In terms of belonging to the school community, trust (as with their peers) was a key theme that was mentioned by the young people when it came to their formal relationships with school teachers:
Elen (LA1): They [teachers] keep it confidential and
don’t tell any others… It’s like a weight off my shoulders to know that someone knows.
Jenni (LA4): I prefer them to know, so they know
what situations I’m in and everything and if anything goes wrong.
Young people’s perceptions of school teachers were largely mixed. Positive elements related to: being encouraged to study (Lynn, LA2) and having understanding: “she knows how to calm me down and I know that she’s always
there if I need to talk to her” (Bethan, LA1). Other attributes related to oversight
and monitoring: “my head teacher, he checks-up on me, a lot, to see if I’m doing
well and what help I need, which is helpful” (Beca, LA2). This finding is
consistent with other research which reported that many looked-after pupils ‘…felt like they had someone they could talk to. This was usually a particular teacher, head of year or support staff’ (Voices from Care, 2015, p. 8). In contrast, negative perceptions of school teachers often centred on what were experienced by some as stigmatising practice through differential treatment:
Sian (LA4): When I was in school, I just told
teachers that I didn’t want anyone to know. Because I didn’t want to be treated differently!
Beca (LA2): [Teachers] do give you different
treatment being looked-after… their behaviour and their attitude towards you changes.
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Bethan (LA1): They do my head in! [Teachers].
Because they try and like keep on the right side of you, just in case you got mad like, they try and treat you differently!… they’re like: ‘ohh Bethan we know you’ve had a difficult time’ … just ‘coz’ I’m in foster care don’t mean that I need to go somewhere and talk to somebody!
Jac (LA1): I don’t like the teachers! They’re not
liked. They‘re rude and they won’t consider like your point of view... They just haven’t got the time of day for you! They’d just be like: ‘it’s your work!’ They’d say that quite often!
Ceri (LA2): Teachers don’t really interact with pupils.
It’s just like they expect us to get on with our work and I’m like: ‘I don’t get it!’ [the class work]… one cover teacher told me I’m ‘gonna’ fail in life and she didn’t even know me!
Elen (LA1): …as soon as you ask [for help], the
teacher goes to another people, before she comes to me.
Griff (LA3): I hate teachers anyway! Because
teachers hate me! Because the teachers are bitches! They’d say the same things every day and we all experienced it.
These views were not dissimilar to other research that has revealed that some looked-after young people ‘had the perception that teachers at school did not understand what it was like to be looked after and how being looked after has a direct effect on their education’ (Voices from Care, 2015, p. 2). In addition, other research has discussed ‘the importance of being treated as an individual with agency instead of a label, and therefore not being seen as ontologically different to other children’ (Adrian-Vallance, 2014, p. ii). Adrian-Vallance (2014) argues for a philosophical shift suggesting - if we cease to use the essentialist ‘looked- after’ label and treat these children as an individual instead, this could ‘provide them with supportive relationships within school, and thus potentially help them to feel more included indirectly’(Adrian-Vallance, 2014, p. 61).
Conversely, a different set of views were held by the young people on vocational courses (in colleges/non-mainstream placements) undertaking their Key Stage Four studies. Here, perceptions about teachers included their being more likely to respect the young person’s age and maturity:
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Garth (LA1): They teach you more grown up.
Bethan (LA1): They’ve got more respect for you.
Teachers in college they don’t teach you like a child. We’re not children anyway!
Jac (LA1): It’s like more independent and it’s not like
Miss and all of that. It’s like mutual respect and stuff like that, you don’t get treated as a child!
In their negotiation of their own and others’ identity ‘children are also prone to erect sturdy boundaries between self and other, casting out what is felt as undesirable’ (Rabello de Castro, 2004, p. 489). Furthermore, this stance highlights ‘the important role that the construction of difference/otherness plays in the establishment and maintenance of social relationships' (Rabello de Castro, 2004, p. 489).
