaviour: they are those who irritatingly stretch the lines of tolerance. They stare into space day after day; same faces, same stories, same unmet needs. I once met a child who had spent 35 days in an isolation booth in three months. That isn't an education; it's more like a custodial sentence.

I have seen too much not to speak out; wasted lives, wasted education. We need to ban the isolation booths. Self-electing to sit in a booth in a library is a free choice, but confinement booths are different. There is no dignity for the child.

Punishment booths

Can you really call a school "outstanding" if its behaviour policy is reliant on punishment booths?

When children deliberately and persistently disrupt, they may need to be removed from the lesson. What happens next is critical. In these difficult and distressing moments, the values of your school are tested.

Isolation is an escalation in punishment designed to deter. Forty years ago, these children would have been beaten. Now they sit facing the wall in a booth, not allowed to turn around, speak, look left or right. Of course, this punishment is only truly complete when accompanied with the ubiquitous worksheet or unexplained textbook. In many schools, one lesson of poor behaviour results in the rest of the day isolated. It is a long way away from "last resort": children isolated for the smallest infraction - wrong socks, rolling eyes, tutting or sucking a mint. They are caught in a no man's land between a silent boothed existence and exclusion.

These are the children who the cuts are hitting hardest. Their support left long ago and is now just a phone that rings endlessly in an empty student services office.

Punishment can multiply in an isolation room. Extra days given for the smallest infractions. We need to limit punishment in schools to ensure that it does not become disproportionate; to make sure that it is in line with our values, our laws and the rights of the child. Nobody wants to stop heads making decisions about their schools, but it cannot be a free-for-all, otherwise bad practice takes hold. It is right and proper to check ourselves. Isolation booths were invented and replicated without debate or legislation. It isn't a done deal. It is a choice.

The levers for change are in culture and practice. The skill of the teacher in managing conversations with distressed children; the visible support of leaders; resisting sending children to the highest authority; the confidence of a middle leader to manage the situation without escalating; the resilience of the teacher not to react emotionally; planned processes that are more nurture than nihilism. Schools with challenging intakes have removed the booths, and reduced removal - there is another way.

Isolation should be reported to governors just as we report exclusion and restraint.

Our Ban the Booths campaign demands regulation and reporting so we can see the true picture. How many SEND children are stuck in isolation where nobody's needs are met? What is the geographical, key stage, ethnic and gender breakdown of those in isolation? How many schools rely too heavily on isolation as a sanction? How many schools are using isolation booths to hide the fact that their behaviour policy isn't working?

In Scotland, there is a wave of trauma-informed practice; government ministers talk of love and encourage relational practice. In England, we are arguing about which stick is best to beat the sin out of the child. Time for a change. We want a debate in public and in Parliament, a regulatory and accountability framework for isolation and resources for schools to move to evidence-informed behaviour practice. We want to redirect Department for Education funding to help schools make this shift.

As for the dimension of the booth? I feel uncomfortable that fellow professionals think any form of barrier around a child is OK.
Paul Dix, a former teacher, is an education consultant at www.PivotalEducation.com. He helped to found the Ban the Booths campaign
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'Isolation plays an important part in the management of exclusions'
Caroline Barlow
Until now, I have largely stayed out of the recent debate over isolation booths in schools: I find when Twitter goes polemic there is little nuance or rational debate. I suspect there are elements of truth in much of what has been said but the extreme views and hyperbole do not reflect the best of our profession.

For example, an over-focus on the use of "booths" as a physical entity rather belies the importance of the approaches used in and around them; approaches that can feed into the whole-school ethos, its culture and approach to behaviour management.

In truth, I do believe there is a role for isolation rooms in mainstream schools and that it is sensible that arrangements are made to ensure that students within them are seated in such a way as not to be a distraction to each other.

It is perfectly sensible to remove some students from the mainstream classroom environment - the students who cannot uphold behaviour expectations - for two simple reasons. Firstly, so that the students themselves experience consequence for their actions, but also so that the school continues to function successfully.

Pastoral support

For us at our school, internal removal or exclusion is used as part of an overall approach to behaviour and always with clarity for the students and the parent as to why they have been placed there. It is never for more than a day or two at most and it is part of an escalating approach to a pattern of behaviours or a significant incident, and, much like most of our work, it is individualised to the student concerned.

Of course, any internal exclusion will be accompanied by associated pastoral support and restorative work, which should allow students to better understand why they are there and what they might do differently in similar circumstances. It often also includes a resolve meeting between two parties.

Isolation or internal exclusion, however it is managed, plays an important part in the management of exclusions. For many students, they are far more effective than fixed-term exclusions where the restorative input or calm conducive environment for reflection may not be so readily available.
Caroline Barlow is head of Heathfield Community College in East Sussex and a member of the Headteachers' Roundtable
For all these reasons, I would not support a ban. Of course, schools must be held to account on how such a policy is used, monitored and evaluated, along with the impact on reoccurrence and impact on subsequent behaviour, but each head has the right to make the choices they believe to be right for their students.

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The debate over isolation booths in schools has become a fiery one. Few issues in education are as divisive or emotive.

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pivotal education

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The topic of the week is How to avoid using isolation as a sanction.

