The policy will shift to keeping vulnerable students in school as it switches to the fundamental causes of exclusions.
Isolation booths, frequent suspensions, and harsh behavior regimes are going to be phased out in England as the Labour government focuses on how to keep the most vulnerable students in school.
According to education leaders close to the new government, the minister intends to change the inspection regime so that all schools are judged on whether they are properly representative of their local community. This will also prevent schools from telling parents that their child with special needs would be better off at another school or from repeatedly suspending them for failing to meet strict behavior rules.
Anne Longfield, the former children’s commissioner whose Centre for Young Live has been collaborating with the Labour education team, stated: “Looking at the data and talking to young people it is clear that a large group of kids have been made to feel school isn’t for them and that has to change.”
“I’ve talked to kids who weren’t able to cope with all the rules, who kept ending up in isolation, and some children said it was happening week after week.”
Longfield emphasized that many schools were already doing “amazing things” to ensure inclusiveness and support for all children’s learning. However, she claimed that because the accountability system primarily focuses on academic performance and does not include factors such as whether one school has more students with special needs than another, these institutions were punished for accepting them.
Tom Bennett, the Tory government’s behavior tsar, is widely expected to leave the Department for Education soon. Bennett has advocated for a culture of silent corridors and strong consequences for violating any school rule, even not wearing the proper uniform or equipment. He stated over the weekend that his appointment was not part political and would continue to advise on good school behavior and what children need to succeed for as long as required. He said he was contracted to lead a behavior hubs program until 2025.
Bennet went on to say, “Schools should try to meet the needs of all students wherever possible. That is a completely different question from whether children should be allowed to behave as they please at school.”
According to a source close to the Labour government, the Department for Education behavior hubs providing school training based on Bennett’s restrictive model will no longer receive funds.
Last week, ministers described “shocking” new data revealing that 787,000 students were suspended in the 2022-2023 academic years in England as a “wake-up call. Stephen Morgan, the Minister of Education, emphasized that while the government would always assist teachers in establishing a calm, safe learning environment, but stressed they were “determined to get to grips with the causes of exclusions.”
According to Dan Rosberg, partner and education expert at law firm Simpson Millar, a representative of families unhappy that their children have spent too much time in isolation, stated, “In some strict academy trusts I’ve found schools with over 25 pupils who have spent over 40 days of the year in isolation.”
He stated that children with ADHD or autism (some things not formally diagnosed) were likely to be sent to isolation rooms regularly, as were children who had a lot going on at home due to poverty.
Bennett stated, “Removal rooms are essential in a school with any level of challenge so that students who seriously misbehave can be temporarily removed from the classroom to a designated safe, monitored space to calm down, talk to pastoral team members, or carry on with their work away from the lesson they are disrupting.”
According to Rosenberg, “One big impact is that they fall behind. They aren’t taught in these rooms; these pupils need proper teaching, education, and support.
Rosenberg disclosed that many of these children were challenging to teach and stated that teachers must have the authority to send students to a class where they misbehave. However, he argued that permitting students to spend many days in isolation made them more likely to “act up” as they fell farther behind, with some refusing to attend school.
He added, “High use of isolation appears to be an effective tool for improving a school’s headline academic results in a short space of time but at a huge price for every child who ends up being shut out.”
Paul Dix, a former teacher in challenging schools who now trains schools on controlling behavior, stated, “Labour simply needs to say that an outstanding school succeeds for all its pupils.
“There are schools fixed-term excluding or isolating hundreds of kids a week and expecting their behaviour to get better … it won’t.”
He went further, saying, “By all means have discipline. But there is no need to have cruelty behind it. This sort of thing has to stop.”
