England’s largest academy chain seeks to quell parental and student upset over “oppressive” disciplinary policies, including now-scrapped requirement for one school’s pupils to wear behaviour cards around their necks

One of the behaviour cards - this one photographed last term - which have been in use at Coleridge Community College, Cambridge

England’s largest academy chain appears to have gone into listening mode after parents and pupils at a secondary school which it took over two years ago launched a vigorous campaign against behaviour rules they described as “draconian” and “oppressive”.

The United Learning Trust has been implementing get-tough policies on uniform, equipment and behaviour within at least three of its secondary schools in the south of England, including at Coleridge Community College in Cambridge, where a large campaign in opposition has developed and where I understand staff have also had concerns.

At Coleridge, which United took over in 2019, months after Ofsted had adjudged it good and praised pupils’ behaviour under a less strict regime, the policies have been linked by the school’s headteacher, and by trust headquarters, to the government’s £10 million “Behaviour Hubs” scheme.

But Coleridge parents submitted a dossier to the school setting out more than 125 experiences of their children which they felt had been negative, including one who said their child had missed several days of school as he was “panicking” over whether his tie was the right length.

At another ULT school, Nova Hreod in Swindon, a local paper report last month said a year seven pupil who has autism was pulled out of the school last term as he had “stopped eating for two weeks and wasn’t sleeping because he was so scared to go to school”.

Asked about the situation at Coleridge in particular, United Learning Trust said that it “did not recognise” many of the individual examples of children’s experiences, as put to it by this website. It added that the behaviour policy was put in place to “raise expectations of behaviour”.

However, there have been some signs this term of the school doing more to listen to those concerns.

Cards around necks

Returning to Coleridge in September, for their first full year of in-person learning since lockdown, students were instructed to wear cards around their necks, or lanyards, on which penalties for breaches of the school’s behaviour, uniform and equipment policies could be documented.

Staff signed the cards if the child committed a “misdemeanour”, with what critics branded minor issues such as pupils having a top button undone, a shirt momentarily untucked or a piece of equipment missing, leading to immediate “strikes” – or signatures on the cards.

After three strikes/signatures, the child would be given a whole day in the school’s “reflection room”: isolation, although this penalty has this term been downgraded to an hour’s detention.

These developments, I understand, were effectively a significant stepping-up of behaviour policies introduced in September 2020, when pupils had to have the behaviour cards – which were initially called “zero to hero” cards – but did not have to wear them around their necks.

Overview of concerns

In autumn 2021, students launched a petition– headlined “change within our school culture” - against the school’s behaviour policy as whole. This has been signed by more than 650 people.

As part of a complaints process, 38 parents – a reasonably large number, it seems to me, given that this is a small secondary of 537 pupils, according to DfE data for 2021 - put together detailed accounts which seem to raise serious concerns about the school’s policies.

As well as the concern about the use of the lanyards, the parental accounts include:

-Multiple stories of pupils, including 11- and 12-year-olds in their first weeks at the school, being left in tears for minor misdemeanours such as forgetting pens.

-A claim that students were made to chant “silence is our natural state” during line-ups in the playground. (I hear from a parent that their children have heard this phrase from staff “every now and then”; silence in class is expected across many ULT schools, a union source tells me.)

-Pupils being told they could not take their jumpers off during a heatwave, as it would breach the school’s uniform policy. And when the school’s windows were opened for ventilation to reduce Covid risks, they were told they could not put on coats, again because this would violate behaviour rules.

-Complaints that the school’s policy of having toilets closed during lesson time was causing extreme stress for girls with heavy periods, and that it was therefore discriminatory.

-Complaints that the behaviour rules are inconsistent, with more serious offences receiving no worse punishments than minor breaches of uniform or equipment rules.

-Children being punished for their eyes not following the teacher in class, with United Learning said to follow the “Teach Like a Champion” approach put forward by the American educator Doug Lemov. This states that pupils should “track the teacher” during lessons.

