Turning On the Turned Off

Abstract

In 2008 the UK Government acknowledged of the poor quality of educational provision for young people excluded from mainstream school: There is currently scant data available about the outcomes of children and young people in alternative provision. However such data as are available indicate very poor outcomes for this Group. Back on Track, DCSF 2008. This chapter investigates how pupils disengaged with education were be re-motivated by a creative curriculum and a participative pedagogy. It explores the experience of 'Graft & Glamour', a pilot project that engaged young people excluded from secondary education in an industrial town in the north of England, and its follow up project, located in inner-city London. The imperatives behind these projects , their methodology, origins, gestation and theoretical pedigrees are explained. Some of the outcomes for the young people themselves are outlined and the proj-ects' achievements are set in the wider context of contemporary schooling. In this chapter we explore how lessons learned from mainstream creative projects delivered by the Ideas Foundation were used to re-engage disengaged and disaf-fected students aged 13-18 in two English settings-in London and in the industrial north. Fifty seven students took part in pilot projects over a 2 year period. These were established to assess the value of using a pedagogy specifi cally designed to We busted out of class-had to get away from those fools. We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school. No Surrender , Bruce Springsteen