This week we tackle the difficult subject of isolation in behaviour management. Interestingly, nobody ever gave schools permission to use isolation as it is used in some schools toady as part of their behaviour management strategy. Paul points out that the maximum amount of time you can be locked in your cell in a secure training centre or young offenders' institution is 3 hours - some schools leave children in isolation booths for 3 days. It's a somewhat bizarre notion that isolation rooms produce a positive change in pupils' behaviour - there is absolutely no evidence to back this up. Paul tells a story about how Lincoln Jail and the hugely damaging effect of their regime of almost total isolation. He speculates that perhaps some schools saw a documentary about Lincoln jail and tried to copy some of the techniques! It seems completely inhumane - in Holland, you could be prosecuted for imposing isolation techniques on children but in the UK, no-one seems to have questioned what is going on in some schools. Paul points out that the children who end up in isolation rooms are the ones with the most complex needs - those with additional learning needs, the most vulnerable, the most damaged, the ones who are suffering emotional trauma. We expect them to be able to do exactly the bahaviour they were struggling to do in the classroom but now in isolation and with a member of staff 'growling' at them. The instant shock element of the technique is the most impactful but this can only be useful when the isolation experience lasts for a maximum of 30minutes, not hours or days. Every school needs to have a place where children can calm down, where children can be separated or given 'time out' when it is necessary but when it extends to more than half-an-hour we need to question whether it is doing any good at all. Most children sit in isolation absolutely furious and not quietly contemplating how they are going to be good when they re-join the class. When they have dealt with the fury, they start to look for ways to undermine the system. The poor use of isolation breaks relationships with staff and encourages children to 'dig their heels in' more.

Some schools have created a whole culture around the use of isolation rooms.

Paul agrees that schools need areas where they can provide an alternative to exclusion which clearly doesn't work for some pupils but this should never be an exclusion booth. It needs to be a place staffed by experts in managing these situations and getting pupils back into lessons. These 'time out' rooms are often staffed by former Pupil Referral Unit professionals and basis on which they work is a general understanding amongst all staff that the option to just get rid of pupils out of their rooms is not available. This all reflects the ethos of the school. What to do if you are working in a school where isolation techniques are used and you reach the point at which a pupil in your classs needs to take time out of your classroom: - Re-examine your own use of steps in conseqences - step through as slowly as possible - use microscripts - Consider partnering with another teacher in the next classroom who might be able to take a child for 10 minutes or come and support you while you talk to the child - When you call for support, ask the teacher who comes to your room to teach the class for two minutes while you step out of the door and try to get the child to the point where they can come back into the lesson

If children are constantly sent out of your classroom, you are giving those children the message that learning isn't for them, your class isn't for them, school isn't for them, learning isn't for them.

The message you should be giving is that learning is important and I don't want you spending time outside my classroom where you won't be working. Good faculties work together to consistently re-admit children to classes, with the support of the leadership and managers. In some schools the isolation rooms becomes a party space, a place where students try to be sent, maybe even as a badge of honour. As soon as you create the isolation room, it has to be staffed, and it 'has to be filled up', just like a 5th lane on a motorway. It also changes the way teachers and other adults manage behaviour becasue there is now an isolation room as an option. Paul knows many schools in really tricky circumstances who refuse to have an isolation room - are they in chaos? Absolutely not. Some first steps towards breaking down a culture of isolation: 1. Get rid of the isolation booths 2. Limit time in the isolation room to 30mins 3. Staff the room with people who can really make an impact in that 30mins 4. Make sure the isolation room has a 'revolving door' - there should be no chance of getting stuck in isolation for the rest of the day 5. If there are children who need extra time out, attach them to a member of staff for 'walk and talk' or restorative work 6. Equip your isolation room with a large, round table with staff ready to talk, to support, to counsel 7. Make sure your 'on call' system is staffed by people who are good at dealing with the issues and supporting pupils straight back into the lesson - supporting 'wobbly children' and 'wobbly teachers' We can be much more creative with children who are in school in isolation rather than at home to help them to repay the debt to the school rather than sitting for 3 days in isolation. For lots more detail and context, listen to the episode! Announcements: TeachMeet London Bus! Pivotal Education are sponsoring the first ever TeachMeet to take place on a London Bus. Tickets are available from 9.00am Friday 1st February 2014. New free iPad App! Be the first to download and use this amazing new app! Students love using the Pivotal Progess Sliders app on iPads to track their progress during lessons. You can also save progress and return to it in the next lesson. Brand new 5 Minute Assessment for Learning Plan released in collaboration with TeacherToolkit Events

Magnificent Cultures of Teaching and Behaviour - deconstructing excellent practice - 12th March 2014 featuring Paul Dix and Phil Beadle and including an education debate at the end of the day

Improving discipline, raising attendance and boosting achievement - a conference by Teachology - 7th February, 2014, London, UK

What would you like to hear covered in forthcoming episodes? Let us know by emailing [email protected] or by leaving a comment below this post.
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How to avoid using isolation as a sanction - PP22 was last modified: by

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How to avoid using isolation as a sanction

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The topic of the week is How to avoid using isolation as a sanction. This week we tackle the difficult subject of isolation in behaviour management. Interestingly, nobody ever gave schools permission to use isolation as it is used in some schools toady as part of their behaviour management strategy.

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BBC

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"The windows, the bare walls. It was that every day. Every single day. They put me in a room on my own, I was in isolation," says Casey, 16.

More than 200 pupils spent at least five straight days in isolation booths in schools in England last year, a BBC News investigation has learned.

Casey's school disputes the length of time he spent on his own and said he was "regularly disruptive".

The teenager says he was placed on his own after he contracted fibromyalgia.

He takes the painkiller Tramadol for the chronic pain condition.

More than 5,000 children with special educational needs also attended isolation rooms at some stage.

Dozens of them had education, health and care plans (EHCPs) provided for children with complex needs.

The Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, says school isolation can be "distressing and degrading" and she is concerned it is being used "as a gateway to excluding and off-rolling", where pupils are removed from a school's register.

The Department for Education says children should be in isolation no longer than is necessary and that the health, safety and welfare of pupils must always be put first.

Casey's father died when he was nine and he lives with his grandmother in Bristol.

