rationalskepticism.org

Spearthrower wrote:

UncertainSloth wrote:
so you believe it's ok for children to be taken out of school for an extended period of time for what isn't considered an exceptional reason?

Point of clarity: where did I suggest anything of the sort? I said nothing about what I believe, or disbelieve, I merely compared it to isolation.

I first questioned whether suspension and exclusion were still actions a school could take (because I honestly don't know if that's changed while I wasn't looking) and if they are actions a school can take, then I followed through with...

I can't see a distinction betweem a kid that's so irredeemably awful that they need to be isolated in school from other kids and a kid that should just be suspended. If their behavior's not bad enough to warrant suspension, then their behavior's surely not bad enough to warrant isolation?

So why are they being isolated rather than being suspended or expelled? If anything, I was suggesting they are functionally equivalent.

UncertainSloth wrote:professionally, i don't believe they're fined enough, that's why it still happens...with the fine, it's still much cheaper to go in term time...the demands for progress are far too high for extended absence to not have an impact...
that said, personally, i'd extend the exceptional reason definition from its current form but that's a different debate

It is indeed another argument, and it's one where I'd wonder whether the poorest people should even be allowed holidays. But as you say, different debate.

UncertainSloth wrote:all schools should have positive reinforcement within their behaviour policy, that's not something that's disappeared, but sanctions are, unfortunately, very much needed

Ok, so back to suspension and expulsion...

UncertainSloth wrote:the issue with your reference to suspension and exclusion rather than isolation comes to what i mentioned above...those two are far more difficult to achieve than they used to be, especially permanent exclusion...basically, speaking as one who's working within the process at the moment, you have to demonstrate you have exhausted every possible avenue possible to support that's child's exclusion or referral to behavioural unit...this is made even more complex if the child has send
isolation, where it is used, is one of those hoops that has to be jumped through first...

to be clear, i know i'm coming from experience (and only from a uk persepctive) rather than evidence but i'm trying to explain the weaknesses in our system, not defend them and i certainly don't believe it was applied at all correctly in this case as that child's needs should have been catered for within the send policy, not the behavioural...

Then I am not really sure where you're disagreeing with me, to be honest. I can't see a single thing there that contradicts my point.

UncertainSloth wrote:believe me, as fall said above, the standards of behaviour have changed massively in the last 25 years...i hold my own opinions as to why that is...

While I don't dispute this, I have to say that I went to a highschool where a 14 year old kid beat up a teacher right in the front of the class and was actually taken down by other pupils, teens routinely took drugs and alcohol during school hours, knives, shanks and other weapons were routinely discovered, during a full school assembly, a kid called Craig hopped up on the stage behind the Head Teacher, pulled down his trousers and full-mooned the entire school and staff, gave the teachers the bird, then climbed out of a window to avoid the head of P.E. tackling him. These are just off the top of my head, and I am sure given a while longer I can recall some even more extreme anecdotes.

Even I hit a teacher once, but fair play, he was strangling me at the time!

We were the school you got sent to when you were expelled from every other school in the area - one kid ended up at our school after putting a fellow 13 year old in a coma for refusing to share his crisps - but in all the time I was there, I only recall a single instance of our school expelling anyone, and I can't even recall what that kid did, but it would have had to have been unbelievably egregious by any standard, past or present.

Not to suggest you're wrong that this kind of behavior is more wide-spread than before, but it has always happened, and it's always been difficult to deal with. That doesn't make isolating children in our care any less of an abject failure, both in systematic terms and morally.