This personal account was written by a young person and they have shared it with the User Voice and Participation Team. This young person wishes to remain anonymous.
“Mainstream education was difficult for me because of the bullying I received from other students. Before other students found out my mum had a disability I was like any other person in the school, I had lots of friends in and out of school, but this all changed overnight. There was a boy in my class who was known for bullying students, I really don’t know how he found out about my mum’s disability but he started to walk past me and pretend he was on crutches, other people then started to do the same.
I would go into school, have form time and then walk to lesson, every time there would be a group of young people pretending to walk on crutches and laughing to each other. This then progressed to them finding out my father had died, they then started to make fun of this. I tried to deal with it by taking it as a joke, hoping they would stop, but I could not take anymore by Christmas. I spoke to my head of house about it and I felt it was not taken seriously. This response had a detrimental effect on my mental health, and I started to make up excuses not to go to school, the school would send work home for me to complete, which I was doing (Year 8).
At the beginning of Year 9 my mum and myself were asked to go to a meeting at school, we were told the main instigator of the bullying had moved to the other side of the year and the rest of his group had been expelled. I agreed to go back to school however because of my trauma, I now found it hard to be around lots of people, so I was put in isolation. This was the worst thing that could have happened because the bully then ended up in the same classroom as me.
My anxiety then went through the roof and I then refused to return to school. I felt the school were not very understanding of my issues and threatened to arrest my mum for letting me stay home.
The school did not send any work back home to me as I was not de-rolled and my mum was still being threatened. This added a lot of anxiety to what I was already feeling, in Year 9 I still managed to get out over the weekend, but this stopped quickly by Christmas as I was beaten up by the bully and his group of friends in town.
I then stopped going out for a year and a half. I was struggling with my mental health and I was referred to CAMHS.
At the beginning of Year 11 the school contacted my mum and suggested that I went to Access to Education (A2E), I was anxious about this as I had not seen anyone for a number of months.
A2E came over to my house to meet me, I was nervous, but they started a conversation about football and that put me at ease. They explained I would only be with one other person and this gave me the courage to give it a go. They eased me by letting me do the first week’s lessons online. The following week I was picked up by one of the workers and taken to the centre, she kept me calm by talking about football.
A2E supported me in that when I was having a bad day, I could do my lessons online at home and this helped a lot. A2E was more informal than school, I was allowed to call the teachers by their first name which made a difference. They mixed the day up with lessons and then we had a fun activity. There was no PE which I feel could have benefitted me but in general I felt safe and was able to learn without feeling anxious.
A positive experience was when I attended A2E another young person from my school came to the centre and he had the same experience with the same people. We supported one another through our time there and it confirmed my experience at school was unmanageable, it also began to help with my recovery.
If I could add anything to A2E I would want to include physical activities where possible. What made A2E the ideal alternative provision was the attitude of the workers involved. Their approach made A2E the best provision for me at the time, I cannot think of anything else other than to include PE, that could have made my experience better. Overall, I think there should be more alternative learning provisions like A2E for young people as there are a lot of young people struggling with mainstream education.”
ATLAS Surrey 