"I was quite athletic, I was happy, then I fell ill. That's when it all went downhill."

He says he didn't learn during the isolation period and spent much of his time copying out of GCSE revision books, often without a teacher present.

"It made me feel there was no point to learning," he said.

Casey says the experience has had a lasting impact on him.

"I locked myself into my room every day after I came home and shut the blinds," he said.

"It felt like being isolated was normal. I wouldn't expect them to treat a dog like that. It was just vile."

Casey's school says the room he was in was not the school's actual isolation facility.

In a statement, it said that schools were increasingly encountering pupils "in crisis" who are being "failed by a combination of public services".

What is school isolation?

Isolation rooms, or internal inclusion units, are facilities pupils are sent to when it is thought they need to be removed from a classroom during the school day.

They vary in their nature significantly. Many include so-called isolation or consequence booths - partitioned desks in which children typically face the wall and work in silence.

Occasionally schools use "seclusion" units - rooms where children sometimes remain on their own - while others place pupils in more conventional classrooms to work in silence.

A recent government report on alternative provision said that schools with internal inclusion units saw them as a halfway point between excluding a pupil and keeping them in a mainstream classroom.

How are isolation rooms being used?

The BBC sent Freedom of Information requests to more than 1,000 secondary schools and academy chains across the UK asking how they use isolation and around 600 responded.

It learned that more than 200 schools in England used isolation booths, with 12 in Wales and six in Scotland but none in Northern Ireland.

While the majority had rules for children spending a maximum of one, two or three continuous days in isolation, 225 pupils in England and one in Wales spent a whole week in isolation booths as a single punishment last year.

The investigation also learned:

more than 5,000 pupils with special educational needs in England spent time in isolation

children with autism and ADHD have attended isolation

one school had five separate isolation rooms, each permanently staffed at an annual cost of more than £170,000

some schools prevent pupils from using the playground during the day and the dining hall at lunch

two schools - which included a bathroom as part of the facility - do not allow pupils to leave the unit all day.

What rules are there for using them?

Government guidance in England says schools are free to decide how long pupils should be kept in isolation, but they should be there "no longer than is necessary".

The guidelines also say that in order for isolation to be lawful as a punishment it should be "reasonable" in all circumstances, and factors such as special educational needs should be taken into account.

Schools do not need to record use or report to parents that their child has been sent to isolation, although many do.

Paul Dix says he has probably visited more isolation facilities than anyone else in his work as a behavioural consultant in schools across England.

He says he has seen 50 children at one time in isolation in one school and children with Asperger's syndrome and ADHD in isolation rooms and met one child who said they had spent 36 days in isolation in one school year.

"That is not education, it is a custodial sentence," he said.

"Where's the regulation around it, where's the reporting, where is the accountability?"

He said he has heard of pupils being placed into isolation for not bringing a pen or wearing the right shoes.

Paul says disruptive pupils may need to be removed from classrooms but believes they should be returned after a short period and a discussion of their behaviour with an experienced teacher.

"That is the intelligent way. Isolation is desperation," he said.

Why are they used?

Richard Sheriff is the executive head for eight schools - three of which have rooms with isolation booths - as well as president of the Association of School and College Leaders.

He says his schools would never place pupils in isolation booths for five consecutive days, but understands why some schools feel the need to find ways of tackling extreme behaviour.

"There is a gathering storm with regards to student behaviour," he says.

"We've seen cuts in services in local authorities, but also in the ability of schools to purchase well-run, good quality alternative provision."

He says a lot of society's problems are now being "laid at the door of schools".

The government's school behaviour expert, Tom Bennett, says isolation rooms can be effective in tackling disruption in classrooms.

"When you're a lone adult with a class of 25 pupils, it only take two people to really persistently wilfully misbehave for that lesson to be completely detonated," he said.

He believes removing students from classrooms should be seen as a positive solution.

"It can be a way of preventing fixed-term exclusions by keeping them in the school and being looked after," he said.

You can follow Noel Titheradge on Twitter at @NoelTitheradge

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'Hundreds spend week in school isolation'

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"The windows, the bare walls. It was that every day. Every single day. They put me in a room on my own, I was in isolation," says Casey, 16. More than 200 pupils spent at least five straight days in isolation booths in schools in England last year, a BBC News investigation has learned.

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Carnegie Education Blog

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This year has seen an intensification of the focus on behaviour policies and practices in schools.

This year has seen an intensification of the focus on behaviour policies and practices in schools. While I am not a behaviour specialist I do know that the discussion cannot be had in isolation. For example, if we promote social justice at the heart of education, then we need a system that nurtures rather than punishes those within in and that is sustainable over time. If we are concerned about the disadvantages faced by some young people we should be outraged that our school system often leaves those who are most vulnerable and their families battling decisions made at school, academy chain and local authority levels. I am also depressed by the funding crisis in schools in England. Not only is there less money per learner, but there are increasing costs to schools, there is evidence that SEND budgets have been particularly squeezed, and much of the money previously available for teachers to extend their learning has been diverted into narrowly defined and funded pet projects offering training in implementing narrowly defined interventions.

These concerns do form a nexus. Over nearly twenty years as a teacher educator I have personally watched thousands of NQTs enter schools from their ITTE various routes, and I have worked with hundreds of qualified teachers. I want to be able to say to them all, "you will always be supported to learn", "your opportunities for development will be formative", "your practices as a teacher, and hopefully a leader, will become more sophisticated over time", "what challenges you now will become your sources of wisdom later" and "as a professional you will be enabled to meet the needs of all learners, because that is what we are there to do". For me a great sadness is that, as the years have gone by, I have felt less confident to do so.

