Gorse isolation case underscores urgency of need for professional debate about this practice
Image: iStock/Getty Images
Judicial review judgment citing primacy of school decision-making, alongside "parental choice," nevertheless may provoke much-needed discussion.
The outcome, right at the end of the summer term, of a judicial review challenge to a major multi-academy trust’s implementation of its “isolation” policy for three challenging children will have come as a huge disappointment to their families, with the judge having given short shrift to all of the arguments that their lawyers had put forward.
However, the case, involving the Gorse Academies Trust which operates schools in Leeds, should still be seen as having significant implications, in terms of public discussion around a practice whose details have hitherto often been left hidden from view.
To continue reading this article…
You'll need to register with EDUCATION UNCOVERED. Registration is free and gives you access to one article per month. But please consider a subscription which will give you full access to all the news articles and analysis on the website. As a subscriber you'll also be able to comment on each news article. as well as support our journalism and extend the reach of the site.
By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 20 August 2025
Comments
Submitting a comment is only available to subscribers.
Very valuable discussion on which to base an in-service course. Fundamental, singular response - if i have a personal behaviour issue and are told this would be solved by banging my head against a brick wall for 43% of the week, i try it and after a month see no improvement, would i keep doing it, or would i consider the tactic a failure and try something else? In the long term whose behaviour is the real problem?
I'm not in favour of these policies and I'm amazed a court would - almost - sanction them. What I do think is relevant is, how are the needs of those students being addressed? This links to issues such as appropriate curriculum and resources, staff training and relationships with children. To what extent does the ferocious monitoring of schools and teachers and the data driven model of determining the quality of a school impact such policies? Where are Governors in all this who should be monitoring policies and their implementation?
Thanks for these comments. Yes, Julie,that's interesting re the "ferocious monitoring of schools". 20 years ago, I was writing a book on the detailed, and multi-faceted, impact of that on pupils' educational experiences. These pressures haven't gone away.