By Lerato Islam
Content disclaimer:swearing “Fuck off, you fucking paki cunt!” When you walk into a school playground for primary and secondary school children, some aged as young as 6, this is probably not the kind of language you expect to hear. But at an SEMH school, it’s the standard. Vulgar language, often racist and sexist, is screamed down the corridors. Refusal to work is common place. Fights break out amongst students almost daily, and assaults against staff are far from unusual. If you’re reading this, thinking that it doesn’t sound like a productive school environment… I’d say you are right. Once a week, I work in an SEMH school in South London. In a nutshell, an SEMH school is the last chance for students deemed incapable of participating in mainstream education, and most of the pupils at the school will stay there until the end of their secondary education. The demographic of the school is striking. The student body of around 85 pupils is approximately 90% white, male and working class. From an educational point of view, this group underachieve in a staggering way. Outside of the SEMH system, white working class boys who are entitled to receive free school meals achieve the lowest grades at GCSE of any main ethnic group, with only 24% attaining 5 A*-C grades for the exams. It is clear that the odds are already against them. But in the case of an SEMH school, they are even worse, because the system itself sets these boys up for failure. White, male and working class… what images spring to mind? Probably not very fancy ones. Indeed, this demographic has received a lot of negative attention over the last few decades. They are branded as violent, racist and ignorant, unhealthy and lazy, nothing more than feral “chavs”, for whom there is no hope of redemption. And we see these stereotypes branded around for entertainment, in TV programs such as The Jeremy Kyle Show or Benefits Street, which encourage the demonization of the white working class. Unfortunately, at my SEMH school, a lot of these stereotypes ring true. I’ve been called all sorts of names, been told to go back to where I came from, have had chairs thrown at my head. But I can’t help but feel sorry for these boys. Although there is no excuse for this kind of behaviour, it is important to note that most, if not all, of the student body come from troubled families, afflicted by issues of alcohol, drugs and violence, and this trauma undoubtedly affects their behaviour. In a study conducted in the USA, researchers found that if only 1 male student in a class of 20 boys comes from a troubled family, they cause a significant negative impact on the class. On average, they will bring the class grades down by nearly 2 percentile points, and increase behavioural infractions by approximately 40%. If that is the case, imagine what an unsuitable learning environment is created when all the boys in a classroom come from troubled homes. What is also surprising, is how little the boys’ trauma is acknowledged. When I work with other groups of vulnerable adolescent boys, particularly refugees and asylum seekers, there is typically a high level of compassion and understanding, and a lot of focus is given to how and why trauma shapes participants’ behaviour. But when it comes to white, working class boys, attitudes tend to be less forgiving. Students at the SEMH school I work at are told by staff that they “deserve” to be there, that they are “lost causes” or even “little shits” on a frighteningly regular basis. Confronted with this cultural violence, the boys are likely to construct a very negative self-image, and to start believing that they are destined to be the failures they keep being told they are. So why bother trying to learn? This manifests itself in a tense, violent atmosphere at the school, which creates another barrier for success. There is really no escaping the daily routine of verbal and physical aggression. Even if a student wished to improve the quality of their learning and behaviour, this doesn’t seem feasible in such a volatile environment. Studies show that individuals participate in collective violence in order to feel a sense of belonging with a group. I think this is very visible in a SEMH setting- if a child is witness to their peers engaging in verbal and physical violence, they will replicate these actions, in order to feel like they are a part of the collective. The more violent behaviour they engage in, the stronger their identification with the group is, and they are likely to find themselves stuck in a cycle of violence. This behaviour is also reinforced in the home, as most come from families who not only engage in some sort of domestic violence, but who are also likely to feel that the education system has failed them, and will therefore not feel the need to encourage their own children to do well in school. So what hope is there for these boys? White, working class boys are already at high-risk of poor performance in school, without being exposed to the cycle of violence that characterise SEMH schools. They find themselves trapped in an echo-chamber of violence, racism, sexism and disdain for the educational system. By grouping together these boys from troubled families, with clear behavioural difficulties, in a same school and showing very little compassion towards the root-causes of their behaviour, they are essentially being set up to fail. They will likely enter adulthood with no qualifications, probably continue to engage in anti-social behaviour, and the stereotype of the horrible, chavvy, white working class will persist. Or, perhaps worse, they will simply be forgotten, by a system which does not appear to want them to succeed in the first place.
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