Schools will face a legal duty to record their use of non-disciplinary isolation and report it to parents under plans being developed by the government.
The decision to legislate for the new duty, which will not cover the use of isolation as a punishment, has delayed the publication of final guidance on restrictive interventions in schools, which is being re-drafted.
Isolation is often used to describe both “seclusion” and “removal”, but the two are different.
Seclusion is defined by government as the “supervised confinement and isolation of a pupil, away from other pupils”. Whereas “removal” is “where a pupil, for serious disciplinary reasons, is required to spend a limited time out of the classroom”.
Ministers consulted in February on new guidance that will require schools to record every “significant” use of reasonable force against pupils and report them to parents “as soon as practicable”.
Draft guidance ‘further updated’
The draft guidance, which was supposed to come into force in September, stated that restrictive interventions “may include use of seclusion”. It defines seclusion as the “supervised confinement and isolation of a pupil, away from other pupils, in an area from which the pupil is prevented from leaving of their own free will”.
However, the draft guidance also stated that the law “does not require schools to record and report instances of restrictive interventions where force was not used”, stating only that it was “best practice” to apply the same policy for all interventions.
However, the Department for Education told Schools Week it plans to legislate for a separate, specific duty “to ensure the use of seclusion is recorded and reported to parents”.
As a result, the draft guidance “is being further updated to include additional advice about this new statutory duty, as well as reflecting findings from the consultation. We aim to publish the guidance and legislation by the end of the year.”
‘Genuine effort’ to listen to feedback
Charlie Blackman-Doyle, a local authority specialist teacher, said: “If the delay reflects a genuine effort to incorporate sector feedback, then it should be welcomed.
The inclusion of a new reporting and recording duty for incidents of seclusion is a positive and necessary addition to the DfE’s proposed guidance.
Its success, however, will depend on the clarity of the final guidance.”
It is not clear why the government is planning a legal duty to record and report seclusion but not isolation as a punishment – which has become an increasingly controversial behaviour management tactic.
Behaviour guidance states schools “should collect, monitor and analyse removal data internally in order to interrogate repeat patterns and the effectiveness of the use of removal”. But that guidance is non-statutory.
The news comes after research published by the British Educational Research Journal found spending time in isolation rooms due to poor behaviour is resulting in pupils feeling reduced belonging, having poorer relationships with teachers and some reporting lower levels of mental wellbeing.
The research found one in 12 pupils reported being placed in isolation, also known as internal exclusion, per week. The average time spend in isolation was 8.5 hours a week.
It also comes after pupils who spent up to half a year in “unpleasant and distressing” isolation rooms lost a High Court battle against their school’s “rigorous” behaviour policy.
High Court judge Justice Collins Rice called the practice “stigmatising” and “deliberately under-stimulating” – but found John Smeaton Academy in Leeds had not “crossed the boundaries of what the law or good practice permits”.
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