‘Problem’ Behaviour: School Rules and Discipline
When pupils feel that they are unfairly treated in school, this can impact negatively on their learning (Smith, 2012). It has been suggested that schools are typically authoritarian in their orientation towards time, place and rule-based activities which require high levels of compliance from young people (Osler, 2010). For the young people in this study, it was not always their looked-after status which acted to hinder effective learning per se (beyond the ‘low expectations’ of some teachers). Rather, learning was hindered by a simple disinterest in a curriculum subject and also being distracted by the behaviour of classroom friends:
Alan (LA2): My friends [distract me]. They talk to you,
we start mucking around. [Teachers] move us, but that don’t stop us, then one of us gets sent out.
Martyn (LA2): All the kids that are naughty that are in
the same class as you. They just start mucking around and it takes your attention off working and takes the teacher’s attention of working too.
Beca (LA2): Other people [laughs]. Yeah, I’m quite a
talkative person.
Elen (LA1): My friends distract me too much! All the
time, we end up taking about something else.
Another factor which prevented learning centred on school exclusion. Six young people in mainstream school (Bethan, Carwyn, Garth, Dylan, Glyn and Griff) had experiences of exclusion. The reasons for their exclusion ranged from: swearing at a teacher (Bethan and Carwyn); fighting and arguing with teachers (Garth);
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shoplifting (Dylan); arson: “In year ten I set the school on fire” (Glyn); and “burgling the school” during a summer break (Griff). Cairns (1999) observed that reactionary or disruptive behaviour may be an experience of undiagnosed post- traumatic stress disorders relating to entering care.
Such behaviours are unintentionally vented in school and seen as the ‘problem’, rather than the young person’s distress (Cairns, 1999). Nonetheless, exclusion from school ‘fits’ within the ‘threat’ narrative; young people are seen as a threat to their own economic future but also to the annual educational outcome of the local authority (see Chapter Two).
It has been suggested that, ‘unfairness may harm the personal development of pupils’ (Smith, 2012, p. 89). Consistent with other research (Voices from Care, 2015), two of the young people (Ceri, LA2 and Jac, LA1) felt that their school’s rules were too harsh in terms of the regulation of their schooling identity. This resulted in the young people feeling ‘singled out’:
Ceri: You get like singled out a lot! Like, with me, I
want like a certain piercing. And like there are people that are starting to get loads and loads of piercings and all this. And like well, the school have told me that I’m not allowed it and they haven’t told anyone else to take theirs out! You’re only allowed two piercings, like one on each ear. But like I have one here [pointing to another piercing on the ear] ‘coz’ it’s like a stretcher and they still have a go at me about that. And like yeah other people get away with it and like they single me out, and don’t let me do stuff. It’s strict and I’m fed up with it!
Jac: I got accused of bunking a lesson, when we
had a supply teacher and the whole class didn’t get a mark because the teacher didn’t do a register. Yet, I was the only one that got accused of bunking, rather than the whole class! So I had an after school detention and it got put on a report card. My head of year still hasn’t apologised for that. But he’s told my foster carer that he was in the wrong, but he hasn’t apologised to me about it! …There was another thing when somebody shouted at a teacher, but I was blamed! But the teacher that was shouted at didn’t know who it was! So, they just jumped to a conclusion really!
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Concluding Comments
What we can glean from this chapter is that young people’s own voices challenge the dominant constructions of the LACE Coordinators and their LACE practitioners (as discussed in Chapter Five). As described by Thomas and Holland (2010, p. 2619) ‘there are a multitude of potential theoretical influences on how we might understand identities’. As observed in the opening section of this chapter, there is a dearth of research concerning the voices of looked-after young people beyond the perceived passive recipients of care. Thus, the objective within this chapter was to make visible the perspectives of looked-after young people as well as exploring the ways in which young people lay claim to their own identities. The chapter has highlighted how the importance of supportive relationships (having positive meaningful attachments and a sense of belonging, inclusion in school and in care placements) having their looked-after status understood, shapes looked-after young people’s identities, which collectively ‘need to be taken seriously’ (Osler, 2010, p. 74) by key professionals and policy makers. The focus now turns to explore the young people’s perceptions and experiences of education support received from the LACE team practitioners, their educational outcomes, post-school directions and career aspirations.
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