Embracing the challenge

The official preview of Tom's Story in June was attended by just under 100 people and we received encouraging feedback, securing a tour worthy of the considerable amount of hours invested into developing our work.

We have played in a further education college, a special needs school, a pupil referral unit, mainstream secondary comprehensives and an academy school sitting outside of LEA control. Each and every establishment is different and the cultural norms of each, have presented challenges of their own...

Schools do not promote the use of offensive language and many have measures in place to tackle bullying and anti-social behaviour together with the language which is often associated with it, when it is countenanced in the classroom, the playground and the corridors in-between.

Our play features characters that participate in behaviour which could be described as anti-social and they use language which we knew would engage young people. This was borne out from the focus groups of young people we invited into the rehearsal room to provide feedback, and the lively post performance discussions with young people in all of the schools we have thus far visited.

A niggling anxiety I always had, was how our play would be received by the adults supervising the young people who watched the performance. It was therefore saddening if not altogether surprising, that some in positions of authority became visibly more nervous as the story of Tom, Lou and their classmates unfolded on stage...

What were teachers and school managers to make of two characters smoking a joint and "chattin shit" in a PE changing room? What was to be made of scenes where a young man was being subjected to homophobic bullying, or a young girl referring to the act of cutting herself, or a young man offering money to another young man for sex? Of course, these and other issues in Tom's Story are contentious. I have never pretended that they are not, but I will certainly not pretend that the issues are not real and relevant, especially when one considers the evidence:

* One in ten young people admit to using cannabis on a recreational basis.

* Two out of every five victims of homophobic bullying contemplate suicide.

* An estimated 10% of all young people have deliberately self-injured.

* Grooming and exploitation of young people is of concern following Operation Yewtree.

As things stand currently, PSHE [Personal, Social & Health Education] and SRE [Sex & Relationships Education] are subjects which schools are not required to deliver, though some do, and this is encouraging, particularly in a climate when schools are under enormous pressure to deliver ever improving academic results year upon year...

It is generally accepted that a lack of positive coping strategies can lead to problems with health, behaviour and achievement both in educational and employment settings. It is also generally accepted that young people who do not mix well are between two and three times more likely to develop depressive symptoms, compared to peers who have confiding relationships. Emotional and social competence must surely be deemed as important as the development of cognitive abilities for personal, career and scholastic success. Why then, one wonders, does the government continue to prevaricate over its statutory inclusion for all young people in all schools?

Caroline Lucas the MP for Brighton Pavilion has renewed her call for the PSHE curriculum to be made compulsory in all schools. Indeed in February, the education select committee backed calls for compulsory PSHE and SRE, and the education secretary Nicky Morgan told parliament on the 15th of June that the government would respond to the comittee's recommendations by the 26th of June. Yet here we are in the middle of July with no indication of the government's intention. This is in spite of an Ofsted report in 2013 which stated that PSHE and SRE was 'inadequate' in 40% of schools, with the report going on to say that this could "leave children more vulnerable to sexual exploitation"

As reported in the Guardian newspaper today, more than 100 organisations have joined a PSHE association campaign for its statutory inclusion in all schools. Association members include Mumsnet, Stonewall and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. Indefinite Article in creating Tom's Story, supports this campaign, with a conviction that giving PSHE statutory status would ultimately mean that teachers would be trained and thus gain confidence in addressing the holistic educational needs of the young people before them, and that over time, fear and anxiety would subside.

For me, there is a link between fear and Michael Wilshaw; the chief inspector for Ofsted, who has called for a grammar school ethos in comprehensives, claiming that a quarter of head teachers are 'not good enough' as reported in the printed press on Sunday. Could it be statements like this [and he has made many that I find disconcerting] that result in a culture of fear in some schools? Fear of taking risks, fear of being judged inadequate; thus fear becoming the dominant emotion in schools which students will sadly learn as the norm?

In one such school, during a performance of Tom's story, the pupils in the audience were prevented from laughing at the moments that they found funny. Those students that dared to laugh were castigated for doing so, and in the case of one young person, hauled from the theatre, having learnt what - I wonder? I have to confess I mused if the member of staff concerned was experiencing fear of the students laughter and fear of having to re-evaluate the power balance that existed between him and his students because he may have felt inadequate about engaging with them about the very real issues presented in Tom's Story and thus the very real challenges facing them as young people. Learning is a two way process and learning takes courage - something one would expect an adult and certainly a teacher to model. Witnessing an adult inflicting his dogma on the young people in his charge was a depressing thing to see.

Touring this production has presented the students that have seen it with opportunities to engage in thier own thinking about the issues relevant to them, just as it has presented the adults around them with opportunities to explore, discover and learn for themselves; learning together.

We remain upbeat, and know for sure, that the culture in our final two schools of this tour will present us with yet more to think about. Bring it on !