Parents of children at Whitefield School in Walthamstow have raised new concerns about the continued use of seclusion rooms and about injuries their children have suffered, the Waltham Forest Echo reports.

Their worries come in the wake of an abuse scandal at the special school, where 38 pupils suffered physical and psychological abuse in so-called calming rooms between 2014 and 2017. CCTV footage uncovered in 2021 showed children, many of them nonverbal, being kicked and hit by staff. Some pupils were left alone in windowless rooms for up to four hours.

In July, the Echo revealed that a council-commissioned review from 2016, which raised concerns about how the calming rooms were being used, had been suppressed after the school threatened the council with legal action. The rooms stayed open for six more months, until Ofsted inspected the school in January 2017.

'She said she had been put in a room'

One mother, who did not want to be named, told the Echo that her partially verbal 11-year-old daughter was put in a room at school in September 2025.

"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," she said. "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."

She said she was told that every classroom has a sensory space off it, and that none of them have doors. When she asked to see the space with her daughter present, she said the room off her daughter's classroom did have a door.

She reported the incident to police and gave a statement lasting almost two hours. The case was closed because her daughter'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.

Bruising and bite marks

Another parent, Melanie Rinaldi, took her nonverbal autistic son Kristian out of the school after he came home with bruises on his arms on 15 January.

The school said the injuries were superficial and put them down to Kristian biting himself for a short time. Melanie says she does not believe that explanation, arguing that the injuries were too severe to have happened in such a short time.

"When I saw the actual extent of his injuries I was shocked," she said. "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."

Documents obtained by the Echo show that staff did not respond immediately when Kristian became dysregulated. The delay was put down to staff managing several responsibilities at once.

The incident was reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). Their investigation agreed with the school's account and recommended no further action. Melanie also reported it to police, who told her they would not press charges and suggested she complain to the Waltham Forest safeguarding board.

No prosecutions

No staff from the 2014 to 2017 abuse period have been arrested or prosecuted. The Echo reports that six staff members found to have abused children kept their jobs, and that at least one recommended referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service was never made.

Learning in Harmony Trust, which runs Whitefield School, did not respond when the Echo contacted it for comment.