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Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2007, and today, he is one of the ‘most followed educators’on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the ‘500 Most Influential People in Britain’ by The Sunday Times as a result of…
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Is internal exclusion making things worse for our most vulnerable students?
Internal exclusion is widespread and disproportionately affects students already at risk of marginalisation. It may feel like a short-term fix for schools, but it causes long-term harm.
This research – the first of its kind – will be challenging reading for school leaders working in disadvantaged contexts. I’ve used isolation rooms for my entire leadership career – they are necessary for inclusive classrooms, safety, and teaching and learning.
Lost learning: Prevalence, inequalities and outcomes of internal exclusion in mainstream secondary schools (Thornton et al., 2025), is a large-scale study (n = 34,377 students across 121 secondary schools) exploring its use and impact across England.
The findings are worrying.
What is internal exclusion?
Internal exclusion refers to removing students from lessons to work in isolation due to behaviour concerns. Unlike suspensions, it’s not formally recorded by the DfE. Many schools refer to these rooms as “reset rooms”, “isolation booths” or “calm rooms”.
While intended to limit disruption, 8.3% of students are isolated at least weekly—losing an average of 8.44 hours of classroom time.
Internal exclusion is often seen as a tool to keep classrooms calm and learning uninterrupted. But this new evidence suggests it is both harmful and discriminatory.
Who is most affected?
After controlling for behaviour, certain groups are still far more likely to be excluded: boys, students with SEND (see the Code of Practice), those eligible for free school meals, LGBTQ+ students, and those from minority ethnic groups and more economically deprived areas. It also negatively affects key outcomes. Students who are isolated report a lower sense of school belonging (effect size d = -0.15) and weaker relationships with staff (d = -0.18). Girls’ mental wellbeing also suffers (d = -0.07).
What can schools do differently?
The difficult question is how can school behaviour policies avoid unintentionally reinforcing social inequalities? Some practical strategies include tracking and auditing internal exclusion data—disaggregated by student demographics—to spot trends. Train teaching staff to focus on prevention, such as emotional regulation coaching, check-ins and relational practice.
School leaders should review how consistently behaviour policies are applied by staff – the latter can lead to distrust. An important question to ask is ‘Are all teachers applying the policy in the same way?’ Effective schools seek student voice and listen to those affected. In the study, one student described feeling “like a dog in a cage!”
On a termly basis, train staff differently to embed inclusive behaviour management CPD that focuses on trauma-informed and restorative approaches.
Reflection questions for leaders:
- How many hours of learning are students in internal exclusion missing each week?
- Is internal exclusion being used consistently across all staff?
- Which students are most often placed in isolation—and why?
- How do students feel after being isolated from their peers?
- Do teachers believe internal exclusion leads to long-term behaviour change?
- Is there space in behaviour policy for restorative conversations?
- Could your internal exclusion space include access to SEMH support?
- What alternatives to internal exclusion are currently being trialled?
- Are students and families consulted about behaviour policies?
- Could training on relational and trauma-informed practice reduce exclusions?
The research concludes:
Internal exclusion impacts negatively on important [student] outcomes, particularly school belonging and relationships with school staff, with further negative impacts on mental wellbeing, evident specifically among girls.
Whilst this will be difficult reading for many school leaders, particularly in underfunded and time-stretched contexts, the aim is not to criticise but to raise awareness. I know I would have struggled to accept this research in some of the schools I’ve worked in. The solutions may not all be immediately practical—and funding alone is not always the answer—but this research signals where systemic support, redirected investment, and policy change are urgently needed.
