A Practical Guide to Caging a Child in A School

So, you're a teacher having issues doing your job, which is to teach, due the behavioural challenges of a child with autism? You may wish to follow the example of a public school in  Canberra and have a cage purpose built for that particular child. They did just that. A 2m by 2m "enclosure" made of pool fencing.

Now, as a teacher, you obviously can't just bring your own fencing and modify your classroom, you'll have to follow procedure and  report to the executive staff
 and discuss the issues you're having with teaching your class, and they will undoubtedly expect and encourage you to try other methods, but in Canberra, at least, persistence and concerted effort may result in the executive staff deciding to create a cage.

Once the executive staff has made the decision to erect a purpose built structure to enclose an individual student, its time to figure out how much it will cost. Get some quotes. First, look for builder/designers of kid cages. If there are none in your local area, a pro tip is to look at businesses that make products that can be used to enclose other things than children. Pool fencing should suffice. A general rule is if it can be used to keep a child out, it can be modified to keep a child in. It's best to get more than one quote, so get a couple of fencers to come to your school and quote on how much it will cost to build a structure in a classroom or other area of your school to enclose a specific student, and ask for their expert advice on how big it should be.

Now that you've sorted the design and cost for your cage building, you'll have to figure out how to pay for it. General funding may be acceptable but you may be able to access funding designed to modify the learning environment for students with disabilities, to help them learn. Whichever source of funding you choose, your school principal will have to sign off and approve of cost of the cage that has been built to enclose a specific child, and the helpful school administration staff will handle all the correspondence for you.

Pro tip- while building the cage designed and purpose built for the purpose of enclosing a specific student, the tradespeople may disrupt learning, it helps to do an out door activity until the work is done. It's probably going to require at least two tradespeople, even for a small cage, because panels of pool fencing are quite unwieldy. The cleaners will clean up any mess the tradespeople leave behind.

And there you have it, your very own cage in a classroom, purpose built for the purpose of enclosing a specific student, and all it took was the complicity of many people, a small amount of money and a complete lack of respect for the rights and personhood  of the autistic student in question.
         
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This actually happened. In 2015, Canberra, Australia.