“What sort of people you are I can only speculate about. I think you are disgusting.” 

It’s quite an invasive way to start an article. 

So imagine, if you will, if it was the concluding part of a tirade directed at you. 

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How would it make you feel? Angry? Sad? Ashamed?

Now consider a young person. How do you think they would react to this? 

This statement is the concluding remark made by a judge in a recent court case regarding an incident in the community, directed at a group of young people of secondary age.

The statement came at the end of a prolonged period of extreme verbal abuse directed to the group via social media, as well as more direct incidents from members of the local community. 

Consider the final sentence: “I think you are disgusting.” 

Not their actions or choices, but them. They are disgusting.

Perhaps the young people involved did not place too much credence in the statement delivered by the judge, who may have been seen as an alien figure to them in their day-to-day lives.

But surely the judge has a sense of duty to maintain their own equanimity. Judges are arbiters of social justice and thus must model the possibility of redemption and positive change that we wish for all young people. 

‘An awful human being’

One of the most traumatised children I ever saw in the youth justice system worked with me on understanding emotions for more than three years. 

In the third year, he disclosed to me that he read his judge’s summing up papers in his cell every night. The judge had said: “If I could keep you in prison for the rest of your life, I would. You are an awful human being.”

The child was 12 years old when he was told that. 

What does this do to the mind of a vulnerable young person?

The young person believes that they truly are disgusting and so they modify their behaviours to fit that skewed self-narrative. They deliberately push people away because they think that people couldn’t possibly care about them, becoming part of a spiralling self-fulfilling prophecy, with the young person exhibiting behaviour that they believe to best represent their label, like a vicious “Golem” effect. 

These behaviours make it almost impossible to build a positive relationship with them; just when you think you’re on the verge of a breakthrough, they realise the progress they’re making and rip up work, damage something, anything to keep people at a distance. 

In particular, they stop trusting anyone with any level of authority; the last time they were involved with authority, they were told they were disgusting, so why would they want to repeat this?

Time for tolerance

It is really important to clarify that this is not a “fluffy” message of tolerance above all else that negates any need for appropriate and socially agreed consequence; young people must be reminded of the rules of the society in which we all live, but it is always imperative that we remind ourselves that the pupil is not their behaviour.  

The act they committed could potentially have been described as disgusting, despite its obvious pejorative and subjective connotations, but the young people certainly are not.

Such a message is hugely relevant in education and despite the obvious differences in terms of the level of severity, the themes remain the same. 

For instance, if we describe a pupil as disruptive, we are sure to observe their behaviour manifested accordingly. In fact, at our PRU, we have accrued a huge amount of anecdotal evidence that highlights the frustration felt by the pupil when described in such a way - they explain that if they are going to be called disruptive, then they are going to go out of their way to prove just how disruptive they can be. 

Which, as it happens, is something some of the pupils are quite skilled at. Again, it is shame inducing and extremely unhelpful: no one benefits in this situation, there are no winners, simply another barrier constructed that impedes that path to positive outcomes for the pupil. 

The same is true for any number of frustrated descriptors; aggressive, rude, loud, disrespectful, horrid.

A pupil may show traits and exhibit these types of behaviours and when they do, it should result in an appropriate action to help the pupil recognise and learn from their mistake and develop the range of tools in their toolkit, but never used as a lazy, over-simplistic catch all.

Moral duty

For the most vulnerable pupils in our society, the authority figures, such as the teachers, judges and police, have a moral duty to work together to ensure that they are particularly mindful of the impact their language can have. 

For those teetering on the edge of anti-social behaviour issues and potential involvement in county lines, we need to really think about how we can welcome these pupils, show them that we care and that we want to support them; not literally push them away with such dismissive, damaging language. 

In order for this to happen, it is vital that we address the behaviour, not offer universal criticism of the young person - this is unnecessary, extremely damaging and perhaps most frustrating of all, easily avoidable.

Leanne Forde-Nassey is headteacher at The Key Education Centre, Hampshire, in Hampshire. Ollie Ward is outreach lead at The Key Education Centre, Hampshire