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Punishment at school

mavis

My 13 year old son has, after alot of years of being fobbed off and waiting, just been diagnosed with autism.

Been to see the school he attends (mainstream), and am unsure they're going to do what they say they will.  However am waiting for CIR referral so hopefully that will help.  However my problem at the moment is my son is spending a fair amount of time in isolation because of his behaviour.  Don't get me wrong if he hits another boy around the head for stealing his ball during a PE lesson then he deserves chastising.  Is putting him in isolation for half the day allowed, or even the answer.  Surely putting a child with autism in isolation is how they spend half their life anyway,  how is shutting him off more even going to help.  Would welcome anyones help or advise.  Very new to all of this and have alot to learn!!

  • In a way that is what my son's school said, that everyone got the same punishment, but they also worked hard at helping them to change their behaviour.

    My son had a Statement from Year 9, and went to a mainstream school that had a lot of children on the spectrum.

    Has your son got a Statement, or has he got an IEP? Have you spoken to the SENCo?

    Sitting outside an office is not going to help him, and he will probably need prompting to get on with his work in the isolation room. I found it was one of those situations where I wanted my son to accept the consequences of his actions, but felt there needed to be reasonable adjustments (in his case having an adult around to prompt him to do his work and also talk to him about what he needed to do in future.)

  • Thanks for reply.  Isolation at the moment seems to consist of either sitting outside student managers office or in isolation booth itself. Trouble is either way he's left to get on with school work.  He's refusing to do any though, apparently just slumps over his desk daydreaming!  Spoke to student manager about this and he just said that that is school policy, and is the same for everyone!  I'm just hoping that my son will learn something from this...not sure thats going to happen though!

  • My son spent many a happy hour in Isolation. In fact on more than one occasion he went down to the Isolation room and tried to check himself in. He loved it because if he was lucky the supervising teacher would allow him to talk about his special interest, and staff always said he got far more work done in there than in class. The distractions in class just made him anxious and being in the booths in the isolation room was perfect for him.

    I made the point to the Head that it wasn't actually punishing him, but they did spend quite some time in there talking to him about his behaviour. Amazingly he did get to the point in Year 11 where he had an Ise-free year.

    What I would say is that for us it worked as part of a strategy to make him understand the effect his behaviour had on others. If they just put him in there to get him out of the way, then I agree it is of little or no value. I think you should talk to the SENCo and see what their approach is.

    And beware, because after Isolation comes Exclusion and that is a much trickier thing to deal with.

  • hi Mavis - I don't think the school's going about things the right way.  What happens in "isolation"?  Have you got a social worker who cd look into things on your behalf or can you speak to the Chair of the Governors?  Don't know if you've already done this, so sorry if you have.  Have a look on the ipsea site.  I understand it may be helpful.  Maybe putting your son in isolation regularly for long periods of time suits the school + is a reflection of their capabilities when it comes to having a pupil with asd?  bw