The rising tide of young people being excluded from Britain’s schools has, over the years, slid up and down the nation’s news agenda. Amid an, at times, fraught debate over how to address the problem, young people’s voices are often drowned out.
On 10 December 2020, Human Rights Day, EachOther will release ‘Excluded’, a documentary with a difference focussing exclusively on young people’s perspectives on this complex issue.
And at 12pm on 11 December, we are bringing together a panel of school exclusions experts to discuss the issues it covers further.
Young people have the right to education (The Human Rights Act, Article 2, Protocol 1). They also have a right to express themselves on issues that concern them, be listened to and taken seriously (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12).
The long-form documentary features the stories of young people who have been temporarily excluded, permanently excluded and indirectly excluded. It also includes the perspectives of the so-called ‘other 29’ in a classroom, those who remain at school after one of their peers has been removed.
Among those interviewed are London-based activists No Lost Causes, a youth-led movement highlighting the common path that leads many excluded children into the criminal justice system.
Also featured is St Roch’s School in Glasgow, which is at the heart of a compassionate approach to education that has seen exclusion incidents in the city drop by 87% since 2006.
EachOther employed affected young people as consultants and researchers on the film. Their voices and solutions, concerns and experiences are at the heart of this work.
In Conversation: Excluded panel discussion
To continue the conversation around the issues covered in ‘Excluded’, we are holding a live-streamed panel discussion on Friday 11 December at 12pm.
The panel will be chaired by youth activist Betty Mayo, an alumni of social justice charity the Advocacy Academy, who features in our documentary and helped shape it.
Among the panellists is Natalia Morgan, from the No Lost Causes campaign group which also forms a key part of our film.
We will also be joined by Glasgow City Council’s education director Maureen McKenna, who set up the ‘Nurture programme’ credited with drastically reducing school exclusions; and Dr Halima Begum, director of race equality charity the Runnymede Trust.
The event will be available to watch live at 12pm on EachOther’s home page or on YouTube.
In the run up to the film launch, since 30 November we’ve been focussing our human rights coverage on the issue of school exclusions. We’ve heard the perspectives of teachers, headteachers, parents, policy-makers, youth workers, and more. Read these stories here.
(30 November) we are focussing our human rights coverage on the issue of school exclusions. We will hear the perspectives of teachers, headteachers, parents, policy-markers, youth workers, and more. Stay tuned.
