April and Jack’s concerns were echoed at our town-hall events. More than half of the dozens of parents and pupils who turned up were concerned about the impact on students with special educational needs.
Finn, a student at Camborne with ADHD, says it was a difficult environment for neurodiverse pupils. “You’re constantly scared that you’re going to do something wrong,” he says.
Faye, whose son has special educational needs and attends Pool Academy, says he had spent 96 hours in reflection the past school year. “Day in, day out, he feels like he’s failing,” she says.
And Zara says her autistic daughter Hannah, who has hearing difficulties and attends Ilfracombe Academy, was repeatedly removed from class because her needs were not recognised.
“Behaviour is just put down to persistent defiance and bad behaviour, and they’re punished for it,” she says. “It’s never recognised as being linked to their disabilities.”
Athena told us that children with special educational needs are “not routinely sanctioned for behaviours associated with their needs”.
A lot of the anger we heard in Devon and Cornwall is, we were told, down to the lack of accountability.
Academy trusts do not have any supervision from local councils, meaning only central government can intervene.
One of the biggest weaknesses of the trust system is that it complicates the complaints process, says education journalist Laura McInerney, who co-founded Teacher Tapp, an app designed to track educators’ wellbeing, classroom practices, and opinions on education policy.
If parents are not satisfied with a specific school’s response, she says, they have to contact the trust, which could be miles way, and which “you may or may not hear from in anything other than a letter”.
The government says parents can take complaints about academy trusts to the Department for Education.
Across England, there is growing concern about punitive disciplinary practices in schools.
The ‘s File on 4 Investigates recently found that a school in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, put a pupil in an isolation booth away from the classroom for more than half an academic year.
A safeguarding review last year also found an east London school’s zero-tolerance policy involved pupils being routinely humiliated by shouting and prioritised control above all else, leaving some children with lasting psychological harm.
A team at law firm Leigh Day is now investigating potential legal claims on behalf of 50 families who believe their children may have been subjected to excessive or inappropriate disciplinary measures while at school.
However, there are many who argue that education built on tough discipline and high expectations can benefit pupils.
The government’s advisor on behaviour, Tom Bennett, told us that discipline is vital, including for children with special educational needs.
“If you’ve got, for example, ADHD or an anxiety disorder, what you need more than anybody else is a calm, safe, dignified environment. Otherwise, you’ll be massively distracted by the environment round about you,” Bennett says.