Authored by freelance education journalist Anna Fazackerley, the article claims that plans are in motion to phase out stringent behaviour policies involving regular suspensions and ‘isolation booths’ under the new Labour government.

The piece suggests that education leaders ‘close to the new Government’ say a change to the school inspection regime is imminent.

These sources say ministers want to ensure that children aren’t being “repeatedly suspended because they aren’t meeting strict behaviour rules”, and that parents aren’t told their child with special needs would be better off elsewhere, according to the article.

The write-up also claimed the Tory Government’s 'behaviour tsar', Tom Bennett, was ‘widely expected’ to exit his influential role with the education department soon.

“Bennett has championed a culture of silent corridors and strict sanctions for infringing any school rules, including not having the correct uniform or equipment,” the article states.

Bennett, who was interviewed via email and quoted in the article, has slammed the reporting – which also appears on The Guardian’s website – and has called for a retraction, correction or apology from the publisher.

In a lengthy rebuttal posted via X, the behaviour expert deemed the article “bizarre”.

“There are no ‘cruel’ behaviour rules in schools,” he wrote.

“What the article describes as cruel are exit/removal [rooms], and suspensions, exclusions, all of which are legal and at times completely necessary. It’s like calling double-yellow lines and parking fines cruel.

“There were no plans to phase them out anyway. The story was complete fiction.”

Appearing on LBC, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed there was some “inaccuracy” in the article, and that the Government has no plans to phase out suspensions or the current behaviour rules in schools.

“We know that in order for children to learn they have to be in calm, orderly environments where they get the support that they need from our teachers and school leaders and I back school leaders and the tough choices that they sometimes have to make,” Phillipson said.

“It should, of course, be a last resort. I know it is a last resort and it’s the last thing that school leaders want to be doing in terms of excluding young people…” she added.

Bennett clarified that he does not ‘champion’ silent corridors necessarily.

“…I repeatedly back the right of a school to have silent corridors if they want to, and if they don’t, that’s great, too.

“I back schools running their cultures the best way they can. Every school can be different,” he noted.

He also refuted the claim he supports strict sanctions for those children that break any rules.

“I have written entire books and spoken for thousand of hours about the complexity of how we respond to school standards not being met: pastoral responses, conversational ones, therapeutic, interpersonal, encouragement, deflection, redirection,” he argued.

“It’s exhausting to hear that mischaracterised as being some kind of advocate for punishment machines. But it’s typical of (those) with no familiarity of schools, or the methods successful ones use, or my advice.”

Fazackerley sent Bennett a series of questions to answer ahead of the publishing deadline.

Sharing his written responses on X, Bennett said his commentary amounted to ‘tribal space filler’ in the final article.

“When the journalist contacted me at 1pm with a 7pm response deadline I thought it was worth my time responding fully,” he explained.

In his response provided to Fazackerley, he noted that no school he’d visited had a so-called ‘zero tolerance’ policy.

“Most suspensions are for one or two days only and are designed to be a way to avoid permanent exclusion … [the schools I’ve been to] all have reasonable adjustments of exceptional circumstances, so I think this phrase is over used and used incorrectly by people unfamiliar with schools,” he wrote.

The article also quotes Anne Longfield, England's former children’s commissioner, whose think tank Centre for Young Lives it says is working with Labour’s education team.

“Looking at the data and talking to young people it is clear that a large group of kids have been made to feel school isn’t for them and that has to change,” Longfield is quoted.

But Bennett pointed out that only a ‘tiny’ percentage (0.11 per cent) of the student cohort are actually excluded.

“The only reason this happens is because of extreme behaviour like violence, harassment, abuse, or horrendous levels of continuous disruption.

“Which is easier to appreciate if you have actually worked in a school, and much harder if you have no experience of doing so,” he posted on X.

Dan Rosenberg from law firm Simpson Millar, who has ‘represented families unhappy that their child has spent too much time in isolation’, is also quoted in The Observer article.

“In some strict academy trusts I’ve found schools with over 25 pupils who have spent over 40 days of the year in isolation,” Rosenberg is quoted as saying.

“He said children with ADHD or autism (sometimes not yet formally diagnosed) were more likely be sent to isolation rooms repeatedly, as well as children with ‘a lot going on at home’ because they were living in poverty,” the article continues.

But Bennett later noted “there is no data to suggest that this is true in the slightest”.

“A lawyer who represents families of children who get in trouble a lot may not be the best viewpoint on what actually happens in schools,” he shared on X.

According to Bennett, the term ‘isolation room’ is a misnomer.

“…No child is by themselves. But removal rooms are essential in a school with any level of challenge, so that students who seriously misbehave can be temporarily removed from the classroom to a designated safe, monitored space to calm down…” he wrote in his initial response to Fazackerley.

Bennett concluded that the article couldn’t be considered ‘news’ or ‘any form of accurate journalism’.

“…instead [it’s] a glorified thought-piece, thinly disguised activism dressed up as reporting.

“If they had put it in the ‘comment’ section it would have been less egregious. And even then it would have just been a litany of wishful thinking and slightly personal vilification,” he argued on X.

Meanwhile, UK teachers have taken to Reddit to weigh in on the reporting.

“It really pisses me off when school behaviour management is called ‘cruel’, because in my experience we do absolutely everything we can to encourage and support our most antisocial students,” one posted.

“We spend … hours upon hours trying to coax these students into making better choices. We give them ‘fresh start’ after ‘fresh start’. It just reaches a point where we have to be pragmatic: if a student is unresponsive to the support that a mainstream school can offer, and their behaviour is making the environment frightening and dangerous for other children, then exclusion is appropriate.

“The lack of suitable alternative provisions is not the fault of mainstream schools, nor is it something that is within our power to fix,” the teacher continued.

Another educator said they failed to see what was so cruel about isolation booths.

“…My school scrapped booths in favour of open plan removal room. Behaviour in there is now atrocious. It’s now nicknamed ‘the party room’ by staff because pupils want to be sent there,” they wrote.

Others warned a policy change like the one flagged would drive thousands of teachers out of the profession.

As for Bennett’s ‘widely expected’ exit from his chief behaviour advisor to schools role, Bennett said he was unaware of such expectations.

“First I’ve heard of it, but no doubt the impeccable sources behind the rest of this know better.

“Also, whatever happens, I’m not sure ‘widely expected’ is an accurate way to describe, ‘Me and my friends really, really hope it.’” he posted on X.

Last year Bennett outlined a case for Australia to adopt a stand-alone behaviour curriculum.

Speaking at our Senate inquiry into disruptive classrooms, he said good behaviour – and the values that underpin it – ought to be taught as a subject in its own right. 

He cautioned against schools’ reliance on inclusion strategies in place of whole-school behaviour management approaches.

“…many teachers and school leaders are required to operate on policies which centre [on] trauma informed approaches, therapeutic approaches, restorative-practice-based approaches and so on. 

“There are grains of truth and science in all of these approaches, but … we often see that schools that attempt to treat misbehaviour as some kind of pathology of a child’s mental state always – and I mean always – come a cropper. They always do badly,” he warned.