The high court has upheld the use of isolation booths by schools in England, dashing the hopes of campaigners who argue they are stressful and stigmatising for pupils.
A judge turned down an application for a judicial review of the use of isolation booths at a secondary school in Leeds, noting that there are few alternatives other than suspension, and that behaviour in two of the three cases submitted showed signs of improvement.
The use of the booths has become a flashpoint within education, with an increasing number of schools using them to manage pupils with complex behaviour after budget cuts and shrinking local authority services had reduced the external support available.
Lawyers for the three families argued that prolonged use of isolation booths for disruptive or violent behaviour was depriving children at John Smeaton academy in Leeds of education, with one child spending 83 days in isolation and 14 days suspended, totalling more than half the school year.
Mrs Justice Collins Rice found the school had not “crossed the boundaries of what the law or good practice permits”, despite questions about the “reasonableness” of the policy and the lack of alternatives.
Collins Rice said in her decision: “For serious or persistent misconduct, and for intolerable and relentless classroom disruptiveness, removal to isolation offers both school and student a vital alternative to removal from school altogether.
“It keeps a student in supervised and supported education during the school day. It offers a structured way back to the classroom. It avoids where possible the accrual of a suspension record which ultimately becomes a conveyor belt to school exclusion.”
Dan Rosenberg, a lawyer representing the claimants, said: “Of course, our clients are extremely disappointed by the outcome and are taking advice on an appeal. Yet while this ruling provides little reprieve for the families or their children in the immediate term, it is their hope that the case will shine a wider public light on the issues raised – both within their own trust and in schools across the country.”
Under the school’s isolation policy, pupils were placed in supervised rooms, seated in booths and given academic work to complete. The policy included “pastoral conversation to support insight, wellbeing and the completion of the work set”, but no contact with other pupils.
Tom Bennett, a former teacher and adviser to the Department for Education on behaviour policy, described the ruling as significant in supporting school leaders.
He said: “Sometimes taking disruptive students out of the classroom and into temporary supervised spaces away from their victims is absolutely necessary, and I challenge anyone who disputes that to try and run challenging classes for a while and show us all how it’s done.
“Every child has rights, which includes the rights of everyone else to a place of safety free from assault and abuse. Schools are doing their best to maintain good order, and this judgment helps to underpin that.”
However, one school leader said schools needed to consider better pastoral support to cope with the wave of complex behaviours and special needs among children.
She said: “You can’t let these behaviours flourish, of course, [and] the wider knock-on for the rest of the school would have been grim. But this is the cost of austerity. Secondary schools especially need that wider infrastructure within and around them, otherwise you are only left with contain or remove [policies].”
