The new Peer Action Collective (PAC) report exploring young people’s views on how schools can help protect their students from youth violence is now live.
With a focus on student experiences of school exclusions, our team of 12 young people peer researchers spoke to 71 young people (12-23 years old) in and around London through in-depth interviews and focus groups. The guiding question: how do they think schools can best support students before, during, and after any form of school exclusion?
PAC report: Key takeaways
You can read our full findings, methodology and recommendations in the report, but here are some headlines on what the young people we spoke to thought about school exclusions and their impact on the wellbeing and safety of students:
- Young people had mixed views on whether exclusion was a useful tool for schools to use, and which types of exclusion were most/least effective. Some felt there was never a need to exclude, whilst others felt it was needed where there were serious issues such as violence, or threat to other people’s safety.
- Young people shared mainly negative emotions associated with exclusion. The most common was anger, but they also described anxiety, stress, embarrassment, confusion, and low mood. Some told us they felt a sense of liberation or relief.
- Young people believed that exclusions may push young people towards violence. An increase in unstructured time may lead to more opportunities to become more involved with bad influences (such as gangs) or to watch online content promoting violence. Being excluded and feeling labelled/abandoned also was described by some young people as a factor that pushed them towards negative influences.
- Young people felt that schools should focus on understanding and addressing the root causes and wider context to poor behaviour (e.g. home life, mental health issues, bullying). By understanding these issues, it was suggested schools could help protect young people from becoming involved in violence by supporting them more holistically.
By understanding how schools can impact youth violence, we can identify key areas for intervention and support, ultimately creating safer and more nurturing spaces for students to thrive. This research informs our project's action plan.
Kyan Alves Nicholson, PAC peer researcher
About the Peer Action Collective
The Peer Action Collective (PAC) is a £12.7 million programme, which aims to give young people the chance to make their communities safer, fairer places to live. It is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, the #iwill Fund (a joint investment between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) and the Co-op Group.
McPin and the Peace Alliance are working together as the Delivery Partners in London (2023-2025). Our work aims to further grow youth lived experience leadership, undertake research driven by experiential knowledge, and carry out social action that results in on-the-ground change in Haringey.
Read more about it on our PAC project page.
