Recent reports (Steep rise in under-11s excluded from school for being disruptive, 1 April; Mother sues over daughter’s suicide attempt in school isolation booth, 3 April; Teachers could have to report knife fears, 1 April) have highlighted the devastating effect the government’s policies have had on the education of children with complex needs.
Could someone ask Theresa May, Damian Hinds, Sajid Javid or Ofsted one simple question: what should a teacher do with a violent pupil who is threatening to harm other children, or with a disruptive child who is preventing other children from getting the education they deserve? For the sake of the others, they need to be removed from the classroom; but where do they go next? Schools are condemned for excluding these children but are now also being condemned for using isolation in school to contain them. What is the alternative? Children with emotional and behavioural difficulties need support, but support costs money and overstretched schools don’t have any. Where are these vulnerable young people supposed to go?
Is it a surprise if some of these children, abandoned by the system, find the attention, inclusion and validation they need by joining gangs on the streets? Home Office plans to tackle the increase in youth knife crime need to go much deeper into the roots of the problem and make funds available to support children with special educational needs and disabilities much earlier. Reversing cuts to Sure Start, schools, child and adolescent mental health services, social services, the police and youth services would be a good start.
Doreen Worthington
Lincoln
• Lawyers acting for children who have been placed in isolation at school would do well to read the 1991 report by Alan Levy and Barbara Kahan into the use of “pindown” in children’s homes in the 1980s. Children were isolated for long periods of time as punishment and some were driven to the verge of suicide. Obviously children return from school to home daily so are not in solitary confinement for 24 hours a day, but the similarities in context, attitude and practice are still alarming. Pindown was a response to cuts in a system that was already underfunded. I wonder how many of the children subjected to it still live with the psychological consequences.
Susan Ellery
Horsham, West Sussex
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