I have watched teaching, learning, assessment and behaviour policies and practices in schools become disrupted over and over again by the narrow measures of performance that they are subject to. I have witnessed (first hand as an adoptive parent), through the accounts of teachers and through the media, and now via the Education Select Committee and Ofsted a growing acknowledgement that things are going wrong for too many young people in too many schools. I have listened to head teachers who battle long and hard to lead inclusive schools, to become attachment-aware, to develop trauma-informed learning communities, not because it earns them a place higher up the league table, but because for them it is unquestionably the right thing to do. I have heard head teachers explain how that decision seems to give a license to neighbouring schools to persuade parents of the more vulnerable and, yes let's be honest, the more troubled children, who seem most troublesome in schools not designed for them, to send their child down the road because "they'll be better supported there". I have seen teachers becomes more fearful of building relationships with kids and their families that might mean that they are not following strict consequence-based behaviour policies. I have heard teachers, under pressure from all quarters, argue passionately that they can only be expected to teach a certain type or child a certain type of curriculum. There is evidence that the use of isolation booths is growing and is largely unregulated, and I believe that their use is often counter-productive.

So, my priorities in to support teachers to support learners are as follows. I offer these in the knowledge that they need enabling by more than words, but also by enhanced funding, effective leadership and by political will.

Change the discourse; the classroom is not a battleground so lets stop talking about enforcing behaviour and discipline, and start talking about relationships as the foundation for shaping behaviours.

Change the use of resources; stop using booths as a means to resolve the urgent and immediate behaviour concerns of the teacher, start to infuse all schools with the more expert and relationally driven ways to diffuse situations which will flare up whether we want them to or not.

Change the performance measures; stop policies that mean that some kids just don't count to some schools and start writing a new narrative of quality education based on social justice and opportunities for all learners regardless of where they live, and what burdens they carry with them.

Change the career-long professional development opportunities for teachers; stop reducing their professional efficacy by encouraging them to pass problems on and start to provide them with expert training and coaching to help them reframe their classrooms as inclusive spaces.

Many in the teaching profession carry a passion for a more inclusive, more relationally-informed and more sustainable future in schools. This is a conversation we must have both within the profession and beyond it. I want to give teachers back their confidence, not just to teach the demands of the curriculum, but also to meet the demands of society for young people to leave school with their self-esteem intact, their talents acknowledged, their ability to empathise and for self-determination enhanced.

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From challenges come wise practices; addressing the behaviour debate through teacher efficacy - Leeds Beckett University Blogs

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This year has seen an intensification of the focus on behaviour policies and practices in schools. This year has seen an intensification of the focus on behaviour policies and practices in schools. While I am not a behaviour specialist I do know that the discussion cannot be had in isolation.

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Will schools ever learn?

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isolation booth

Maria Arpa

This week Will schools ever learn?
Plus...
Maria's Midweek Mindfulness
and
the Wednesday Whisper Use of isolation booths in schools
Parents have criticised the use of isolation booths at secondary schools across the country, after concerns were raised about the behaviour policies run by some academy trusts. The Outwood Grange Academies Trust has adopted "consequences rooms" - small booths in which a child sits alone and in silence for hours on end as punishment for breaking school rules.

The policy for the 'consequences room' is occupy and ignore. Students cannot sleep or put their heads on the desk. They must sit up and face forward and are not allowed to "tap, chew, swing on their chairs, shout out, sigh, or any other unacceptable or disruptive behaviour.

"You will be allowed to go to the toilet up to a maximum of three times during the day (maximum five minutes per visit)," the policy reads.

One mother whose son goes to a school in Yorkshire run by the Delta Academies Trust, said he was "just a regular kid" and there had never been serious concerns raised about his behaviour before the school's new discipline policy was introduced. "Then he got 22 hours in an isolation booth in one week and he was just an absolute mess."

A spokesperson for the Outwood Grange Academies Trust said: "The use of isolation booths and rooms allow students to calm down, reflect and often self-correct their behaviour that may have led to that situation.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "It is up to schools to decide what forms of discipline they adopt, as long as they are lawful and used reasonably. If a school chooses to use isolation rooms, pupils' time in isolation should be no longer than necessary and used as constructively as possible."
So here are the problems with this kind of 'punishment':
· Adults believe that children will learn that if they do 'x' the result will be 'y'. But because of the inherent power imbalances between young people and adults in schools, what children actually learn is that if you have the power, you can bully and intimidate others without any form of dialogue. And what is one of the biggest problems in workplaces? Bullying and intimidation - what a surprise.

· Dishing out punishments which solely places blame on young people for classroom breakdown does not model how to make relationships that work. And, if more and more teachers are failing to get cooperation with their students then we need to question the whole system first, including how that teacher is trained, whether the expectations match reality, whether society has changed to the point that we need to rethink the whole idea of 'school' and how the education system manages relationships with families in their planning and execution.

· Judging schools on an 'Ofsted' approach leads to all sorts of questionable practices in order to get a good Ofsted outcome. Young people are not stupid and they know what goes on. For example, the 'bad kids' were removed from a school and sent on an 'outing' on inspection day so the Inspectors did not see how it really is. This demonstrates to young people that when there is a prize at stake, cheating is OK.

· Finally, and most importantly, if the idea is for the young person to reflect then we have to teach them HOW TO reflect. We need much better education on 'self-talk' and how this contributes to our well-being as an individual and as part of a community. So, in a training I was running, I asked a teacher, who told me that she regularly sends young people out of the classroom to reflect on their wrong-doings, how she reflected on her classroom management methods, and she went into orbit. A fine reaction!!
Maria's Midweek Mindfulness
This news article disturbed me and interrupted my flow. My original blog was on a different topic so I'm thinking about disruption and how I make decisions to change course. How much of it is based on an emotional trigger and how much of it is based on logical thinking and what is the balance to be drawn?
The Wednesday Whisper
How have you changed course and what influenced you to do so?

