Another educational scandal: Cruelty in the classroom, a BBC Panorama investigation

In June 2024, a BBC Panorama documentary called ‘Undercover School: Cruelty in the Classroom’ reported the abuse experienced by Disabled pupils at LIFE School in the Wirral in the North-West of England. Documentary reporter, Sasha Hinde, gained work in the school as a member of the support staff and carried out an undercover investigation using a hidden camera. What she exposed was an appalling catalogue of abuse, including violent verbal and physical attacks on Disabled pupils and students.

LIFE School is a for-profit company, for pupils and students who are 11-18 years of age. The school specialises in sports and most of the pupils have labels of ADHD and Autism. Wirral Council fund places at the school, and it has been rated “good” by Ofsted. In the previous year, February 2023, a whistle blower raised the alarm about the school, saying that pupils had confided in her about the types of abuse they witnessed. Throughout the programme there is disturbing footage showing teachers physically abusing pupils. The examples include teachers putting pupils into headlocks and using police style restraint on them. Teachers routinely used discriminatory, ableist and other offensive language and derogatory slurs, targeting pupils and at times other staff. Teachers also speculate about one Young person’s sexuality, taunting him and using homophobic language. In another instance, sexist and misogynistic language is used to describe a female pupil, and about the investigative reporter.

As ALLFIE explains in our current manifesto, social injustice in education must be combated. The Government should “adopt educational policies and practices that address all forms of social injustice in education, recognising the diversity of Disabled people’s lived experience”.

Teaching staff should be representative of people from different cultural backgrounds, and respect should be fostered for the diversity of Disabled people that they are teaching.

Another major concern which the programme highlighted, is the vast amount of money being spent on segregated schools. All the children at Wirral Life School are on Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs), and according to the Department for Education (DfE) the number of children with an EHCP has doubled to 6,000 in the last 9 years. The number of pupils in independent schools with an EHCP has risen to about 150% since 2015. Since the school opened in 2021, Wirral Council has paid the school more than £2.2 million pounds. There is also offsite provision, a local football pitch, for one pupil who has 2 hours a day of lessons for 4 days a week. The lessons cost the local authority £150,000 a year. The teacher, a senior leader, leads the offsite provision and is captured on camera repeatedly verbally abusing the pupil, using ableist slurs, and being disrespectful and rude about the pupil’s mother.

The former Director of the Council for Disabled Children (CDC), Christine Lenehan, also appeared throughout the film, commenting on footage of the abuse. Christine said that she is concerned about schools in the private sector who purely just want to make money. She was clear in advocating for the children to be included in local community schools, with the right support. This aligns with ALLFIE’s campaign for inclusion  in mainstream  community schools, as explained in our manifesto demand number 2 which calls for an end to all forms of segregated schooling. Also, ALLFIE’s Manifesto demand number 3 strongly emphasises that all SEND Government funding must be redirected from segregated schools and units to improve mainstream education.

Additionally, the programme shows ineffective senior leadership, neglectful management, and poor practice within the school. The CEO of LIFE Wirral, a former professional rugby player who used to be chief executive of Bournemouth Football club, made explicit his primary motivation for money over the Young people’s education and wellbeing. A measure of this questionable drive for money was made clear when he was captured on camera saying that he wanted Life Wirral “to be the first billion-pound educational division in the country”. He also added that he wants his headteacher “to be the richest headteacher in the country”. He appears gloating as he describes using a police style restraint on a child who was “lashing out.” For many watching, they would be aghast that this individual had no experience in education and used to work for the police but was sacked for gross misconduct. For ALLFIE, it is no surprise that many segregated settings attract staff who have experiences and have worked, for example, in either custodial, protective, emergency, and armed services.

In the programme the reporter, Sasha, meets the headteacher to review her performance. The headteacher was recorded saying that she was aware of staff behaviour and their anger towards the children and Young people. Further footage showed a teacher grabbing a pupil by the head and drawing on his head. This happened in front of the headteacher who does nothing, and then walks away. It leaves us wondering whether this non-intervention by the headteacher is an indication of the comfortableness of the perpetrators, and that their abuse was being conducted in plain sight of senior staff?

It is incredible that only a few weeks earlier, a completely different story was being reported, one which commemorated the death of rugby sporting great, Rob Burrows. Rob was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), and campaigned alongside his family, friendship groups, strangers and sporting people. It was remarkable that the vehicle of sport brought people together in such a way and under such adversity. And yet, another group of Young Disabled people at LIFE School in the Wirral, a so-called specialist sport school, are being abused. I wonder, what would Rob Burrows have thought?