Comments from parents that the rules have left their children anxious, depressed and hating school, with some stating that their child did not attend as a result, and with others having transferred to other schools.

Some parents have been left shocked and saddened that such stringent policies should be being implemented following Covid lockdowns, when, they argue, pupils’ mental health should be the top priority.

What are the policies?

Under rules implemented particularly strictly from last September, Coleridge has taken an uncompromising approach to behaviour, uniform and equipment, which, in another echo of Lemov’s “Teach Like a Champion,”  it describes as “warm/strict”. Its rules are also known as the Coleridge Conduct Approach (CCA).

Pupils line up in silence in the playground every morning, and have their uniform and equipment checked.

Year seven pupils have to wear a grey school blazer, bought from a stipulated supplier, with those in years eight to 11 required to wear a grey jumper, from the same supplier. Controversy has especially attended the rules on shoes, with trainers “or shoes that resemble trainers” not allowed, and parents and students saying that children have sometimes been forced by the school to wear sometimes ill-fitting and uncomfortable shoes provided by the school for the day if their footwear was deemed inappropriate.

There is a 14-line list of the equipment that students have to bring with them every morning, including two green/black pens, two green pens, hand sanitiser, highlighter and homework.

The school’s current behaviour policy (accessed by me in the past week) states that any student found during the daily checks not to be fully compliant with the uniform and equipment rules will get a 30-minute detention, although as stated above as of last term, three “strikes” had meant a day in the “reflection room”.

The school operates a “warn/move/remove” policy of behaviour management in the class. Pupils who fail “to meet the expectations of the CCA” are given a warning, says the behaviour policy. Those failing to follow the CCA for a second time are moved within the class, with the policy linking this to a failure of the pupil to “track” the teacher with their eyes: it gives the example “You are now not tracking me, therefore not meeting the expectations of the CCA again. This is your move.”

Pupils failing to follow the CCA a third time will then be removed for a full day in isolation in the “reflection room”.

Parents are told on Coleridge’s website that, during this time, students “follow their usual school timetable through recorded lessons”. The content of learning during this time has been a point of contention, however, with one parent telling me that “the children are given a computer to do work quizzes [on websites]” and that “they are never informed of which lessons they will be missing and could watch in videos”.

It is the lanyards themselves, otherwise known as “first impressions” cards, which from September had to be worn around children’s necks, which have proved to be a focus for parental and student concerns, however.

The cards have two sides – a “rewards side” and a “misdemeanour side”. The cards are signed by staff if the student does something deserving of praise – or does something wrong. Three signatures in the latter category leads to a day in the “Reflection Room” for the child “so they have an opportunity to reflect on the behaviour out of lessons,” says the behaviour policy which is currently still viewable on the website. Three positive signatures lead to five “house points” for the student and entry into an “end of term reward draw”.

The photo at the top of this piece shows a card, as used at the start of the autumn term. To translate text which in this image is fuzzy, it offers categories of “misdemeanour” including “Uniform not worn correctly (Top button undone, shirt untucked, skirt inappropriate length, jewellery not permitted, jumper tied around waist/shoulders). I was told that staff may fill in a box with which of these “misdemeanours” applied, with a “strike” following for any of them.

As of the start of last term, the policy was that all students had to wear the lanyards around their necks, except those in year seven, who wore blazers, and could put the cards in their top pockets. Later in the autumn, the school relaxed this slightly so that any child could place the card in a pocket or a bag, although they would always have to be ready to show it to a member of staff.

Brief context

Coleridge was taken over by the United Learning Trust in 2019, during a period of rapid expansion for ULT. Previously, it had been in a small academy chain with several other Cambridge schools. Part of the criticism of United’s tough approach to behaviour is an argument from parents and students that pupils were well-behaved under less uncompromising policies before ULT arrived.

Parents point to the school’s current “good” rating from Ofsted in 2019, before ULT took over, when students were said by inspectors to be well-behaved. The report stated: “Pupils behave well in lessons and when moving around the school. The small size of the school enables pupils to be known as individuals.”

