I have touched on this subject before, and each time I go to properly write about it I almost shock myself with how ridiculous this all sounds. I’m 35 years old, and so I was a secondary school student in the early 2000s.
Most people in the UK are aware that a teenager make your GCSE choices in year 9 ready to start the coursework and exams in year 10 and 11. Maths, English and Sciences are compulsory usually, but you get a choice of other subjects such as – choosing a language, choosing two forms of design subject such as woodwork, metalwork, food technology, textiles and art, computer design and a choice of humanities including history, geography and religious studies among others. You can also choose to study Physical Education for exams. So when it came to making my choices, I did the compulsory three, I also chose French. That’s pretty much where my choices ended. Despite studying electronics, woodwork, other design subjects, geography, a and doing some forms of exercise such as physio and occasionally swimming, I was not allowed to choose any of these for my GCSEs.
Why was this? Because my school didn’t run these subject? No – other students were quite free to choose these for their GCSEs. In years 7, 8 and 9 (the first years of secondary school for my non-UK friends) I studied all of the subjects with my peers and where I needed support physically such as holding tools or holding something still, lifting something or opening packets, I had the help of a support worker. This didn’t mean that I wasn’t doing the creative side or making my own decisions and carrying out the work – just that I needed some help where my hands and arms failed me, and also where the school failed to provide much in the way of adaptive equipment. So when it came to choosing your exam subjects, their argument was that I couldn’t choose those design subjects because I couldn’t carry out the coursework or projects independently. Of course I couldn’t. But why should that stop me studying studying the subjects for GCSE level? The ironic thing is, if I had been allowed to study the other design subjects, I could have designed my own adaptive equipment, taylored precisely to my own needs. Instead I was limited to only doing food technology and art – bizarrely, both of these subjects I also needed help to study. I couldn’t lift a bag of flour, let alone lift a hot baking tray out of an oven. And as far as art was concerned – I even remember my support worker trying to make an extension out of a piece of card rolled into a cone shape so that I could hold an oil pastel more easily, as they were so short and fiddly for me to hold. It still didn’t really work though – as soon as I pressed too hard, the pastel pushed itself up inside the cardboard. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed art and food technology – but I would have really enjoyed studying and being creative in the other areas of design.
Is that all? No.
Geography – this is where it seems to get just utterly and ridiculously unfair. At the time, we were told that it would be too difficult for me to study GCSE geography because the coursework revolved around school trips to Kynance Cove, a small local beach which is, like many parts of the Cornish coastline, completely inaccessible to most wheelchair users. By that time I was using my wheelchair more often during the daytime but I was still able to walk a little. But trips to this location would no doubt have been difficult and caused me to fall. I don’t suppose they entertained the idea of perhaps moving the coursework location to somewhere else – even just for that year – but really, they should have changed it for good, or made it so that there where ways that disabled students could have access to the beach as well. When asking my mum about this recently, she has no recollection of being asked about this or informed by the school that I could not study geography GCSE. However, I distinctly remember being quite annoyed that my two remaining humanities subjects were history and RE. I really didn’t want to study religious education, and the school trips involved to complete coursework, where to a tiny church nearby, where the 20 or so students could barely fit, let alone me in my wheelchair.
Surely that’s all? Alas, no.
It seems fitting to write about disability sport as we have just watched the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo. However approaching the turn of the millennium, when I started secondary school I remember feeling very proud in my new PE kit which included a pleated tennis skirt and top. I had never worn anything like that and felt great, if a little self conscious wearing it. I knew that doing PE in secondary school was going to be really exciting – there were proper sports like long jump, javelin and running. Neither of which I could probably do very well as a wobbly kid with CMT but I was looking forward to discovering what else we’d be trying, and knew it’d be a stark difference to doing PE in primary school in an itchy black leotard with your knickers hanging out the sides. but lo and behold, just after I started secondary school I remember being told that I wouldn’t be doing PE with my classmates. My sport would be doing physio with my support worker in the disabled toilet/shower room which also housed a medical bed. What a lucky girl I was – when everyone else was outside practising sports I was inside practising my knee stretches. even at the age of 12 I remember thinking “what a waste“, because I couldn’t wear my new sports kit. A couple of years later my school sports progressed a little, and that I was able to go swimming to a local small hotel pool with my support worker once a week. So that’s what we did for a few consecutive weeks. I was actually quite it good swimmer at that age, but at no point did anybody from school ask if I wanted to pursue it has any kind of sport – it was more something that I could do whilst everyone else was doing their sports. There was no exam, there was no checking if I was improving, and there is no prospect of somebody coaching me. At other times, it was just me and my support worker chatting has she rubbed my feet and encouraged me to squeeze harder in my quad muscles. I don’t wish to take away from my support workers effort, and what they did for me, but it wasn’t what everyone else was doing.
What I suppose his most concerning about all of this, is that at the time happened it didn’t seem unusual. I did my physio as I was told, for a while I went swimming with my support worker and I completed my religious education, history, art and food technology GCSEs (along with all the compulsory and language subjects) and that was that. There were no questions asked, there was no seeing what I wanted out of all of it. And, it wasn’t like I was the first disabled kid in the school. I went to a rural secondary school in Cornwall, which was often the secondary school of choice for kids with a disability as it was smaller than the larger school in my hometown, which was full of staircases and hundreds more children. There were several other children in the school with a variety of different physical and learning needs. This was not a case of the school not knowing how to deal with my disability. This was a case of a lack of effort to put changes in place to allow me to study alongside my peers.
Would it happen these days? It’s not even that long ago. It’s not like we’re talking about 1970s or 1940s or something, this was in the 21st century let’s not forget. At the time, attitudes to my disability amongst others felt pretty progressive. So how come I missed out on so much of my education purely due to my disability and how come we didn’t know we could do anything about it?
In researching for writing this piece, I had messages from other disabled people who had similar experiences. A fellow disabled mum called Jackie, told me that when she did GCSE Art she had to be in her own exam category as the other students were required to make wire sculptures, and of course she couldn’t do this unaided, so was segregated from her perrs. Her mum even had to pre-chop food for her to bring in for food tech class – surely this is the kind of reasonable adjustment that could’ve been made by the school, giving her somebody to chop the food for her. It does not negate from her knowledge or skills in cooking.
I wonder how many more students like Jackie and me in years gone by and even now have been held back from studying subjects which they might even be passionate about, but due to a disability cannot physically complete without support. there has to be some logical thinking here – A student receiving physical support or equipment is just as eligible for the qualification or certificate than their peers who don’t need the support.
Have You Tried Walking Lately? 