Families have raised fresh concerns about the ongoing use of seclusion rooms and injuries sustained by their children at Whitefield School in Walthamstow, reports Marco Marcelline
Families have raised fresh concerns about the ongoing use of seclusion rooms and injuries sustained by their children at Whitefield School in Walthamstow.
The parents’ concerns come amid the ongoing fallout from an abuse scandal which saw 38 pupils subjected to physical and psychological abuse in so-called calming rooms between 2014 and 2017.
CCTV footage discovered in 2021 showed children, many of whom were non-verbal, being kicked and hit by staff. Pupils were left alone in windowless rooms for up to four hours, with some sitting in urine and eating crumbs from the floor.
In July, the Echo revealed that a council-commissioned review raising concerns about the misuse of calming rooms in 2016 had been buried after the school threatened legal action against the town hall.
The failure to act meant the rooms remained open for a further six months, until Ofsted inspected the school in January 2017.
But now one parent, who asked to remain anonymous, has told the Echo that her partially verbal daughter, then aged eleven, was placed in a calming room as recently as September 2025.
She said: “My daughter came home from school to tell me she had been put in a room at school – I asked if she was alone and she said yes.
“I asked if the door was closed behind her and she said yes. I asked if there was anything in the room and she said no.”
The mother quickly arranged a meeting with the headteacher where she was allegedly told no such rooms existed in the school.
“I pushed back and was then told every classroom has a room – deemed sensory spaces – off them, all with no doors.
“I then asked to be shown this space with my daughter present; the room off her classroom that I visited had a door on it. A chair and a poster were in the room. The walls were painted blue and the paint was still wet.
“When we left the room my daughter took my arm and dragged me into the opposite classroom. She pulled me to the far corner to show me a calming room with a door and padded interior with stains, and the ceiling was caving in. I asked her if this was the room she was placed in and she said yes. I had chills.”
The mother said she subsequently reported the incident to police and gave a statement lasting almost two hours. She said officers interviewed her daughter at home, but that she was not allowed to be present and the questions were “complicated”, with her daughter appearing “confused”.
The case was subsequently closed because her child’s statement did not match hers.
“I wonder how many other parents have got as far as I did with logging a police report only to fail as the key witness in every case will be a disabled child unable to articulate themselves,” she said.
Another parent, Melanie Rinaldi, removed her non-verbal autistic son Kristian from Whitefield after he came home with bruises on his left arm on 15th January.
She said the school initially described his injuries as “superficial” and “nothing to worry about”, adding that staff told her he had allegedly bitten a teacher.
“When I saw the actual extent of his injuries I was shocked. I could not believe the school had minimised the situation. He had significant scars and scabs on his arm,” she said.
The school explained that Kristian, 16, had briefly bitten himself and staff were unable to stop him quickly enough.
Melanie says she did not believe this explanation, arguing that the injuries were too severe to have been inflicted over a short period of time.
“At the very worst he was harmed, and at the very best he was neglected by staff who, intentionally or not, let him bite himself unattended for a significant period of time. That’s the only way to explain those injuries.”
The incident was reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO), whose investigation agreed with the school’s interpretation of events, and recommended that no action be taken.
Documents seen by the Echo show staff “did not respond immediately” to an incident of “dysregulated behaviour” exhibited by Kristian. The documents attributed the delay to staff managing multiple responsibilities, including supporting other pupils with high needs and responding to “another safeguarding and first-aid requirement”.
Melanie also reported the incident to police, who subsequently told her they would not press charges and recommended that she complain to the Waltham Forest safeguarding board.
“Whitefield is trying their best to gaslight me and downplay the severity of this,” Melanie said. “The members of staff responsible for this carry on with their day to day lives and my son was out of school for ten months, left with a scar from his injuries.”
She added: “I know a number of parents whose children have suffered bruises at Whitefield – many are scared to speak out for fear of retribution from the school.”
The mother of the child who was placed in a calming room last year said: “As parents we are frightened, and we don’t want to feel that way. We don’t want the school to close – we want it repaired; we want it to flourish for our children.”
No staff who worked at the school during the documented abuse scandal from 2014 to 2017 have been arrested or prosecuted. Six staff members were found to have abused children but were not dismissed, and at least one recommended referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service was not made.
Learning in Harmony Trust, which runs Whitefield School, did not respond when contacted for comment.
Read more: Council buried Whitefield abuse report after school’s legal threat
Local news needs your support
We are proud that we were at the forefront of reporting on the recent local elections. We can’t do this without the support of our readers.
Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.
If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.
ACT NOW!
Monthly direct debit
Annual direct debit
£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.
More information on supporting us monthly or annually
More Information about donations
