What kind of society would willingly traumatise its children in the name of education? | John Harris

Ask the average Westminster politician about schools policy and the response will focus on issues that never seem to go away: funding, teacher shortages, and the drive to somehow uncouple unequal educational outcomes from children’s social and economic backgrounds. At the moment the stereotypical answer is likely to also touch on the crisis in provision for kids with special educational needs. But what tends to go unmentioned is a subject that seems to be suddenly gaining traction in the real world: many schools’ devout belief in zero-tolerance discipline, and whether that credo might be on its way out.

Across England, the same story has been building for a long time. It originated in the New Labour years with the expansion of academies, the cult of the “super head” and a seemingly rational drive to push up results and standards. During Michael Gove’s time as the Tory education secretary and beyond, the same ideas fused with drastic changes in the national curriculum and a belief in quietening schools using old-fashioned punishment. And soon enough, the downsides of those approaches began to surface: eye-watering numbers of kids either suspended or excluded by their school, the grim use of isolation booths and claims that the transfer of so many former council-maintained schools to multi-academy trusts (Mats) had led to a deep crisis in accountability.

Over the last three weeks, the Observer has been publishing an unfolding investigation by Anna Fazackerley into two schools in the London borough of Hackney, both run by the Mossbourne Federation, the trailblazing Mat renowned for its record of academic success and strong links to the educational establishment. The Observer’s coverage began with a report about the Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy (MVPA) and allegations from nearly 30 parents and teachers – including accounts of children in year 7 being “screamed at” by senior leaders and “secondary-age pupils with no prior incontinence issues soiling themselves”.

The story has since widened to the nearby Mossbourne Community Academy (MCA), and now involves complaints from scores of people about a disciplinarian regime they say has given licence to practices that leave children and young people scared and traumatised, sometimes well into adulthood. Last week, BBC London aired the results of its own in-depth reporting and painted the exact same picture. Then on Friday it was confirmed that MVPA was now the subject of a safeguarding review to be led by a former director of Hackney’s children’s services.

The stories told in the Observer and the BBC’s reports both contain one very striking revelation: that teaching staff have been encouraged to introduce children to “healthy fear”. The Department for Education says the allegations are “deeply distressing”. The federation says it is being targeted by a “vexatious campaign”, and insists that it has always provided a safe and sympathetic learning environment for all of its students.

Last week I spoke to parents whose kids go to the two schools in Hackney and got a vivid sense of the arguments and tensions that are simmering away. Some expressed a strong belief in the role academies have played in the dramatic turnaround in so many of the capital’s schools. They emphasised the wonders of bringing success and aspiration to deprived and once-neglected neighbourhoods – a relevant consideration given that more than 40% of pupils at MCA and at MVPA are eligible for free school meals (the national average is 25%). There was also talk about very good teachers and how zero-tolerance practices keep bullying at bay: one mum told me that her son feels safe and depends on what she called a “calm classroom environment” partly built on the kind of “authoritarian discipline” that she said had many positive results.

But many of my conversations had darker elements. A mother with an 11-year-old son diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) said his teachers shout at him “every day”, which has resulted in regular crying before school and “freeze states”. One dad whose son is autistic told me about daily detentions for “messy handwriting”, an insistence on homework that took him up to three hours a night and how his son had been “absolutely destroyed” (the Mossbourne Federation did not respond to these allegations; it insists that official data proves its commitment “to inclusion and support” for children with special needs). Among the most striking things I heard was an acknowledgment that versions of the Mossbourne story are playing out all over the country. As a parent involved in the new Educating Hackney campaign told me: “We’re talking to people about other academy chains where similar things have been going on – basically, discipline being taken more seriously than children’s welfare.”

There are big questions here about how academies and so-called free schools are scrutinised and overseen. This new kind of educational institution sits in a liminal place between the public and private realms, and leaves parents, carers and teachers unsure of where to turn. The fact that Hackney councillors trying to address what has been happening have to deal with a tangle of individuals and institutions – the Department for Education, Ofsted, the Mossbourne Federation, the independent safeguarding children’s commissioner – shows the danger of schools being literally out of control.

Other issues are more human. The idea that draconian school regimes represent the only dependable route to academic success has often seemed to be a matter of hardened consensus, without the evidence to match. Along the way, we seem to have rather mislaid the idea that education is also about ensuring that the maximum number of children and young people are confident, well rounded – and happy. There is, moreover, a gap between schools that sometimes seem to be run along almost Victorian lines, and our ever-increasing knowledge of the complexities of human psychology. Neurodiversity is not a concept that only applies to children – and adults – who have diagnoses of autism, ADHD, dyslexia and all the rest: it is a description of all of us, and the fact that our complicated minds do not react well to such blunt instruments as fear, anxiety and humiliation. We are, let’s not forget, in the midst of a childhood mental health epidemic, and a special needs meltdown partly driven by the fact that thousands of children and young people have been pushed out of mainstream schools – suddenly, it seems, a lot of people are starting to focus on a factor in both crises that was overlooked for years.

Soon after the election, there were briefings about a move away from excessively disciplinarian models of schooling. Last month, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, gave a big speech emphasising that “schools and trusts must create welcoming, engaging and inclusive spaces for pupils”. As with just about every political issue in this troubled country, education is often discussed in the polarised, catastrophising language of the culture wars, which may well get in the way of an obvious realisation: that carefully dialling down the excesses of “discipline” and restoring academies to proper oversight need not invite chaos but can instead open the way to something better. Put simply, big players in our schools are going to have to confront what happens when good intentions go awry, and learn from their mistakes. If people involved in education cannot do that, where exactly are we?