An example of a boy who succeeded when everything went against him.
Adam arrived at the school in the summer. He came with a Statement and a pile of papers, describing a very troubled young person with many issues to overcome before he could move his life on and become a responsible young adult. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and was at this point taking medication to control his behaviour. He was from South Yorkshire, living with mum, step-dad, brother, step brother and step sister, plus two dogs and numerous other pets, but no partridge in a pear tree! It would be fair to say that there were concerns over whether or not the school could meet his needs such were the complex issues he presented. He had been excluded from mainstream schools in his local area and it had not been a positive outcome when he attended a PRU in Nottinghamshire.
He was granted a one to one support worker to work with him due to his academic and behavioural difficulties within the classroom environment.
The early stages of his time at school (honeymoon period) were relatively incident free, with Adam testing the waters and observing the mechanics of the school to see how far he could push the boundaries ...
“Yes!”
“Morning Adam, time to get up”
“Morning sir, How many did Barnsley lose by? “
“They didn’t, they won.”
“Don’t lie sir, they are rubbish, not as good as the mighty Gunners!”
“I know Adam, but we did win, I have no need to lie.”
“You are a f***ing liar, they are not better than Arsenal.”
“I didn’t say they were, just the opposite!”
“Now you are f***ing winding me up, f**k off!”
“Please don’t swear Adam, there is no need.”
“I didn’t f**king swear, sorry sir do you want a drink when I get up?”
This was just one of many minor incidents at the beginning of his time at the school and there were many, like this, where he could become abusive and sometimes threatening over issues that he totally blew up out of proportion. This was mainly down to his inability to listen and the obvious disruptive confrontations he had encountered from a young age. This was not, however, the Adam we liked and what he himself wanted to be like. He wanted to be liked by all and would sometimes go over the top trying to please. Occasionally his keenness to please would lead to confrontation, as staff didn’t always show gratitude to him for what he had done. Whether this was making cups of tea, completing extra chores or by simply giving one hundred percent during a football match, his reaction to situations where instant recognition was not forthcoming was usually taken personally and he would feel like he had not met the required standards.
His brother has a successful career in the police force and was someone for Adam to look up to. Adam had enormous respect for people in authority, particularly males (this was I feel due to his biological father’s influence, who was quite strict and who Adam was respectful to). I had little contact with Adam throughout the first few months of his admission to school, only the odd conversation with him, one being mentioned earlier. He did however probably know more about me than I thought he would. He seemed to go out of his way to find out the people to respect, the people to test and the people to ignore. I feel I fell under the category of people he respected, mainly due to my role of Care Team Manager and the fact that I made decisions that affected him, particularly on Thursday evenings (where I was in charge of the running of the school, being the senior on site). It was these nights that I took more notice of Adam, probably because of the pattern of him having difficulties on such evenings and that I got calls to help deal with him. For some strange reason it was enough for me to be spotted by Adam for his problem to de-escalate and I then always had the opportunity to chat with him. He was usually polite but agitated and angry with himself after a physical restraint, almost intimating that he was in control at most times. It seemed the quickest way to calm him was to talk nonsense to him and totally distract him from the current issue, waiting for this anger to subside before talking about what had happened (though the nonsense that was spoken will remain a secret!).
These meetings on Thursday evenings were the foundations of our working relationship which was to become more indepth later on.
It is fair to say that he settled well into the school and he soon became comfortable within his surroundings.
Adam spent much time within Mozart House, a house for junior pupils and his eagerness to please and his willingness to respond to daily routine and structure soon led him to move up the social progress ladder of the school and become the first pupil within school to achieve silver level status whilst having 1:1 support. Although Adam still had outbursts of temper, these were getting fewer and fewer at this point and he was definitely responding to the consistencies of school routines. This settled period in his life enabled him to establish many positive friendships with his peers and professional ones with staff.
Although there have been many achievements by Adam, I feel the biggest came during this time. Through this successful period within his time at the school he was able to reduce his medication and eventually come off it completely to be reliant on the coping strategies he had acquired.
This proved to be the start of Adam’s transition into a young adult and coincided with a move to senior school, which I had the privilege of managing. I also took on the role of his keyworker, something that he had pestered me for during the weeks leading up to his move.
His move to Bronte House was very positive and one that focussed on his personal development in preparing him for working life. He no longer required 1:1 support at this stage, another great achievement.
In the early stages of our keyworker relationship, Adam was able to fill me in on his own personal story and experiences to date. I must say that some stories seemed made up, some totally bizarre and to be honest, I took them with a pinch of salt, but I never dismissed them. However, upon visiting his home and meeting his Mum and most of his close family, I found that Adam was not far from the truth in what he had already told me. His Mum was a recovering alcoholic and had herself experienced situations more accustomed to a soap opera. She had undoubted love for Adam but her life was like a tornado at times, and unfortunately, Adam usually got caught up in it. That visit was really beneficial to me and answered a few questions that I had in my head, like whether he really did make up the stories about his past.
