PRU

THEATER IN EDUCATION

WHAT IS PRU?

A PRU is a place for pupils that cannot attended mainstream schools for various reasons , there's many reasons why students may attend a PRU e.g.. Illness , exclusion , behaviour or they are unable to deal with education within mainstream school. Most PRU students in the uk have EBD - Emotional and/or Behavioural Difficulties and the education system think its better for them to learn in a PRU than mainstream schools also those who commit crimes or have been bullied . I think most people have a stereotype of the students that go to PRUS and do not understand that there can be many reasons why they are there . There are over 421 PRUs in England , which are giving those who cannot be in mainstream education a chance to learn . Pupil referral has been legally referred to as a "short Stay School" from September 2010. This means that pupils do not stay permanently.

WHY WE HAVE CHOSEN PRU?

Our target audience was for teens in Pupil referral units because we know that the arts is not always part of their curriculum or accessible for all young people so we wanted to give them the chance to watch and enjoy a performance that they can relate to. We have decided not to base the performance on the clich idea of targeting the pupils with the possible reasons as to why they ended up going to a PRU but to base the performance on the things that teenagers face in their everyday life, as that would be something we could all relate to or understand. Another reason as to why we chose PRU's , was because the general knowledge people have on a pupil referral unit, is that people with behaviour issues go there when they have been kicked out of school when this is not always the case. We decided to choose PRU's because the majority of people we have spoke to who have attended a PRU have said that they felt lost and neglected and we believe the arts is something that can benefit people of all backgrounds and help them find their way.

CURRICULUM PRU centres are for GCSE students therefore the curriculum is heavily based on orthodox secondary schools. However the difference is the lectures and topics are refined to suite the students. Compulsory subjects:

Mathematic English Science Functional skills

PSHCE; is used to prepare students for further education or work places, whilst teaching them about sex, drugs, relationships and social situations. Further subjects: Art Drama (varying) P.E ICT R.E These topics are subject to manipulation, depending on the centre. As some PRUs believe that over enforcing to much on fragile students will have a negative effect, therefore focusing on the subjects required for further education.

Hours are limited and lessons are shortened to meet the attention span ability of students. Whilst there are also less members in a class, with more teachers and T.As.

REVUES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a1-P0nBZBc
Darrens Story
In th e Beginning
From year 8 Darren saw that mainstream school wasnt the right place for him and his behaviour and short temper became a big problem in his education and life. In the beginning of Year 9 his troublesome attitude became too much for his peers and teac hers to handle, so he then attended an anger management course for 12 weeks this helped him for about a year and then started again. Darrens head teacher didnt want to expel him so thought it would be best if he sent Darren to a pupil referral unit. PRU Darren saw starting a PRU as a new start; they were only six pupils in his class. He felt a part of a family at the PRU and c ould talk to the teachers about his home life and problems that would happen. It was different to mainstream they treated him like an adul t and didnt care if he failed in an exam, they more cared about making sure his behaviour was getting better as this was the main cause of him failing. The PRU believed in awarding good behaviour by treating them to bowling or snooker, this made them want to behav e throughout the week and gave them something to look forward to. As time went by Darrens ability came back and he was back on top, his favourite subject was maths and was getting the grades he wanted but he wanted to improve even more, his teacher he also loved maths showed Darren how to improve more and taught him stuff he never knew before. Darren started to enjoy school even more and never took a day off. Darren explained that parents think PRU is down grading and the worse place for your child to end up but in fact it benefits teenagers with troublesome behaviour and helps their child to learn how to behave better and work back to their best ability. Qualified At Darrens PRU they didnt sit GCSEs they worked towards key skills, Darren gained key skills level 2 in maths, IT and communications, he also got a OCR in science. Darrens teacher saw that if they entered him into maths and science GCSE in hi s old school that he would pass them, Darren was able to do this and achieved a D in maths and an E in science. Darren stated that; When my results came through, I passed them, I got a D in maths and an E in science. I was so happy; I would never have achie ved this if I had not gone to Millbrook PRU. I owe them everything. Life after PRU From leaving PRU Darren went on a course at his local college, as he found a job he dropped out a college but it didnt turn out right and he found himself on an YTS scheme learning car valeting. He got an NVQ in it. He then got a job back with his previous em ployer, but at a different company, doing ground works. Darren slowly worked his way up the wage ladder from earning 80 a week to ea rning 500 a week. Which is a big difference.

