Derrington 2012 thesis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

caution. These young people with antisocial and challenging behaviour are usually at
risk of exclusion from schools and need to be given extra support.
‘Prior to being excluded, students are often already experiencing a set of
difficulties that alone would tend to put them in the category of children at
risk of further personal and social problems… Thus children who are
excluded from school often have the burden of interrupted schooling added to
their existing difficulties and unfavourable life-prognosis’ (Cooper, 2000,
p.7).
Therefore, if things do not change at school, there are massive implications for the
young person’s future 56 . Figures obtained by The Trust for Adolescence 2005 showed
a high level of self-reported offending by young people who were excluded from
secondary school, regardless of their age. ‘This finding underlines just how important
it is for high level resources to be directed at work with this particularly vulnerable
group of young people’ (Coleman and Schofield, 2005, p.97).
There are many ‘adolescent boys who become ‘hard-to-reach’, eventually
disengaging themselves completely from the school system and becoming
permanently excluded’ (Pomerantz, 2000, p.74). However, secondary education is a
cornerstone for many students and for those, whose parents have failed to provide
care, teaching staff often become the adults to which they turn. To this end,
McLaughlin (1996) makes the case for counselling skills to be a necessary part of
every teacher’s repertoire. School is the obvious and most accessible setting to offer
counselling and therapy (1.2 and 3.5) There needs to be a readiness to respond to the
needs of these vulnerable young people and music therapy is one effective way.
The social pressure to conform and adapt to the standards of the peer group in order
to belong, means that it is particularly important for the adolescent to have
opportunities to be spontaneous and creative without this group. Many students find
their identity and kudos by failing and are ‘good at being bad’, stuck in a spiral of
failing with a reputation and being well-liked amongst their peers for being
disruptive. Yet through the creative arts, they are able to express themselves in a way
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&' !This dismal trajectory is highlighted in the NEET (Not in Education, Employment
or Training) statistics from 16 -18 year olds: in 2010 the national average was 5.5%.
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