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Will schools ever learn? - Centre For Peaceful Solutions

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Maria Arpa This week Will schools ever learn? Plus... Maria's Midweek Mindfulness and the Wednesday Whisper Use of isolation booths in schools Parents have criticised the use of isolation booths at secondary schools across the country, after concerns were raised about the behaviour policies run by some academy trusts.

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Isolation is no way to punish children

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Isolation is no way to punish children | Letters

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Letters: Oliver Darlington, Peter Branston and Owen Wells are shocked by schools that make misbehaving pupils spend hours on their own in booths

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Isolation rooms: How swathes of schools are removing pupils from their classrooms

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Primary schools are using isolation rooms to punish pupils as young as five years old, with some secondaries admitting they are willing to put older pupils into seclusion for up to five days in a row.

A Schools Week investigation has today lifted the lid on the scale and details of how schools across the country use isolation as punishment for unruly pupils.

The rooms are spaces separate from the classroom, where pupils are sent as a behaviour-management intervention. Many schools use them as part of an escalating set of disciplinary measures.

Our research found over two-thirds of the country's largest academy trusts have schools that use some form of isolation, although with varying labels from "inclusion units" and "consequence booths" to "time-out spaces" and "calm rooms".

At least four trusts used isolation or intervention spaces on primary-school pupils. That included the Ark Academy chain, where 20 out of its 38 schools had isolation rooms.

Primary pupils can be removed for a maximum of half a day, and secondary pupils for up to a week.

Behaviour policies for St Barnabas Multi Academy Trust in Cornwall state pupils will be moved to a "reflection room" if they break a rule for the fourth time.

The trusts said they are used for children from year 1 upwards. Youngsters can remain there for up to one day.

Other trusts said they could put a pupil in isolation for up to a week, while many others give pupils generic online resources instead of the equivalent work from lessons.

Isolation booths are the bleakest sign of an institution giving up

Our findings were echoed in major research published by the Department for Education on Wednesday that found a majority of secondaries, and a minority of primaries, make use of "internal inclusion units".

Both maintained schools and academies use isolation spaces but academies are more likely to do so, according to the research. However most schools don't have evidence that such strategies actually work, the report found.

The use of isolation was criticised in a Guardian newspaper article earlier this year that revealed the Outwood Grange Academies Trust, which runs 30 schools, does not allow pupils in isolation rooms to look left or right, chew, tap or sigh - rules one parent dubbed "barbaric".

Another critic has claimed isolation booths are the "bleakest sign of an institution giving up", and are largely used for pupils with learning or emotional difficulties.

But OGAT said the rooms were a place for pupils to calm down and reflect. Many trusts told Schools Week the rooms also allow for supportive conversations without disrupting lessons for other pupils.

Most schools use some sort of isolation rooms

Schools Week sent a freedom of information request to the 90 largest academy trusts asking if they use isolation rooms. A total of 71 responded, of which 48 (68 per cent) confirmed at least some of their schools used the rooms.

Only three trusts - Surrey-based GLF Schools, St Barnabas trust and Cambridge Meridian Academies trust - said all their schools make use of isolation spaces.

Of the 10 largest academy trusts, three did not provide full responses. Academies Enterprise Trust and Ormiston Academies Trust did not respond at all, and Harris Federation said its academies may use supervised isolation rooms but it could not provide further information.

Mark Lehain, interim director at pro-free school group New Schools Network, said it would be a "rare" school that didn't have a place where pupils could be separately educated.

It would be a rare school that doesn't have a place where pupils can be separately educated

Good schools will know when an isolation room could be "overly detrimental to pupils' wellbeing", he added.

However some trusts clearly oppose isolation rooms, with 22 chains saying none of their schools used them.

A spokesperson for the Surrey-based Bourne Education Trust, which includes five secondaries, said pupils have one-on-one conversations with staff but the trust "does not believe isolation rooms work".

Trusts which cater specifically for pupils with special educational needs are also unconvinced.

The Eden Academy Trust, which has seven special-needs schools in Middlesex, said isolation rooms are an "ineffective behaviour-improvement strategy" for pupils with learning difficulties.

Schools Week approached several councils on the use of isolation rooms in their schools but was told details could not be obtained.

Even primary schools are secluding pupils

Sean Powers, interim executive principal of St Barnabas trust, said pupils from year 1 upwards - aged five or six - can be placed in what they call "reflection spaces". The spaces are only accessed when "really needed", with a record kept of the removal and parents informed, he said.

Ark states it provides a separate space for pupils who "find it difficult to manage their behaviour in the classroom". Primary pupils are removed for a maximum of half of a day and secondary pupils for up to a week. The trust said pupils engage in reflective and restorative activities.

REAch2 Academy Trust, which has 60 primary schools, said it does not use isolation spaces, but pupils may be removed from lessons to complete their work separately.

Three out of the five primary schools under the Cheshire-based Heath Family (NW) trust use isolation rooms for up to one day. Chief operating officer Craig Parkinson said these were "warm and supportive environments" which include therapeutic activities to help children.

Finally, three of four schools with the Northern Ambition Academies Trust, which only has one secondary, remove pupils to "intervention spaces" as a last resort, preceded by other interventions. Pupils can be removed for a whole day but only if they have been aggressive.

But Jules Daulby, director of education at the Driver Youth Trust, said removing primary pupils should be used to calm them down, not as a punitive measure when schools "don't know what to do with them".

"If you've created a room for these isolations in primary school, and a paid member of staff is in there too, then the money you're paying that staff member should go on preventative help instead."