I also believed it was extremely beneficial for Adam in knowing that I knew what had occurred and that I had seen his Mum and she had been able to confirm what he had said.
Our relationship was much stronger after this visit and we were able to look at issues and address them more closely. Much of the time was spent working on building a stronger relationship with his Mum, something that both were keen to do. This meant numerous conversations between all parties and specific work between myself and Adam. In a relatively short space of time their relationship improved quite significantly, so much so that Adam, who requested to stay in school every weekend, only did so when it was my weekend to work.
During this time, he was also performing to a good standard within school. He was supportive of others, helpful to staff, achieving certificates and rewards on a regular basis (probably the highest achiever in school at this time). This was during Year 10, so probably at the most difficult time in his school days. He had matured into a well respected member of the school community and a great ambassador for the school, often showing visitors round school with great pride. He had also learnt how to accept humour, something that he didn’t posses when he first came.
Unfortunately, as with most of Adam’s life to that point, it had not always been plain sailing and an event that occurred in the latter stages of Year 10 could quite easily have undone all the work he had put into the previous two and a half years.
His Mum had unfortunately returned to drinking. One of Adam’s half brothers received a prison sentence and this had a depressive effect on her. One weekend she tried to take her own life and accidentally broke Adam’s arm as he tried to prevent her from doing so, while at the same time trying to get help. Adam immediately went to live with his Father on the south coast and the contact between Adam and his Mum ceased at this point.
We initially thought that this would be the end of his time at school as the distance between his new home and school was over 300 miles. However Adam was adamant that he wanted to see out his time at school and, with the support of his Dad, we arranged that he would return independently via coach and trains. This journey meant leaving home at 6am on a Monday morning to catch a train to London, then catch a coach to Leeds where we would pick him up. He also made the return journey on a Friday, another remarkable achievement for a 15 year old boy who had previously had difficulties going to a school within 100 yards of his home.
This achievement was recognised in his final year, as he was awarded an OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT award from Connexions West Yorkshire, who present a limited number of awards each year across the whole of the county. Even though Adam returned to school quite quickly after the incident, it obviously had a significant effect upon him. He returned with obvious resentment towards his Mum and a refusal to speak to her. Much of our keyworker time throughout the initial period was about his relationship with his Mum and the effects it had on him. He was always calm when speaking to me about it, but you could tell he was angry inside. This anger never really spilled out in an aggressive way, but he started to swear more often, especially when seemingly unprovoked. This was worrying and we arranged some counselling for him with an NLP worker. This was extremely beneficial to Adam and helped him through his final months at the school. This coincided with me moving out of senior school to manage junior school. As a school, we decided that Adam should move with me to act as a role model to the younger pupils. This was so that we could keep the positive relationship going throughout his final terms at the school.
This was a very difficult period for Adam as he had much to cope with. On top of this his Mum had regained contact with the school and was expressing a wish to renew contact with Adam. After some deliberation, Adam agreed to meet his Mum again with support from myself. We visited mhershortly after his final annual review which was, as expected, very positive.
Mum was very pleased to see Adam and I was surprised with her openness and remorseful explantion of the previous couple of months. Adam was happy to see her and I feel was able, at this point, to accept her apologies and explanation. One of Adam’s fears before going was that his Mum was going to put pressure on him to return home, something he was not keen to do. We had prepared what he wanted to say if that matter arose, but nothing like what he was going to say came out when Mum asked the question. Adam gave a very mature, level headed and clear explanation of what he wanted in a way that I was extremely proud of, so much so that she agreed with everything that he said and said that she was happy for him to stay at his Dad’s, but she would like some contact in the future when Adam was ready for it.
We maintained regular contact with his Mum throughout his last months at the school and Adam did stay over one weekend to celebrate his brother’s birthday.
He continued to do well at school, despite the usual pre-leaving nerves and the worries about his exams. His work experience at a local primary school was very successful, with the staff commenting on how smart, reliable and hardworking he was and a pleasure to have.
This was not surprising as Adam’s behaviour whilst out of the school environment was exemplary, evidenced by him winning one of the school’s major awards, for 'Best Ambassador'. He left school in four years after starting, a completely different young man to the one that came to us. He was a pleasure to work with and a boy who needed and deserved our support. I remember his last morning in school……..
“Yes”
“Morning Adam, time to get up.”
“Morning T, put the kettle on seeing as it’s my last day!”
“You must be joking!”
“Ok sir, sorry sir, be up in a minute. Black one isn’t it?”
“That’s right!”
“OK ………old man!!!”
Adam went to work at a leisure centre in East Sussex while he went to college to complete a foundation course in uniform services. Unfortunately he didn’t like this course and gave it up after a few months. He has since moved back to live with his Mum and is currently working at a nearby pub, he says as an ‘assistant head chef’ but in our terms he’s a kitchen assistant. He continues to ring me at school on most Thursday evenings, some habits never die and of course I give him my time as he fully deserves it.