CRISTALS THOUGHTS

FRANCES PRU

My PRU - Sils 4 (Southwark inclusive learning service) The Southwark inclusive learning service (SILS) was set up in September 2007 to offer full time education for permanently and dual registered pupils at Key Stage 3 (KS3), and permanently excluded pupils at Key Stage 4 (KS4). SILS also offers outreach support for mainstream schools and academies: 'Day-Six' provision (SILS 6) providing continuity of education for pupils on fixed -term exclusions of over 6 days; education for young parents and pregnant teenagers at our Young Parents Education centre . My PRU didn't have drama as part of the curriculum. Companies came to the PRU and performed for us. I did a film project with my friend from the PRU and got to take part in acting . I would have loved to have had drama classes in the PRU because when I step into the class room I felt free like I could be anyone and anything and if something happened and it upsets me or angers me I could use it and become someone else. This would have helped me I have learned lots since my time at both PRUs I gained confidence through drama and I learnt how to stick up for myself.

CONTACTS
Local pru centres: Cotelands pru the turnaround centre Northbrook pru moving on pru the Coningsby centre pru Company DARTS (Doncaster community arts) which work closely with people in pupil referral units and other individual's. http://www.thepoint.org.uk/

( A paragraph from their website) Breaking the Cycle of Failure presents findings from a year spent exploring the impact of arts activity on 'excluded' young people in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs). Several years earlier darts established Otherwise Creative - an arts programme working with 14-16 year olds who had been permanently excluded from school because of behavioural problems, young people with mental health problems and young parents. Whilst working with these young people we began to see the changes that participation in arts activities could have on these young people - their view of themselves, their behaviour and their aspirations. What we wanted to do was look closely at what it was about the arts and our way of delivering them that really did break the cycle of negativity that these young people were trapped in. Breaking the Cycle of Failure brings alive the terms exclusion, disengaged, disaffected - terms so often used they can begin to lose their true meaning. We tell the true stories of young people who have been damaged, some of them very seriously by powerfully negative experiences. Next we pulled apart arts activity and itemised the quintessential elements that it contains, hence having the potential to engage, touch and transform people.

AIMS & OUTCOMES

To get them interested and motivated in the arts. To get them involved in the arts. Make the performance Enjoyable. To teach them something new and different to what they know.

PERFORMANCE IDEAS

All of my group managed to have a chat with Cristal Who has previous connection with PRU units. It helped the initial thought process, beginning to understand what was best to perform to the PRU individuals and also what was an engaging workshop.
Forum Theatre; 'they love to get involved and contribute to the session' This was one of the suggestions made by Cristal. Our group had disused this idea prior to the talk.

The way in which our group would like to work is going for something less obvious to our chosen target audience. For example not just going there to perform something they are already learning or to perform something about life in PRU units.
However, one very rough idea for a forum theatre performance would be; - Classroom Scene - ..... - ..... In this performance we would like as much audience interactions a possible. We have to be very skilled in the way we handle those interactions.

WORKSHOP

A side from the performance a basic yet for filling workshop to round off our time at the PRU
- Concentration and sitting still; two things we all can relate too! The X amount of kids will have been sitting down so we want them up and energised. 1. We will start with a simple introduction game (the chosen game is yet be decided, we all want the whole thing to all relate to everything we perform and do with them) 2. Drama Impro - getting them in a circle and in the middle (what's in the box?) 3. Then a quick session of teaching them a part of the production (maybe the music element or the drama or dance element)

Coming up with an idea for our TIE performance has been very challenging, we still haven't hit the final Idea but are very close to it. We drafted an email which we would send to various PRUs and in the email, we ask for them to send us their national curriculum (asking them if they feel any subject area would benefit their pupils) but after speaking to Crystal (ex PRU pupil) she made it clear that she would not want to learn anything that covers the curriculum. She Also explained to us how when in the pupil referral unit they cut all subjects that related to the arts, we found this very interesting and could use this as one of our starting points. As a group we have talked about setting our performance out in a forum theatre kind of layout. As a group we have agreed that we must not base any performance on 'life in PRU' as we feel that we don't want it to seem that we are being insensitive to any of their stories. We thought that places like PRU always get different companies in to perform for their pupils but Crystal in all her time there she never saw one performance. Overall we want our performance to convey positive messages, we want to make it laughable and enjoyable for the pupils.