Isolation rooms are 'bleakest sign of institution giving up'

Paul Dix, chair of the alternative-provision TBAP Multi-Academy Trust, has claimed in his book on behaviour When the Adults Change that a "room with isolation booths is the bleakest sign of an institution giving up".

Such spaces tell children that adults don't know what to do with them, he wrote.

Many trusts told Schools Week the isolation rooms are an alternative to fixed-term exclusions - and help to reduce permanent exclusions.

For instance, the Collaborative Academies Trust said being sent home makes pupils "happy", so an internal exclusion is preferred.

However, the latest exclusion data shows pupils with identified special educational needs accounted for around half of both permanent exclusions and fixed-term exclusions.

The removal of a pupil must be meaningful to them

Dix believes more than 80 per cent of pupils in any isolation room are likely to have additional needs, including "hidden needs" such as trauma, anxiety or neglect.

Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, which represents academy trusts, said it is right leaders seek to make schools a "safe and scholarly environment".

However the removal of a pupil must be meaningful to them to enable them to change their behaviour, she said, with interventions assessed "on a case-by-case basis".

'She will fall behind'

Many parental complaints about isolation rooms relate to why pupils were sent there, and how long they remain.

Schools Week can reveal 10 of the 44 trusts that divulged how long pupils remain in isolation rooms had schools in which youngsters can remain in isolation for up to one week.

Airedale Academy in Castleford, part of the Northern Ambition Academies Trust, says in its behaviour policy that pupils in isolation must "have both their break and lunch in isolation" too.

A primary teacher who did not wish to be named told Schools Week her year 7 daughter has become anxious and unhappy at school since being repeatedly placed in isolation at a secondary.

The parent claimed the isolation resulted from her daughter chatting in class and not wearing the correct uniform.

The pupil is "only in there with a few books" and the parent claimed she was not told her daughter had been isolated.

However DfE guidance does not state parents must be informed their child has been placed in isolation, nor that the school must record isolation or internal-exclusion statistics.

Daulby has called for regulations requiring schools to record how many times and how often pupils are placed in isolation.

The school concerned is also part of a trust that told Schools Week its isolation rooms have positive benefits.

Responding to the wider question of the use of isolation rooms, Jon Coles, chief executive at United Learning Trust, said schools must have environments in which pupils will obey simple instructions without a long discussion.

But he warned against the "workhouse feel" of punishing pupils in a way that teachers would not punish their own children.

Pupils given 'online resources'

Another issue is whether pupils are missing learning time. More than half (52 per cent) of 47 trusts who answered our question on this said pupils in isolation did not get identical work to their classmates.

For example Delta, Maltby Learning, Oasis Community Learning and Alpha academies trusts said pupils may get work "appropriate" for their age group instead.

Northern Education Trust in Newcastle, which has 20 schools, said pupils can read using the Accelerated Reader software or get work packs.

But the Education Endowment Foundation said the programme had only a "modest" impact on weaker readers in secondary school, offering about three months extra progress.

What the guidance says

The government's statutory behaviour guidance is vague, with the DfE stating disruptive pupils can be put in isolation for "a limited period of time" which is left to schools to determine.

Schools must "act reasonably in all circumstances", and any use of isolation that prevents pupils from leaving a room "of their own free will should only be considered in exceptional circumstances".

Pupils' time in isolation should be as constructive as possible, it adds.

The government has also used the Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College as an example of using an "on-call" room for pupils removed from lessons. The room is successful because it is used to help pupils "reflect on their behaviour and cool down from the incident".

A spokesperson for the DfE said it is "up to schools to decide what forms of discipline they adopt, as long as they are lawful and used reasonably".

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Isolation rooms: How swathes of schools are removing pupils from their classrooms

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Primary schools are using isolation rooms to punish pupils as young as five years old, with some secondaries admitting they are willing to put older pupils into seclusion for up to five days in a row. A Schools Week investigation has today lifted the lid on the scale and details of how schools across the country use isolation as punishment for unruly pupils.

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Legal action prompts academy to consider isolation unit criticisms

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Legal action prompts academy to consider isolation unit criticisms

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Outwood Grange Academies Trust to consider challenge by pupil who spent up to 35 days alone

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Nick Gibb condemns 'school shaming' over behaviour policies

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Nick Gibb has criticised the so-called 'school shaming' of schools and headteachers which implement tough behaviour policies.

Speaking at the 'Wonder Years' conference organised by Parents and Teachers for Excellence this morning, the school standards minister said heads had had their "reputations attacked and their motives impugned".

There have been a number of cases in recent years of schools appearing in the national media after excluding pupils for their haircuts and uniform.

Mr Gibb said: "Instead of hearing how headteachers raising academic and behavioural expectations has improved the life chances of pupils, too often, schools and headteachers are attacked for their methods.

"For example, every September sees a litany of headteachers lambasted for implementing a school behaviour system that will often after years of persistent low-level disruption, permit teachers to teach and pupils to learn.

"Sullen looking 13-year-olds with bright red-dyed spiky haircuts stare forlornly out of newspapers pleading that they were unaware that the strict new uniform policy precluded such snazzy haircuts."

Mr Gibb said that "in the most unfortunate cases, headteachers have their reputations dragged through the media circus, their reputations attacked and their motives impugned, with no regard for the history of underachievement that needs overturning in their schools".

The minister also attacked the "mischievous or misinformed conflation of fixed-term exclusions with permanent exclusions", which he said made for "easy swipes at those dedicating their lives to tackling educational underperformance".

He added: "These headteachers deserve support for their excellent work because up and down the country they are, school by school, helping to turn around local areas that are too often ignored in national education debates.

"They are the experts making the best decisions in the interests of their pupils in a system that prizes both autonomy and accountability, they deserve to be judged by the outcomes they achieve."