For many, it is hard to understand that Ofsted rated this as a ‘good’ provision in April 2023, suggesting that ‘leader’s arrangements to safeguard pupils are effective’. For others, Ofsted are defunct and devoid of holding educational providers to account, particularly when it comes to issues of disability justice. It is of course credible to question this lead inspector’s observations. How is it possible that such abuse went unnoticed? This Panorama investigation also revealed that Wirral Council had been aware of accusations of abuse. It would be no surprise to ALLFIE, that such perpetrators would have checked the equality box in terms of receiving training in Disability issues. It should also be no surprise that defenders of segregated provision will question the investigation, or even allege that it was the undercover investigator who put the children at risk – this is in fact a position taken by a nameless spokesperson at LIFE Wirral who issued a defensive statement on their website.

It is disturbing that much of the terminology related to Disability goes unchecked and is often used to dehumanise individuals. There is a long history which reveals the way language is used to justify segregation. Even the term ‘special’ has been argued to be offensive. Absurdly, there are also segregated provision which claim to be inclusive – how, given that they exclude non-disabled people? For many, ‘special’ translates to meaning ‘less than’, ‘different to’, ‘failure’ and so on. It routinely results in segregation. The realities of Disabled people and segregation seldom report remarkable stories of survival, resistance and escape, why?

Watching this programme was upsetting and would have been extremely disturbing to many people. Much of the social media commentary noted the depravity of the perpetrators, name calling, physical abuse, torture, degrading and inhumane treatment by so-called professionals, who parents entrusted with their children. Sadly, and again, this is indicative of what ALLFIE has campaigned against in our End Torture campaign over the past year.

When all is said and done…

For many it is unfathomable that Young Disabled people are being treated as they are at LIFE School in the Wirral. At ALLFIE we have too often heard from parents being coerced into ‘choosing’ segregated ‘special’ provision, usually assuming that their son/daughter will be free from bullying, that they will be ‘looked after’ and so on. For some parents, thinking of what happens after their child has completed their schooling is too far away. For sure, parents agonise over ‘choosing’ a school. Mainstream teachers also buy into this special school industry, reneging on their commitment to equality and social justice, convincing parents that they don’t have the resources and/or skills. In this segregated system, it is necessary to have failing mainstream schools, there is a manufactured industry in servicing this so-called ‘failure’. Inclusion and exclusion have become two sides of the same coin. Educational segregation has become normalised, as thousands of pounds are being syphoned into segregation. There is a ‘special’ school industry, its economy is lopsided and tightly regulated. There is also profit to be made.

Unfortunately, the abuse of Young and older Disabled people in segregated provision is all too common. It is not a ‘one-off’. In the coming weeks we will hear in the news the usual platitudes of ‘never again’, ‘lessons learnt’ and so on. If there are court hearings and possible prosecutions we should not be surprised, in this topsy turvy world, to learn that perpetrators themselves have some association with the issue of Disability. These are disturbing and confusing times. Even the legal system is lopsided and many of the perpetrators will, if taken to court, receive disproportionately community service, rather than custodial sentences.

This abuse of Disabled people is systemic, it cuts across intersectional experiences and identities, and it threads through the fabric of society. Ashamedly, the UK government has placed a reservation on United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) Article 24 on Education, which basically means that so-called ‘special’ schools are part of an apparent ‘inclusive offer’, presented in the guise of ‘parental choice’. It should be of national shame that the United Nations has called out the UK for its lack of progress towards inclusive education. The UK as well as other State parties are expected to demonstrate their ‘progressive realisation’ towards inclusive education. A previous UN observation in 2016 reported that there were ‘grave and systemic’ violations against Disabled people more broadly, and its most recent report published in March 2024 stated in its conclusion that the UK has ‘failed to take appropriate measures’ to resolve these violations and in some areas have regressed. Whilst it may be the case that LIFE School in Wirral will be shut down, there are numerous historical examples of the repeated abuse in segregated educational provision, and it should be no surprise that there will be others which come to light. This is a complex system of segregation, riddled with inequality, implicating and coercing individuals. These are structural and systemic issues. When all is said and done, when it comes to segregated ‘special’ or so-called ‘specialist’, ‘free’ and ‘alternative’ provision’, and the way society discriminates against Disabled people thereafter; history will judge us to be cruel, we have no doubt about that!

Yewande, who leads ALLFIE’s Young Disabled people’s group called Our Voice, was also sickened and angered by what she witnessed in the documentary. It made her think of the Young Disabled people who still constantly have to fight for freedom and liberation at school and fight to enjoy their education. The Our Voice group summed it up best in the ALLFIE manifesto, when calling for inclusive education for Young Disabled people. They said:

“Inclusive education isn’t just about dreaming about the future. We don’t just want you to plan for the next generation. We want justice and liberation for those currently in segregated education.”