A pioneering school has changed the lives of children written off by the system, but its funding is now at risk. What is the future for young people like these?
Michael Gove may think blazers, prefects and house points are the magic cure for much that is wrong with education, but for Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of the children's charity Kids Company, it is just another example of a government minister missing the point.
The schools white paper, published last month, set out plans to tackle poor pupil behaviour by making it easier for teachers to give detentions and enforce exclusions. But the trouble with policy makers, says Batmanghelidjh, is that they often assume that every child has the same starting point, and that if teachers were a bit stricter and schools a bit tougher, even the most difficult pupils would soon fall into line.
For Batmanghelidjh, challenging pupils are challenging for a reason. Children who experience poverty, neglect, violence, abuse or other physical or emotional trauma in their home lives can rarely cope with the rules and rigidity of the education system. Disadvantaged from the moment they first set foot inside a school, many simply never catch up.
"The mistake people make, and this even happens in some schools that specialise in dealing with children with emotional and behavioural problems, is that they try to mimic mainstream education. But very disturbed children don't respond well to being forced into strict routines. Children like this need a unique kind of education tailored to their needs," she says.
It was recognition of this that prompted Batmanghelidjh to set up an education centre for children from troubled backgrounds, where classes start at 11am, and students decide what they want to learn and how.
The Urban Academy in Southwark provides education and support for 16- to 23-year-olds, many of whom have dropped out or been thrown out of every school, college or education institution they have attended.
Since it opened in 2005, the Urban Academy (which is an academy only in name and is not part of the government programme) has chalked up an impressive 94% success rate in getting young people back into education and training. Hundreds of former students have gone on to further education, and 89 have completed degrees at university, including Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities. So what is the secret of its success?
According to Batmanghelidjh, it is all about taking a holistic approach to education. In addition to qualified teachers, the Urban Academy is staffed by social workers, psychotherapists and other support workers. When a young person arrives at the centre, they have an initial assessment with a health and social care team so a "care plan" can be put in place.
Batmanghelidjh believes that traumatised children experience changes in their brain that affect short-term memory, sequencing and concentration, making school or study impossible for some. "These children are exquisitely sensitive. Their brains are preoccupied with survival. They have been frightened for long periods of their life, so they are ... ready to flare at any moment."
And as the headteacher, Duza Stosic, points out: "If a kid is thinking 'where am I going to sleep tonight?' you can hardly expect them to be able to concentrate."
In their quest to solve the problem of why some children are failed by the education system, politicians continue to direct resources in the wrong places, says Batmanghelidjh. The government's pupil premium, which will give schools additional cash to spend on pupils from poorer backgrounds, is one such example. "The government consistently ignores the issue of a child's readiness to learn and paying for 'catch-up' classes or school trips is not going to deal with that. We start by asking 'has the child got a bed?'"
The majority of the students walk in off the street. Many are homeless, or victims of emotional or physical abuse, or need support with mental-health issues. Problems with drugs, alcohol or substance abuse are also common, as is a history of violence or crime.
In the first instance, support might be focused on helping them to find suitable housing, to register with a doctor and arrange counselling. "We see young people who end up on the streets because they can't be bothered to sign on every two weeks, so they lose their housing benefit," says Theresa Antwi-Boasiako, who heads the health and social care "crisis" team. "When you dig deeper, you might find it's because they can't read and write."
Students can take basic skills courses in maths and English (with one-to-one tuition where necessary). GCSEs in maths, science and English are also on offer, along with a range of arts courses, and staff devise "sandwich" programmes with local colleges and universities where appropriate.
Batmanghelidjh has also developed her own curriculum called Path for Life, which offers 41 bite-size courses, accredited by the Open College Network. Each one can be completed in just a few hours, and topics include "how to run your own home", "why we dream" and "emotions and how they work".
Many of the young people who end up at the Urban Academy lead chaotic lives, sofa surfing or moving from one hostel to another, and many have irregular sleep patterns, which is why classes start at 11am. When tutors get into work each day, their first job is to ring students. "For some young people, 11am is still early," says Stosic. "But we don't call them and say 'you must come in at 11am'. Instead, we ask 'what can we do to help?' In most cases, after a few weeks or months they start to rely less on the phone calls and get themselves up, but some need even more support."
Critics might say this discourages young people from taking responsibility for their own lives, but Stosic says they are only doing what any concerned parent would do. "These are children who have not had love and care in their lives and society has abandoned them."
What the Urban Academy offers young people, which mainstream schools can't, is time. It can take up to a year, and many setbacks, to get some students comfortable with the idea of sitting in a classroom.
Batmanghelidjh recalls one student who kept running away and lying under cars. "The tutor taught him out in the street until he felt comfortable enough to come into the building, and one-to-one until, gradually, he felt OK about being taught in a small group."
Staff are so determined not to give up on the young people they work with, they are "on call" 24 hours a day, and Stosic regularly goes out in the middle of the night to young people who have run into trouble with the police or are in hospital after a fight. "We're all they've got," she says.
The Urban Academy has helped 20-year-old Tanya, who stopped going to school in her early teens, to turn her life around. As far as the local authority was concerned, she was being home-educated. In reality, this was a cover for domestic abuse and, prior to starting at the Urban Academy, she was living in a women's refuge, which she describes as "a scary place next to a prison, with bars on the windows".
After basic skills tuition in English and maths, she is now doing a diploma in youth work. "After everything that happened to me, I was in danger of spiralling out of control. Now I feel like this is my family home."
Twenty-year-old Sam is another success story. Brought up with six siblings in a two-bedroom flat in south London, he was first arrested for shoplifting when he was nine. He was stealing nappies and milk formula for his baby sister. By the time he was 10, he was shoplifting food every day so he and his siblings could eat. Education seemed irrelevant and he went to school "maybe four or five times a year".
Now 20, he is a qualified personal trainer and has successfully completed two London marathons. He is due to start an access course at Goldsmiths College, University of London in January. Sam has no doubt that unconditional love and support have been instrumental in changing his life chances. "When I first met Camila, she just came up and gave me a big hug. That's what young people like me need."
Batmanghelidjh thinks that up to one in five children in mainstream education should be in specialist schools for those with emotional and behavioural issues.
The need to provide more holistic care was highlighted last week when Jo Shuter, headteacher of Quintin Kynaston school in St John's Wood, London, launched an appeal to create a hostel for homeless pupils and those experiencing family difficulties, after discovering that a sixth-former had been sleeping rough for four months. Shuter said: "Sixteen to 18 is the most vulnerable age. That's the time when kids cope with significant hardship."
But this level of support is expensive. It costs around £12.3m a year to run the Urban Academy (one of four Kids Company street-level support centres in London), £4m of which is currently funded by the government, through its Youth Pathfinder Scheme, but this is due to end in January. Batmanghelidjh is worried the government will not continue to fund the scheme. "We get our funding from 1,700 different sources. Our charitable trusts feel that the work we are doing should be mainstreamed, that the government should be picking up the tab. But if we can't show consistent funding, then our charitable trusts will think our work is not sustainable and will withdraw their support. Without the government funding, we don't stand a chance."
In its white paper, the government set out plans to improve the quality of alternative provision by letting existing pupil referral units convert to academies and allowing new providers to set up free schools. Would Batmanghelidjh be interested in starting an Urban Academy free school? Maybe. "I guess the advantage would be the freedom to make choices that were right for the young people you were working with. I am definitely open to ideas."
• Names have been changed