Yorkshire school isolation policy faces High Court challenge

Three pupils said they were kept for hours at a time in silent booths with little or no teaching at John Smeaton Academy, and the challenge is being heard in Leeds.

The pupils said isolation at the school meant sitting in a three-sided booth in a dedicated room for six hours a day, including break and lunch, in enforced silence. The sanctions were repeated enough to amount to a major part of the school year: Lydia spent 83 days in isolation and another 14 days suspended in 2023-24, while Luke was isolated or suspended for 39% of the academic year. Elise also spent 28 days in isolation. The three children together spent nearly 1,000 hours in isolation in one academic year.

Data before the court show the scale of the practice beyond those three pupils. In 2023-24, 187 pupils, or 31% of the roll, received an isolation sanction at John Smeaton Academy, which is run by GORSE Academies Trust. The trust disputes some of the pupils’ claims about special educational needs, but it has defended its “positive discipline” approach as part of the turnaround of a school that had once been among England’s worst-performing secondaries.

Sir John Townsley, the trust’s chief executive, was an early adopter of isolation rooms and said in 2008 that “very few pupils spent any time in isolation.” A 2025 University of Manchester study of more than 34,000 pupils at 121 mainstream secondary schools in Greater Manchester found 8.3% reported weekly isolation, often for more than a full school day. Pupils with special educational needs, those eligible for free school meals, LGBTQ+ pupils and Black, Asian and mixed-heritage pupils were more likely to be isolated.

Published in the British Educational Research Journal, the University of Manchester study found that pupils who were isolated reported weaker belonging, poorer relationships with teachers and lower wellbeing. It also found no national rules governing how long isolation should be used, leaving head teachers wide discretion over a sanction that can remove children from lessons, break time and lunch for days or months at a time.