10 days ago, in the third stage of the school’s response to parental complaints (see below), governors said that ULT’s detailed assessment had found “a number of areas requiring significant improvement” – implying that the trust itself did not accept the inspectors’ judgment. Governors also said – in a statement I guess with which neither side in this argument would disagree – that “prior to the College joining United Learning, the approach to both behaviour and school uniform had been considerably less structured”.

Student petition and comments

An unknown number of Coleridge students launched their petition against the policies in the autumn. At the time of writing, it had been signed by 658 people. Headlined “change within our school culture,” it stated: “Coleridge community college has transformed from a safe haven where pupils thrived and enjoyed coming to school to a negative environment which resembles prison, where pupils and teachers alike are fed up!

“Since new leadership teachers and the organisation united learning have arrived at Coleridge, students have been stripped of their individuality and morphed into androids train[ed] to please. Students are gradually falling into an unmotivated and depressive state as a result of this and feel as if teachers aren’t listening…

“Whoever signs this petition believes that Coleridge should ease the rules and stop shaming pupils for not fitting the mould they constantly push us into.”

One person who said they were a Coleridge student wrote below the petition: “As a student of Coleridge and someone who’s neurodivergent and already struggl[ing] with school it was horrible for me to see anything that was there to help me stripped away on the first day back.” This pupil indicated they had been forced to wear shoes provided by the school as those they had been bought by their grandmother had “looked like trainers” and that she had broken down when at home, with the experience having “enhanced my self harm”.

This person added that they had had to sit in silence in class “while I’m struggling plus you can’t ask for help [as] there’s a chance they’re just going to blame you for it, so…I’ve ripped off the end of my pencils and…well cut up my skin…you have to look at the teacher…no fidgeting no getting distracted when sometimes I actually need to distract myself because it’s the only way I can cope in class.”

A parent wrote: “My son use[d] to be a happy and enthusiastic learner…now since the United Learning has taken over, he has become withdrawn and no longer takes any pride or joy in his work…my son has always tried extremely hard to do well in school and stay out of trouble, with these new stupidly ridiculous rules it is totally impossible for the children not to get into trouble.”

Another wrote: “I am grandparent to two pupils at the school. I have seen first-hand how the school has failed to care for my grandson to the extent that he is no longer able to be in school. The obsession with uniform and the very fact that [it was] changed at all and particularly during the pandemic was absurd.”

Writing in December, another said: “My child is in year 9 and has an ehcp [Education, Health and Care Plan] to support his educational needs…I recently found out since September he has been put in the reflection room a total of 21 times and excluded 2x once because he couldn’t do his top button up of his shirt. The school…punishes children who have genuine difficulties instead of supporting them and chooses a top button being done up over my child’s right to an education.”

ITV news report

A week before Christmas, ITV’s local Anglia news ran a story on the situation at the school, headlined “Cambridge school pupils claim ‘draconian’ rules shame them for having wrong socks or a button undone.”

It interviewed a former Coleridge student who it said had moved schools “earlier this year” because of the rules. “It just made me really anxious. Whenever you went to school, you felt like you were always doing something wrong,” she said.

“I still want to learn as much as I can,” she added. “Because this is the future we’re talking about, and I don’t want to jeapordise that over a top button.”

A parent – seemingly the girl’s mother - highlighted the cards. “They were obliged to carry those cards, and show them when asked. It was like being in some kind of camp,” she said.

Parental complaint document

The document in which the 38 parents listed individual negative experiences runs to 19 pages and includes more than 125 individual anecdotes of concern.

Some of the more shocking include:

“My son who struggles with extreme and debilitating anxiety, (which I had made the school aware of when he joined in year7) missed days of school due to panic about whether his tie was the right length. Similarly there was one occasion that he realised on route to school that he only had one pencil (rather than the required 2) and the panic this caused him, in thinking he would get a detention ended in him having a panic attack and refusing to go into school that day.”

