Special school pupils beaten in ‘calming rooms’
Six staff who ‘abused’ youngsters still there, says probe
PUPILS were locked up in “calming rooms”, beaten and left for hours sitting in urine at one of the UK’s largest special needs schools, a BBC investigaton has revealed.
Children were filmed being hit and kicked by adults working atWhitefield School in Walthamstow, East London, which is attended by 370 pupils. Some staff involved are still employed while others who left have not been barred from working with children.
One whistleblower said: “You’ve ended up with staff with no sanctions against them, no learning or awareness, no serious case review to look at what went wrong.” The school said it acted in pupils’ best interests and was not obliged to make barring referrals.
Footage
A police and local authority investigation into abuse at the school was launched in 2021 after 44 memory sticks of CCTV footage from inside three rooms was discovered by fresh leadership at the establishment.
The recordings showed pupils being physically assaulted and neglected in the rooms between 2014 and 2017. The “calming rooms” – one was a former stationery cupboard – were all bare and without natural light.
The BBC obtained confidential school investigations written by an HR consultant which reveal that 39 pupils – many of them unable to speak – were abused and neglected.
Six staff found to have abused children on the balance of probabilities were not sacked. At least one referral to Home Office body the Disclosure and Barring Service was recommended but not made.
The reports said youngsters were left alone in the rooms for up to four hours, with footage showing them naked, sitting in urine and eating crumbs off the floor.
They were kicked and hit with force but no prosecutions were made.
David Gloria, now 20, who has autism, ADHD and OCD was left distressed after being put in the rooms.
His police officer father Ricardo said: “My son was in a panicked state and crying and self-harming, begging them for water and food and they just ignored him – it’s torture.”
The family of a 12-year-old boy who appeared in 55 hours of CCTV footage from the room, said his time in there led to him being sectioned.
He is now 22 and his mother said his anxiety has become so heightened he rubs his head aggressively on the floor causing carpet burn sores.
She said: “I thought he was being placed into a sensory room with beanbags and nice colourful lights.”
Halima, another mother, said the school told her that her non-verbal son Abdulahi was put in the rooms twice but he appears in 11 videos.
Safeguarding expert Elizabeth Swan commented that the findings highlight how children have more rights in young offender institutions than in school seclusion.
Flourish Learning Trust, which runs Whitefield school, said that a new leadership team had shut down the calming rooms and shared CCTV footage with the police.
It said some staff had resigned since its investigations were completed but three who returned have received extensive training.
It said it complied with employment law and the local authority, Waltham Forest, was content with its conduct.