England’s first secure school for young offenders, Oasis Restore in Kent, has been forced to temporarily close less than a year after its much-heralded launch, following mounting safety concerns and a damning Ofsted report. The closure marks a significant setback for the country’s ambitious youth justice reform, which had sought to replace the punitive model of detention with a therapeutic, education-led approach for children convicted of serious crimes.
Oasis Restore was opened in 2024 on the site of the former Medway Secure Training Centre, following a £40 million renovation. The facility was designed to house up to 49 children aged between 12 and 18, at a cost of £250,000 per person per year. The vision was revolutionary: replace cells with bedrooms, bars with open windows, and guards with “restore practitioners” and teachers. Offenders were called students, and the environment was meant to foster rehabilitation through one-on-one support, vocational workshops, and a community feel. The approach was lauded by its founder, Reverend Steve Chalke, who described it as a “revolution in youth justice.”
Yet, the optimism that surrounded Oasis Restore’s opening quickly gave way to chaos and disorder. According to BBC News, a series of incidents and a critical Ofsted monitoring visit in April 2025 revealed that the school’s internal doors were so poorly designed that they could be easily kicked through, leaving them unable to lock. This allowed children to move freely throughout the building, undermining the safety and security of both students and staff. The Ofsted report also found that children, feeling unsafe and anxious, had resorted to making weapons from everyday items.
Channel 4 News, which conducted an exclusive investigation into the closure, reported that staff at Oasis Restore described an environment of rising disorder and violence. Mark Fairhurst from the Prison Officers’ Association told Channel 4, “Assaults are rife, assaults on staff are not getting reported to the police including sexual assaults on staff, managers are trying to cover things up and the managers are encouraging staff not to report things to the authorities or indeed go sick when they’re seriously assaulted. It’s completely chaotic, it’s out of control, it’s disordered and there are too many incidents of violence to the people who work there.”
Staff members interviewed by Channel 4 News painted a grim picture. One said, “It was meant to be groundbreaking and had the potential to be fantastic but what was sold as a dream has turned into a nightmare. It’s a very unsafe environment for the children and the staff. Every internal door in the place has been kicked through so the children virtually have free rein round the building. They make weapons out of sharpened brush handles or metal objects. You can see the fear in staffs’ eyes.”
Another staff member highlighted the challenge of maintaining the school’s ethos amid high turnover and the complex needs of the children. “Quite a lot of staff leave very quickly and are not replaced quickly enough. It is hard to live out the ethos. The kids come with a lot of trauma and issues that affect their behaviour, which can be extreme at times. Staff are just making sure that they don’t hurt each other or themselves and trying to engage them in activity. Kids need clear boundaries and they need to be ready to engage to come here.”
The catalogue of incidents included children refusing to go behind their doors at lock-up and refusing to attend education. In some cases, managers instructed staff to allow children to stay out of their rooms and play football outside for up to eight hours as a way to manage the situation, according to Channel 4 News and the Daily Mail. The school’s innovative model, designed to build trust and offer “relentless love,” was being tested to its limits by the realities of managing young people with severe trauma and behavioral issues.
In response to the escalating problems, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) stated that it was taking the issues at Oasis Restore “extremely seriously.” A spokesperson told Channel 4 News, “We are taking the issues at the Secure School extremely seriously and we have been working with Oasis Restore to get them addressed. We are working at pace to fix doors and have already reduced the number of children held there because of these concerns and now all young offenders are being moved to other secure settings.”
By mid-August 2025, fewer than 10 children remained at Oasis Restore, with plans to relocate them to other youth custody facilities in the coming days. The decision to halt all new placements and move the remaining students was described by Oasis Restore as a “preemptive action to avoid any serious incidents occurring on site whilst we wait for the new better designed doors to be fitted.” The installation of secure doors is expected to take well beyond the summer, according to a spokesperson for the school.
Reverend Steve Chalke, visibly pained by the turn of events, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “We care about these children. They’ve been let down all through their lives. We needed to shut for their safety and for the safety of our staff.” He emphasized that the closure was “painful and regrettable” but necessary.
Despite the setback, Oasis Restore’s leadership remains committed to the school’s founding mission. As a spokesperson explained to Channel 4 News, “Oasis Restore is a revolution in youth justice, delivering integrated, therapeutic education and care for children in the criminal justice system. We exist to deliver the highest standards of care and learning for young people with incredibly complex and challenging life experiences and needs. Our mission, regardless of our building infrastructure, is to deliver the highest standards of care and learning for children who require constant dedicated support from reliable adults, who they can build positive, trusted relationships with. This work will indeed continue after our internal doors are replaced.”
The closure of Oasis Restore has prompted wider calls to learn from the experience rather than abandon the secure school model altogether. Advocates for youth justice reform argue that the vision behind Oasis Restore—centering care, education, and rehabilitation—remains sound, but that implementation must be robust enough to handle the realities of serious youth offending. The challenge, they say, is to balance safety and structure with the therapeutic ethos that underpins the secure school concept.
As the Ministry of Justice and Oasis Restore work to address the building’s faults and prepare for a possible reopening, the eyes of the youth justice sector—and indeed the public—remain fixed on Kent. The fate of Oasis Restore will likely serve as a test case for the future of youth custody in England, and whether a system based on hope, rather than punishment, can truly succeed.
For now, the doors of England’s first secure school are closed, but the debate over how best to help the country’s most vulnerable and troubled young people is far from over.