Another wrote: “A child in his class forgot his pencil case, as soon as he opened his bag he knew he was in trouble, he was actually in tears and the teacher said I'm sorry I'm going to have to put you in detention. My son offered him his pen and he wasn't allowed to give it to him. Surely a child who is in that much distress didn't forget on purpose.”

“My son has anxiety and worries a lot about getting a detention. Last week he was packing his bag before bed and noticed his glue stick was missing. He believes someone stole it from his bag. This led to huge panic and upset because he knew if he didn’t get one from somewhere he would get a detention. The thing is, I can totally understand why someone might have stolen it if they were fearing getting into trouble. What a state of affairs.”

Another said: “My elder son has said more than once since returning in September, that he hates school. His feelings are based upon the oppressive atmosphere that now seems to prevail at Coleridge…As their mum, I found myself running around trying to ensure that they won’t be picked on for small insignificant issues. For example, I have provided them both with a spare stationery pack, to be kept at all times at the bottom of their bag. I have told them to lend their pack to a friend if their friend should forget theirs, but to do this secretly as I believe children are not allowed to show fellow students kindness and generosity and lend equipment.”

Another said: “My elder son had just come off the playground at the end of lunchtime, having played football, and made an effort to tuck his shirt in. He didn’t realise that a corner of his shirt was poking out - for this he received an automatic strike. At the end of the day, after a double period of maths, he stood up and began to leave the class not knowing that his shirt had become untucked at the back whilst he’d been sat. In a rather apologetic tone, the teacher gave him and another child, whose shirt was similarly untucked, a strike.”  

Another said: “I have concerns over the lanyard worn by students. Basically, they are wearing their bad behaviour around their neck which is visible to all - what is this meant to achieve? Shame? Since when is shame a good thing when trying to promote good behaviour? Sounds more like something you would wear in Victorian times.”

Another appeared to state that their daughter had been sent to the “Reflection Room” after being asked the time by a fellow student and replying.

Another said: “Rules such as students aged 15 or 16 being made to come to the front of a line if you talk or are not ‘tracking a teacher’ is reinvigorating an old approach in teaching from the dark ages, of being singled out and humiliated in front of your peers.”

One said: “My sons were sent to reflection several times for instinctively looking back to someone that was speaking as part of the lesson. They had always been taught to look at the person who was talking….the school hasn’t been able to differentiate between spontaneity/accident and genuine bad behaviour.”

Another said: “Our children have witnessed classmates reduced to tears in front of their peers over being given detention for: forgetting a pen, for a shirt being untucked and for simply asking questions. They also know of a case of more serious, physical bullying in which the perpetrator received a lighter punishment than the poor child who forgot a pen.”

Another said their child, who has ADHD, “is an energetic, hyperactive, intelligent boy and this school has NEGATIVELY impacted on his learning. He was sent to isolation for 21 hours in one week for things like tapping a foot, looking out of the window. Wow: he was not supported with this difficulty to concentrate…He got so angry with the school he has walked off site a number of times.”

Another said: “My stepdaughter is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and hence has anxiety issues she will have all her life. Prior to September 2021, she was a happy, contented, child that looked forward to school, often arriving very early. Since then, she has become frightened of school due to the "iron fist" implementation of these harsh rules.”

Another said: “Why are children not believed when they indicate that they are too hot, too cold, or in need of the toilet? What happens when the message that they are not in charge of their bodies is internalised to the extent that they don’t expect to be believed when something really bad happens to them?”

Another comment was: “My year 11 daughter's first week back was a waste of time for her. Instead of cracking on with learning for her GCSE’s, she spent the week repeatedly learning how to line up and going over the rules. For example: equipment checks, ”SLANT” [Sit up, Listen, Ask and answer questions, Nod your head, Track the speaker; from Teach Like a Champion] “STEPS” and how to sit down on their chairs in silence. One of the key phrases drilled into her was “every second counts” [but] this statement is so contradictory to every procedure that they have in place as they all result in wasted learning time. An example of this would be pulling students out of lessons for ‘faulty’ but unnoticeable uniform issues.”