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Nick Gibb condemns 'school shaming' over behaviour policies

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Nick Gibb has criticised the so-called 'school shaming' of schools and headteachers which implement tough behaviour policies. Speaking at the 'Wonder Years' conference organised by Parents and Teachers for Excellence this morning, the school standards minister said heads had had their "reputations attacked and their motives impugned".

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Exclusions build a school-to-prison pipeline'

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Last year, I read an article that suggested Gloucestershire schools could be fined £5,000 for excluding pupils. At first it made me sad, and then rather frustrated, because exclusion is a symptom of malaise and it has smothered our education system for far too long.

If the only solution a local authority has to combat inappropriate and permanent exclusions is to fine schools that are already skint, then we're in real trouble.

What local authorities need to remember is that when you focus on problems, you only generate more problems, but when you focus on possibilities, you find more opportunities. So when a struggling school is responsible for the rising number of excluded pupils it is often down to the school's own unmet needs, and, in an institutional way, this isn't too dissimilar to the kids who face exclusion.

So what kind of message would councils be sending out if they fined these schools, the schools that are already struggling? Because, more often than not, these are the ones that are still attempting to deal with the fall-out of the decade-long austerity that has broken Britain and also resulted in the closure of almost every community service for disabled pupils and their parents.

This culture of funding cuts has radically affected the poorest in society and it cannot be ignored. It cannot be thought of as a causal effect of poverty and the expectation of our most vulnerable. It has left the poorest and most vulnerable children, those who form the significant majority of special educational needs and disability pupils, to be deprived of the help and support they need from cash-strapped schools.

In some large comprehensive schools, there is not even a single Sendco.

Schools are terrorised by league tables

The result - it's not pretty - is that underfunded schools are terrorised by league tables, threatened with academisation, and are forced to believe that the only currency of any value in the education system is exam results. These schools are the ones now forced to exclude disabled children and young people rather than focus on their specific needs.

In these circumstances, I have no doubt that a number of comprehensives have resorted to manipulating parents to home-school their children for fears that they won't make the government's ideal grade.

A few academy chains have now cottoned on to a different solution; open a social, emotional and mental health school and drop all the misfits into these soon-to-be "sinkholes", where poor results are more likely to be forgiven by Ofsted while allowing their main flagship academies to continue to impress.

These flagship schools soon become gated communities for high-achieving, disability-free pupils. While the teachers who came into education embracing the premise and values that schools should be inclusive somehow become complicit in moving problem children out, and effectively kicking a child-shaped can down the road.

There are, of course, real-life consequences from this for the pupils themselves, their parents, our communities and society as a whole.

These pupils are overrepresented in every negative statistic: poverty, homelessness, mental ill health, alcoholism, drug abuse, crime and the criminal justice system. If we are not careful, we are building a school-to-prison pipeline.

What happened to inclusion?

But perhaps the saddest element of this short-sighted exclusion fix is that it delivers a message across the whole school that will not easily be forgotten by pupils, staff, SLT or the community: our disabled children are problems, not to be supported, but to be removed. If success is only measured in exam results and not in a school's role to encourage real values of inclusivity, then the pressure is only heightened and a real opportunity for these students is lost.

What is also lost in this orgy of exclusion is the ability for a whole school to mirror and model a philosophy of inclusion. How will it ever be possible to feel the sheer joy of working together as a community to not only support vulnerable pupils with low aspirations but also to help turn their education around?

As the African proverb says, it takes a village to raise a child, and that has never been more important than it is today in England's education system.

Of course, our schools need more money, but they also need to be allowed to attempt a change in culture, they need to be allowed to move away from an obsession with exam results and league tables, and towards one in which all children can be valued and educated, together.

Thomas Keaney is the TCES Group's chief executive and schools proprietor

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'Exclusions build a school-to-prison pipeline'

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Last year, I read an article that suggested Gloucestershire schools could be fined £5,000 for excluding pupils. At first it made me sad, and then rather frustrated, because exclusion is a symptom of malaise and it has smothered our education system for far too long.

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a blog

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In 2016 my son's behaviour took a turn for the worse at school and indeed at home. This was not an easy year for him with a couple of traumatic events slamming into his already hormonal heart like a ton of bricks. In March his father died suddenly and without any real explanation. My son was 12 at the time.
Almost immediately after this news I became aware that I was pregnant with my second child. My son had to get his head round these two massive events and understandably it was not easy. The issues at school became out of hand quite quickly. Leaving primary with level 5 SATs across the board, although my son was always lively and inquisitive, I had had no big concerns about him previously. School started to send some letters home detailing my son's placement in the 'inclusion unit'.

I imagined almost a utopian space where my son would be spoken with and given chances to reflect in a connective and meaningful way which would thus allow him to be included back in the classroom with his peers. I thought he was getting support and understanding for his grief.

At this stage I did not know that he was, aged 12 and recently bereaved, being placed in an isolation unit which was akin to a cell. His offences were more often than not very minor. I have since found out that 20 plus times he was placed in isolation for wearing white socks.
At the end of year 7 I was told due to him having a bad year he was going to be sent to another school for the final week. I was told that here he would be monitored by professionals and reports would be made so that he could get the correct support in year 8. By this point I was starting to feel that something did not quite add up. I had seen a really rapid decline in my lively bright son and he was having frequent meltdowns at home. He was quite often becoming very upset and angry and on a number of occasions he was totally inconsolable. Obviously it was easy to see this as grief but it felt such angry grief that I instinctively felt there was more to it.
I asked to visit the unit where they proposed to send him and I was shocked to find no professionals ready to make reports or connect with his grief but a number of isolation units where he would be spending the last week of year 7. Sent to a cell while his friends said goodbye to their initial year in secondary school. This on top of the fact he was grieving a sudden and unresolved ending just felt totally abusive. I didn't let him go that week and kept him at home.

