Could art reduce School exclusions?

Could an art-based approach, incorporating established early years methods, offer a solution to rising school exclusions? We speak to academic Natasha Evans about how we give young people a creative voice and improve outcomes

Words: Libby Norman

Natasha Evans had what she describes it as: “a textbook lightbulb moment” watching young people working cooperatively and productively in the art room of an alternative provision (AP) centre. What she was witnessing made her think instantly of Reggio Emilia, the early years philosophy that teaches children to take charge of their own learning, express themselves and work together as a group.

This started her thinking about how we support young people who are either set on the course of exclusion from mainstream school or permanently excluded. A Teaching Fellow at Coventry University’s School of Psychological, Social & Behavioural Sciences, now Evans is undertaking PhD research, using a Reggio Emilia-based approach to help build a picture of how young people in AP educational settings view their situation. Specifically, it will explore through art what we might do to help change negative outcomes for young people outside mainstream school.

And this is a fast-growing group. The most recent set of official figures put the permanent exclusion rate at 0.05, compared to 0.04 in the autumn term of 2022 (see Fast Facts). That added up to 4,168 young people in autumn 2023 set on a course of failing in education. Pupils with SEN and those in receipt of free school meals most likely to be suspended or excluded.

“Nearly every child I’ve worked wanted to go back to mainstream school. They missed their friends, they felt embarrassed and ashamed”

Natasha Evans comes at this problem with experience across age groups and settings. Initially she studied an Early Years degree, working in private nursery settings and progressing quickly into management roles – always a SENCo and behavioural lead. She became increasingly interested in the various early years methods, from Forest School to Froebels to Te Whāriki. But she was particularly fascinated by Italy’s Reggio Emilia, with its compelling post-war context and desire to recognise the many ways children have of expressing themselves – the ‘100 languages’ described in Loris Malaguzzi’s poem about child development.

She wondered then about the absence of such strong philosophies further up the line, and what happens when things go wrong? At which point, she decided she needed to see for herself. She became a SEN teacher, training in pupil referral units – also spending time running two home education centres, teaching in a young offenders’ institution and in a male prison. While she also garnered plenty of experience in mainstream schools, this was as representative for the child (and their family) having challenges or at risk of exclusion. “So that was ten years, and the most impactful ten years, but I was still hitting this exhausting cycle in what felt like a system failing some young people, despite schools’ and teachers’ best intentions.”

Back to the lightbulb moment in the art room of the AP centre. What had struck Natasha Evans was just how engaged these young people were. The very arrival of this art provision had been something of a triumph. “We had an art classroom, but no budget for a teacher. But we did have a teaching assistant who was an Art graduate and managed to persuade the AP to put her through teacher training. For the last two years I was there, she became our art teacher – the impact was incredible.

“That art room never got damaged, not even once. I could have picked some of my most challenging students in their darkest moments in their time with us and they wouldn’t have trashed the art room. And how they treated the art teacher was different,” she says.

Then these challenging and difficult-to-reach students started knocking on Evans’ door to show off their artwork and so she started visiting the art room. “I spent a lot of time in that art room with them, and the longer I stayed the more we started having conversations. I started being able to have difficult conversations planned for a meeting later.” Sometimes Evans could get permission to take what was said back to the meeting so the student wouldn’t have to go but had still clearly expressed how they were feeling.

“I could have picked some of my most challenging students in their darkest moments and they wouldn’t have trashed the art room”

“That’s when I thought, ‘this is Reggio Emilia in action – while they are engaging in creativity, they are opening up to me and they are developing independence, and they are finding their voice’.” The art room became the favourite hangout in break times, the safe space. Art teaching grew to two or three hours a week and the AP centre found a qualification board that could offer ‘roll on, roll off’ qualification pathways, giving the excluded an opportunity to succeed – often for the first time in their educational lives.

The PhD research Evans is undertaking hopes to reveal young people’s perspective when they are taken out of mainstream school. They are being asked questions that they will answer through creating artwork. Alongside the art as an expression of their thoughts, they will engage in conversations that will be unstructured but recorded. “I’m hoping it will enable those students to give their honest answers about alternative provision and about their own situation.”

What Natasha Evans has learnt over the years from the many young people she’s worked with is that they don’t want to be where they are. “Nearly every child I’ve worked with in APs wanted to go back to mainstream school. They felt like it was ripped from them. They missed their friends, they felt embarrassed and ashamed – and if they couldn’t go back to their old school they would like a chance at a new one.”

So, what is the story behind these exclusions? In Evans’ experience it comes down to one of two things. “There’s not one young person I’ve worked with who hasn’t had either a traumatic experience – and that’s so individualised – or there’s an unmet need, like a learning difficulty,” she says. “I can say exactly the same about those I’ve worked with in young offenders’ institution and male prisons.”

With exclusions disproportionally affecting children who are from socially deprived backgrounds and those who have SEND – and the collective trauma of Covid still being played out in real time on childhoods – Evans hopes that her research might add evidence to the debate about what we do to improve educational outcomes for those slipping through the net. “Reggio Emilia tells us every child has 100 languages. If we were to increase creative provision for troubled children within mainstream settings that might help,” she says.

Her experience of an art room supporting the most troubled young people makes Natasha Evans believe that creative outlets such as art offer a chance to reset, a chance to manage behaviour better – also a chance to open up and then discuss how to break the cycle of poor behaviour. “And Reggio Emilia doesn’t only assess children as individuals but considers how they work together as a group. Imagine if we did that for some of our older children – imagine the effect that could have on future society?”

Further reading: Let’s talk relationships