Another said: “My daughter has also had issues with the ‘no toilet break rule’’ during class time. This has caused her panic due to her heavy period.”

One sadly said: “I have taken my son to the doctor for depression as a result of the changes at the school.”

The parental complaints process

The comments above were put together to be presented by parents to the school as they took their concerns through the school’s official complaints process. The formal part of this seems to have had only a limited degree of impact on ULT -with governors describing management’s control over decision-making on behaviour as “absolute” - although recent informal discussions have given the parents slightly more optimism.

In September, 15 parents started the process. They wrote to the senior leadership team, headed by the principal, Ele Stoneham. They said that while they valued “the extraordinary dedication of staff at the school since the start of the pandemic” and for the care shown to their children, “the new requirement that students wear a lanyard and a plastic pocket containing a list of possible ‘misdemeanours’, to be displayed along with what we note is now referred to as an ‘ID card’, has given rise to some troubling considerations.

“We all share a common desire that students learn to become good citizens…nevertheless the particular form taken by this new practice has connotations of authoritarianism which we do not welcome.”

It added: “The focus on appearance as a disciplinary matter, and the negative attention given to the minutiae of uniform regulations, is also a source of disquiet for many of us…we note that a culture that places adults in positions where they regulate and monitor children’s appearances so minutely may not be best placed to encourage children’s sense of autonomy over their bodies and the healthy relationships that proceed from this self-respect.”

In reply, on Coleridge notepaper headlined “We will be a great school in everything that we do,” Stoneham wrote: “I wanted to address your comments about our Behaviour Policy, which was developed in line with our local governing body, and specifically about the introduction of our ‘First Impressions’ Card to which you have referred.

“This is a strategy used and recommended by some of the highest achieving schools in the country, including those which are part of the Department for Education’s new ‘Behaviour Hubs’ programme and have therefore been selected to share and develop best practice for other schools nationally.

“The Card is designed to help schools address some of the out-of-lesson behaviours which are inappropriate and/or disruptive within the school environment. At Coleridge, already this term, the Card has had an immediate effect on reducing these negative behaviours.” However, parents countered (see below) that the first-listed reason for a negative signature on the card was for uniform violations, rather than bad behaviour.

Stoneham’s letter continued: “Students currently carry the ‘First Impressions’ Card in their lanyard. The lanyard is there as most students are not yet wearing a blazer. Over time, students will not need the lanyard because all students will be in a blazer and will be able to carry their First Impressions card in their top pocket. The ease and speed with which they can withdraw their card is crucial to the success of the initiative.”

Stoneham added: “We have received considerable positive feedback [about the cards] since the term began.”

In October, unhappy with the school’s response, the parents took their complaint to “stage 2”: writing to the governing body. As well as the policies themselves, they were also now unhappy about “the Senior Leadership’s refusal to engage with parents on these issues”.

The parents took issue with uniform changes: “The most meaningless changes are the insistence on the top button of the shirt being buttoned at all times; and the fact that the black shoes can no longer resemble trainers. The insistence on these two points, and the draconian punishment for non-compliance, have meant several children have been reduced to crying with anxiety at the thought of going to school and getting detention because of accidental non-adherence; and parents have been forced to buy a second pair of new shoes…

“In addition, there seems to be pointless determination to make sure students are wearing their jumpers at all times – even when doing so would be detrimental to their health (in 30 degrees heat or in a hot and stuffy classroom)”.

Responding to Stoneham’s point that the cards were meant to “correct more quickly the behaviours we do not wish to see in the school,” the parents pointed out that the first-listed “punishable behaviour” on the card was “uniform not worn correctly,” which was a dress code violation.

Their letter added: “We are not aware of any pedagogical research or experts recommending the displaying of transgressions around students’ necks for everyone to see. This is the kind of practice found in Victorian novels…or in 20^th century authoritarian societies – not 21^st century Britain.”