I then went into a lengthy and futile battle with the school system over their overuse of isolation units. As a Therapist working in education myself I am perhaps better informed than your average parent to challenge this practice but I got literally nowhere.
My son was put in isolation for ten days back to back once and was a veritable mess. All for minor, low level issues.
The situation did not end well- we had no EP assessment and very limited support at school - I found and paid for a counsellor myself at one point as it seemed school felt we weren't a deserving enough case. Staff told my child in professional meetings that people had been through worse and there was a real theme of a lack of empathy and understanding. It felt like the isolation units were symbolic of the hostility many paid professional staff exhibited. No doubt due to lack of training staff were more often than not not grief or trauma informed and simply did not know how to support my grieving son.
I now homeschool my son who is studying for 5 GCSEs and has a part- time paid job - he is excelling in all areas but he misses belonging in a place with others his age and I fear this might be something that he will have to work hard emotionally to heal.
I shudder to think what went through his head all those hours he spent staring at the wall not knowing how to process his grief. As a parent I'm furious that my son was put through this and I never want it to happen to any other child.

These units need guidelines and research at the very least. I'm not against withdrawal but I think isolation is torturous, degrading and harmful to children who are 9/10 times the most vulnerable in society. Give them a place to talk, reflect, connect - not a place to breed fury and reinforce the reasons for the challenging behaviour.
Isolation is cruel and 99 per cent of the time ineffective- it's cheap and it marginalises the vulnerable- that's why it's so popular.

Jessica Timmis

Join us www.BanTheBooths.co.uk

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Aged 12, recently bereaved, put in a booth. A parent speaks out. | Ban The Booths

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At this stage I did not know that he was, aged 12 and recently bereaved, being placed in an isolation unit which was akin to a cell. His offences were more often than not very minor. I have since found out that 20 plus times he was placed in isolation for wearing white socks.

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Exclusions: Ofsted will look more closely at ‘repeat’ patterns of suspension

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Over half of secondary schools use ‘internal inclusion units’, DfE research finds

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Over half of secondary schools and a minority of primaries are using "internal inclusion units" as a behaviour strategy - but not many schools have evidence that such strategies actually work.

The Department for Education has this morning published investigative research it commissioned into alternative provision, following concerns from MPs and school leaders about rising exclusions and the low academic performance of pupils in AP.

The Department for Education commissioned IFF Research to carry out telephone depth interviews with 276 schools and 200 alternative providers, alongside 25 in-depth case studies with alternative providers between February and June 2018.

The research found many alternative providers are worried schools are incentivised to permanently exclude their pupils rather than give them fixed-term exclusions, as then the local authority rather than school will be forced to fund the pupil's education.

The AP providers said this was "short-sighted" as short-term placements were more effective in ensuring pupils remained in mainstream education.

Academics at IFF Research also found that over half of the secondary schools they spoke to made use of internal isolation rooms, or isolation rooms, to support pupils at risk of exclusion. A minority of primary schools also used the rooms.

The approach was "more likely" to be used by mainstream school, particularly academies.

The nature of the inclusion units varies across schools, researchers found. Some schools called them 'sanction rooms' with the emphasis was on punishment. Others emphasised keeping the pupil away from other children. Some schools saw the unit as a more supportive environment.

But a common theme across all the schools was thinking "they offered a halfway point between excluding a pupil and keeping them in the mainstream classroom."

The report follows a row over the use of internal inclusion units or isolation spaces after reports of pupils sitting in silence on their own for hours for minor infraction of school rules.

In particular, the behaviour policy of the Outwood Grange Academies trust, which has 31 schools based in the north, caused consternation after The Guardian revealed teachers were instructed to "ignore" pupils in isolation rooms.

But the trust said the rooms were a place for pupils to "calm down, reflect and often self-correct their behaviour that may have led to that situation".

Researchers, in today's report, also warned schools don't actually know whether such behaviour policies are having the desired effect on pupils.

"There was a lack of hard evidence of schools evaluating the impacts of preventative strategies," they wrote.

Schools are claiming that avoiding an exclusion is evidence of success, but as the schools don't carry out formal evaluations they are "unable to determine it was the preventative strategies that led to this outcome," the report stated.

Education secretary Damian Hinds confirmed earlier today the government is not ruling out legislation to make schools more accountable for the children they place in alternative provision.

Ahead of a round table meeting about alternative provision at the Centre for Social Justice today, Damian Hinds said a legal mechanism to hold schools to account for permanently excluded pupils is "not off the table".

The report also found that many parents felt their school could have done more to keep the pupil in mainstream education, and before the referral many would have preferred this.

Parents responded better when given 'taster days' of the alternative provision, and many then preferred the smaller class sizes and specialist support available once their child had moved over.

The sample of schools and APs was drawn from the government's Get Information About Schools service, with independent AP providers found via the internet and publicly-available directories.

The report said the research is "qualitative in nature" and is not intended to provide a representative distribution of all providers.

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Over half of secondary schools use 'internal inclusion units', DfE research finds

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Over half of secondary schools and a minority of primaries are using "internal inclusion units" as a behaviour strategy - but not many schools have evidence that such strategies actually work. The Department for Education has this morning published investigative research it commissioned into alternative provision, following concerns from MPs and school leaders about rising exclusions and the low academic performance of pupils in AP.

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Damaged children need people, not increasingly severe punishment, says top behavioural management specialist* Plus teaching resources to help you in class

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Staff booklet - BfL Policy overview 2018-19 (1)

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22 Behaviour for Learning Policy Guidance 29 10 18