Priced Out: Life on the Edge of Regeneration

Primary School Teacher:  So, I suppose if you're asking me if I'm a good teacher, I would say, yeah, yeah, I am. I care very much about my students, not so much about the paperwork, but there's not too much of that in year four. How on earth you in secondary manage it, I dread to think. Secondary School Teacher: The paperwork! Let me not speak on it… I'm with year nine and it's a lot. Primary School Teacher:  So, yes, I do like to think I'm a good teacher, but okay, so there was this one moment where I thought, this is…this…I’ve made a mistake. We were learning about health and the planet as part of Citizenship. And I did a special ‘Walk to School Week’, which does what it says on the tin really. If the children walk to school, I'd reward them with a sticker. And at the end of the week, the students that gained five stickers would get a prize, a school pencil sharpener or a ruler, or, you know, some such item… Secondary School Teacher: Haha! The school stationary - elite! Primary School Teacher:  So at the end of the week - it was supposed to be fun - a week to encourage the kids to walk and maybe get parents to think twice about driving. One of my children was upset. He'd earned no stickers and was very withdrawn. I gave his mum a quick call and it turns out the family had been evicted from their home, which had been just around the corner from the school, moved by the council into temporary accommodation miles away. And I do mean miles. This poor little mite and his mummy had been getting up at 5am each day to travel on a bus, a train, and then a bus again to get to school. Of course there was no way he could have walked to school.  Secondary School Teacher: You weren't to know. Primary School Teacher:  I know, but I felt awful. I didn't even think.  ​ Secondary School Teacher: The statistics show that in each primary school in this borough, one in nine children live in temporary accommodation. Primary School Teacher:  I've tried to read up more about it and it's just so upsetting. Children in temporary accommodation are at greater risk of worse educational outcomes and lower levels of wellbeing compared to their peers. I can't believe how badly our children are being failed. Secondary School Teacher: You can see the stress. They're living in one room with their family in noisy places, maybe no internet access. How are they supposed to do homework? And if they're on the run-up to GCSEs, that is particularly problematic. We focus so much on our students building resilience, but this is a social issue, not an issue of resilience or mental health. The school has counsellors on hand and we offer what we can, but really it comes down to this. Children have a right to safe housing, healthcare and education, and if society can't get the housing right, we can't expect children to bounce back from these experiences. We hear of families being offered cognitive behavioural therapy, like it's some sort of pill. Oh, take a CBT. But how can you cognitive behavioural therapy yourself out of housing hell?