The parents said that while “a number of letters” to senior leadership had raised concerns, they had never been given “a proper presentation of the new policy, the rationale behind it and which pedagogical studies have proven this to be the best way to focus staff and students’ energies after the pandemic”. Requests to the school for meetings with leadership as a group had been refused.

The letter asked the governing body to set up a parents’ evening to explain the “basis for these new policies and their pedagogical validity,” and to agree to a working party on these issues.

Schools “have absolute discretion” over uniform policy, says chair of governors

Victoria Espley, the school’s chair of governors, who had been appointed to that position by ULT, wrote back with a response.

This sought to sum up the parents’ complaint through seven numbered points, none of which as set out in Espley’s letter appeared to acknowledge the central underlying concern: a complaint that the policies were adding to pupil anxiety, stigmatising them and making them unhappy at school.

Neither was parents’ strongly-worded worry that the cards themselves were redolent of “20^th century authoritarian societies” addressed at all.

Espley rejected the parents’ criticism of the linking of non-compliance to the school’s uniform policy to detention, via the cards. She wrote: “It is clearly communicated that wearing a correct uniform is part of Coleridge’s uniform policy as it is in many schools across the country. Schools have absolute discretion in deciding whether to include non-compliance [on uniform] as part of a behaviour policy and it is therefore not within the scope of this complaints process to debate the philosophical arguments.”

This would appear to have been saying in effect to the parents: “you may be unhappy with the effect the uniform policy is having on your children’s mental health, but there is nothing that we, as a governing body, can do about that. The school can do as it wants, and it’s pointless to discuss the rights and wrongs of it with you, the children’s parents.”

Of the seven points which Espley listed as having been made in the letter, she dismissed five of them outright, said one was out of the scope of her investigation, and only “partially upholding” one aspect. On this, she said the school’s leadership should review what adjustments they made to the uniform policy when the weather was very hot or cold; and, as part of the same point, accepted that sometimes the school’s policing of its uniform policy had been “inconsistent” – rules applied in one way on one occasion, and in another way in another, with this point being fed back to the leadership team.    

Unimpressed, the parents escalated their complaint to stage 3, appealing to the local governing body as a whole. Their first point, perhaps fired by a sense that claims of pupil anxiety had not been addressed in Espley’s response, was to request that the school “make students feel they have a voice and are being listened to.”

Students should have the freedom to add or remove pieces of clothing depending on how they felt, the parents argued.

The parents called on the school to remove the “first impression” cards and “implement a proper disciplinary strategy for genuinely poor behaviour”; allow students to use the toilets in lesson time if they urgently needed to; stop the distinction between trainers and non-trainers; maximise time spent on learning and “do not waste time with line-ups, chanting, repeated walk-ins to assemblies, equipment checks, etc; and “stop using ‘time out’ of class room a punishment for anything other than the worst form of genuinely disruptive behaviour”; as well as giving “the children a proper lunch break”.

Four of the parents had a meeting with a specially-convened “panel” of the governing body in December, as part of the complaints process. The panel also met Stoneham. It appeared to stick with Espley’s formatting of the parents’ concerns into seven bullet points.

The panel agreed with the parents that the school’s leadership “has not adequately explained the rationale behind the introduction of the published behaviour policy”. Only one other of the bullet points was upheld, however: that the leadership had refused to meet the parents as a group, although there was no specific recommendation that this should now happen.

New developments

Parent sources say that, at the end of this process, they remained frustrated that their concerns, and the voices of students around the effects on them of the policies, had not been heard. They have also taken their complaint to the Department for Education. However, it is unclear whether this will result in any change: the reply from the DfE in December which I saw mainly seemed to be about promoting national government policies on pupil mental health.

However, parental sources do say that, since the end of last term they have begun to make more progress informally with United Learning. Conversations with overarching leaders within the trust in December had led to a concession that “some [of the] rules were wrong, and some others were applied wrongly, and they would look into it,” I was told.

