Pupils who spent up to half a year in isolation rooms are challenging a trust’s use of a behaviour policy that they claim failed to consider the impact on their wellbeing.
But lawyers for the GORSE Academies Trust have defended its “positive discipline” policy, and insist the use of isolation rooms has helped to improve the behaviour of the pupils now challenging the practice in court.
The High Court in Leeds is considering a judicial review against the “repeated isolation and suspensions” of three pupils at John Smeaton Academy when they were aged between 12 and 14.
The pupils’ legal team said isolation involved sitting “in a three-sided booth in a dedicated ‘isolation’ room in enforced silence for six hours a day without being allowed to interact with or speak to peers, including at breaks and lunch time, and without active or meaningful teaching”.
All three, who have been given different names to protect their identities, have “special educational or additional needs affecting their behaviour”, a skeleton argument filed by their lawyers claimed. The trust disputes this for one of the pupils.
Lawyers say almost a third served an ‘isolation sanction’
Sir John Townsley, the chief executive of GORSE, was an early adopter of isolation rooms and, as reported by Education Uncovered last week, spoke openly about its use as long ago as 2008.
Townsley, then head of Morley High School, told The TES that “very few pupils (less than 3 per cent) spend any time in isolation”.
Lawyers for the children said data obtained from GORSE, which runs John Smeaton, showed 187 pupils – 31 per cent of those at the school – served an “isolation sanction” in 2023-24.
One pupil, known as Lydia, spent 83 days in isolation and 14 days suspended in 2023-24, equating to more than half of the academic year.
Her lawyers said that for most of the time in isolation, she “just stare[d] at the walls of the booth” and “[couldn’t] understand what they [were] asking [her] to do in the work that [was] given”.
The repeated isolation made her feel “really stressed” and “[w]hen [she’s] stressed it makes [her] angry, and then [she does] things that get [her] warnings, which gets more Iso[lation]”.
‘Impossible to learn,’ court told
Luke, who has “significant traits of autism spectrum disorder”, was either isolated or suspended for 39 per cent of the academic year.
Lawyers said he found it “impossible to learn in isolation and frequently could not cope with the strict rules and ended up either breaking them or walking out, which led to further isolation or suspension”.
Elise spent 28 days in isolation in the 2023-24 school year, and “seldom completed the work…as she struggled to understand it”.
Lawyers argued there was “no evidence” the school considered the “negative impact of repeated isolation” on the claimants, their education, self-esteem and socialisation.
They also alleged the school failed to consider whether the isolation was proportionate.
Staff do assess proportionality, says trust
But in their own skeleton argument, GORSE’s legal team said assessing proportionality was “exactly the exercise carried out by its staff, particularly the senior staff members who review isolation decisions”.
They also claimed children were “not actually isolated – on any one day there are generally around ten pupils working in each of the two isolation rooms”.
Some behaviour that led to isolation included physically assaulting another pupil, absconding from lessons and “screaming at other students”.
The legal team, which includes high-profile defamation specialist lawyers Carter Ruck, said each instance was a disciplinary response by staff to a discrete instance of poor behaviour by a pupil.
John Smeaton, previously part of United Learning, was rated ‘inadequate’ in 2019. It joined GORSE in 2021. Last year, it was rated ‘good’ across the board.
‘Positive discipline’ at heart of trust ‘success’
The trust’s lawyers said its “positive discipline” policy was “at the heart of its success over the course of the last two decades”.
It is not the first time that isolation practices, which allow schools to “remove disruptive pupils” while avoiding suspension or exclusion, have been challenged.
A judicial review was threatened against the Outwood Grange Academies Trust in 2019, then run by Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, over the legality of using isolation rooms for long periods.
The trust amended its behaviour policy amid the challenge to “better support pupils”.
At John Smeaton, lawyers said there had been a “striking drop” of about two-thirds in Lydia and Luke’s rates of isolation after legal action was launched.
But GORSE’s lawyers said this improvement “reflects the support” put in place and showed “discipline policies are delivering results”.
A judgment is yet to be handed down.
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