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Hi Bluemetro,

Yes, I read that article in the Guardian too. Sadly, my son's secondary school are deeply into isolations and AS has been getting a stack of them this term. I wrote an email to his form tutor today, just in that "I'm a supportive parent, let's see what we can do about this" kind of way. They did give him a time-out card to use previously, which was really handy as if he was feeling like he was getting cross about something he could sit quietly / leave the room for a few minutes and then join back in when he was ready. It helped, at least it gave him the opportunity to recognise when he couldn't cope and then resolve it in a way that didn't result in negativity or a punishment. I think he is deemed "too old" for that approach now as they removed it.

Would be interested to know what this "inclusion" involved. Is your son at primary or secondary?

AS is in Secondary year 8. I have to admit I was concerned after we had a call to say this would happen the next day. It was the first time this more serious method had been necessary and also we have had quite a few days of school refusal and just begun to think he might manage a full week.

So what happened was instead of going into registration he was met by a senior member of staff and taken to a room with a member of staff where him and the other child spent the whole day. I don't know exactly what happened as we don't get told a lot, but they spent time getting to a place where they could apologise, did some of normal work, went outside separately from other children. He actually ate all his lunch too. I had wondered how it would work because he finds writing and two conversation difficult but not sure exactly how they got to the apology stage. All I can say was the staff member knew the right thing to do.

Hope you are able to get more understanding from school.

Just to add to my last reply. DS schools approach is one of restoration rather than punishment. However things went wrong again yesterday he acted again on impulse which is hard for him to control so will have another day in inclusion. His reaction was that it is too boring and would have preferred an exclusion so does not want to attend. So back to working with school again on this one. We were just about to celebrate the first week of this term he was there for 5 days after school refusal due to anxiety.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

To be honest inclusion - as described - doesn’t seem any different from isolation as they used to do it at my sons school - just a more positive name! There they were in a separate room with a member of staff (pastoral I think) for the whole day - did their work there (in theory at least though I don’t think they got any help / teaching) - ate there and I think had a break separate from the others (not sure - but definitely didn’t mix with the rest of the school) - did talk whatever they’d done through with a member of pastoral at some point. Better than exclusion though as you say

@bluemetro speaking from my own experience at school, if your son if finding it boring, it is likely due to a low self-esteem in regard to his abilities, and a feeling of isolation, perhaps, from learning. I know I felt this way at school. I caught on quickly that the ones who did well and whom teachers were therefore most impressed with were the kids from the most stable backgrounds - often the middle class kids. I knew that that wasn't me and felt rejected - I felt that I wasn't like those kids and therefore had no capacity for learning/ no potential etc. It makes it easy for you to give up prematurely. Rest assured, it wasn't true in the slightest. Still, I think it subtly affects many children. Much of this is explained Sociology - it's an amazing subject and one I would suggest every adoptive/ed (?)/ prospective adoptive parent to look into in their spare time. There are othet factors too of course, but I focused on one I had personal experience with. Your child may need help feeling safe to learn, i.e. feeling accepted, validated, seen and valued in the realm of education. Perhaps in you could take them to slam poetry events or any other type of event that breaks down the supposed elitism of learning. Hope this helps!