Stoneham will shortly go on maternity leave. Dino Di Salvo, the principal of ULT’s Kettering Buccleuch Academy, is from this term executive head at Coleridge. He appears to be in listening mode, again according to parent sources.

A parent source said: “The new head has started at school and talked to children, staff and parents. He heard from the children that their main concerns were related to the ‘first impressions’ card, inconsistency of behaviour policy in the classroom for the warn-move-remove warning system that would send them to reflection, and the length of the lunchtime break.

“He does seem to be listening.”

A significant change this term has been the one of three signatures on the “misdemeanours” side of the “first impressions” card now no longer leading to a day’s isolation, but to an hour’s detention, which I understand was as a result of student and parent criticism.

The parent added that the new acting head had held a “town hall meeting” to discuss matters, attended by 180 people, with another one due in the coming weeks. That all sounded positive.

However, the parent said that they were aware that many of the behaviour policies at Coleridge were not unique, within ULT schools. So they would need to wait to see how serious the trust was about a change of direction.

One further indication that the trust may be conscious of not ignoring parental perspectives – or perhaps just worried that it may not be following the DfE’s governance stipulations – came last Friday. Included in the school newsletter was an appeal for parents to come forward to take up two places on Coleridge’s “local governing body”.

Coleridge only currently has one such parent on its LGB. The government’s “Academy Trust Handbook” states that local governing bodies should have two parents on such boards – or on the overarching trust board. It is not clear that ULT currently meets either of these requirements.

A union source also said there had been “real unhappiness” with the behaviour policy among members of staff.

Other schools

As mentioned, Coleridge parents have highlighted concerns about behaviour policies at other ULT schools.

At Nova Hreod Academy in Swindon, the Swindon Advertiser reported on January 14^th that “distraught mums” had told it how their children “have become ‘shells’ of themselves and allege that the approach to discipline is similar to an army camp”.

It added: “One parent [said] that her child had written suicidal notes and that he was ‘petrified’ going to school.”

The Advertiser reported that the parent of a year 7 boy who has autism pulled him out of the school after seven-and-a-half weeks because he had stopped eating for two weeks “and wasn’t sleeping because he was so scared to go into school”.

The paper reported that the boy had been given a detention on his second day at the school. During his short time there, “he was given detentions for reasons like dropping his pen on the floor three times in a lesson”.

Another parent said her year seven daughter had received eight “heavy-handed detentions” and two isolations in her term at the school “for reasons like being too slow getting dressed after PE and forgetting her ruler.

“You need discipline but this was extreme,” said the mother. “There were so strict.” She added: “She threw a soft toy in the corridor and was sent into isolation for the whole day and given a detention. How does that justify missing a whole day of school?”

A spokesman for the school responded to the Advertiser: “The policy was put in place because the school’s leadership team wanted to raise expectations of behaviour. It has proved successful with student outcomes improving and according to regular parent surveys conducted at the school, is supported by parents.”

At a third ULT secondary school, the John Roan in Greenwich, south-east London, I am also aware of concerns about its behaviour policies. A grandparent, Kes Grant, who was involved in the  high-profile campaign to stop the school becoming an academy at all  – though this eventually happened under ULT in 2019 – said: “The behaviour policy is absolutely draconian.

“One minute being late, you get an hour’s detention. If you complain about that, you then get six hours in DFL [isolation, seemingly labelled in this school as Distraction Free Learning]. So that’s six hours of lost learning, because they don’t even monitor, effectively, the kids who are in this DFL. They just put them in there and isolate them and make them do worksheets.

“But it’s not the same as contact with the subject teacher. “

She added: “They get an hour’s detention if they have the wrong green pen.”

Grant also said: “They aren’t allowed to turn around in class.” On one occasion, her grandson, Grant said, had been poked from behind by a classmate. He turned around, got a warning and got moved, under the school’s “Warn-move-remove” policy. But Grant said it was dangerous to insist that children could not turn around, and punish them if they did.

She said: “There might be a danger there, but they still can’t look, to see or to protect themselves. That’s really concerning.”

