Pupil put in isolation booth for more than half a school year, BBC learns
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Image source, Getty ImagesByAnna Meisel and Jane Deith, File on 4 InvestigatesPublished8 minutes agoA school put a pupil in an isolation booth away from the classroom for more than half an academic year, BBC's File on 4 Investigates has learned.
The child was one of 23 at Outwood Grange Academy in Wakefield who spent more than 20% of their days in the booths in one of the past two academic years. The school is run by a trust that has previously faced a legal challenge to its use of isolation to manage pupil behaviour. One former student told us they were made to sit in silence, monitored by cameras and banned from even looking around the room.
Outwood Grange Academy said students are only sent into isolation after multiple warnings and the policy has successfully improved behaviour. Warning: this story contains references to suicide and self-harm Our findings, from Freedom of Information requests, underline growing concerns about how "no excuses" approaches to discipline are being implemented in schools across England. A safeguarding review last year found an east London school's zero-tolerance policy involved pupils being routinely humiliated by shouting and prioritised control above all else, leaving some children with lasting psychological harm.
Another trust in Cornwall - whose discipline policy has been criticised by parents - is considering whether its schools should be run by other trusts. Image source, GoogleGovernment guidance says isolation, which it calls "internal exclusion", should only be used as a last resort, but one study found it is common. An analysis by education consultants The Key Group found 18% of students at hundreds of secondary schools using the practice were isolated at least once during the academic year.
Isolation involves taking students out of their classes and moving them to a separate supervised space. Schools sometimes call it "reflection" or "reset".
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