Grant said that – as happens at Coleridge – pupils at the John Roan have to line up in the playground every day for equipment checks. One particular incident with her family member had been “unbelievable,” she said.

She said: “[Our grandson] had food tech. He had all his ingredients for the day. And he said to the person checking the equipment: ‘can I show my food technician that I have got my equipment, because I have all my ingredients in here?’ He got detention for that, and had to take them out of the bag and put them on the floor in the playground, his food items.”

I asked why he had got detention.

Grant replied: “He talked back. He said: ‘Can I show them to the food technician?’ What’s happening is you have kids not able to express any kind of dissent or opinion that differs from this draconian policy.

“Which I think is really dangerous. Because if it comes to a teacher being abusive, what are they saying: that they are not allowed to say ‘no’ because they are going to get punished? I think it verges on abuse.”

Grant added: “As a family, we believe in discipline, but we also think the children need a voice. Denying them the right to be individuals and the right to question what’s being said creates automatons. Society would be so much poorer if we were all the same.”

I have less information about goings-on at other schools, although ULT itself says in its statement (see below) that its other schools in Cambridge – there are four secondary schools in its Cambridge “cluster” - were operating similar behaviour regimes as that at Coleridge.

Response from United Learning Trust

I put detailed points on the situation at Coleridge to the United Learning Trust.

It said: “The behaviour policy was introduced at Coleridge in September 2020 [though parental and student concerns intensified markedly from September 2021*] and has been adopted successfully in other [United Learning schools in] Cambridge and in some of other United Learning schools.

“It is in line with behaviour policies widely adopted by schools across the country including those chosen by the DfE as best practice Behaviour Hubs.

“The policy was put in place because the school’s leadership team wanted to raise expectations of behaviour. This was right because behaviour in social times sometimes wasn’t good and ‘low-level’ disruption of lessons was impacting on the ability of many students to learn effectively.”

ULT’s statement added that: “The school does not recognise many of the claims you have set out.” This would appear to be a rejection of the parental testimonies about their children’s experience, as covered in this piece, since much of my email seeking comment consisted of these quotes, and references to parent and pupil perspectives.

I replied to ULT that the “claims” I had set out had come from parents and students, and that one of their concerns had been that the school had not listened. But there was no response.

Instead the statement stated, correctly given the way the school’s complaints process had gone, as described above, that the governing body’s complaints panel had “dismissed most aspects of the complaint.

“It did, however, uphold the need for better communication of the behaviour policy to parents and for it to be implemented more consistently.”

The statement added: “The policy itself was deemed to be sound.” In fact, as far as I can see and as discussed above, the local governing body panel simply decided it was not its position to take a view on the merits of the behaviour policy per se: it was a matter for the school’s management. For its letter to parents stated: “Implementation of a Behaviour Policy is an operational responsibility that resides with the College’s Leadership team.”

The ULT statement concluded: “The school is committed to improving communication with all parents and senior representatives of United Learning have met with parents to discuss their concerns. These meetings have been productive and we look forward to a strong future for the school and the outcomes its students achieve.”

I aim to continue following these developments closely, with related reporting likely in the coming days.

CORRECTION: This article originally said that Trumpington Community College, one of ULT’s secondaries in Cambridge, operated a “silent corridors” policy. ULT and the school have said this is not the case. I have now removed two paragraphs and an image which related to this.

*I was told by a parent that it is true that Coleridge introduced new behaviour rules in September 2020, but they were stepped up in September 2021. Cards, which had been called “Zero to Hero” cards – it is possible to wonder how referring to children as “zeros” tallies with the trust’s “The best in everyone™” slogan – were launched in September 2020 but did not have to be worn around necks until September 2021, I was told, with children carrying them in their pockets instead. I was told that fresh stipulations about shoes and equipment were introduced at this latter date, too, with the launch of the “three strikes” rule – three signatures on the card for what could be minor dress code or equipment “misdemeanours” leading to a full day’s isolation – coming in September 2021, too.