Lessons

Michelle Daly: Focus on Physio


Michelle was born in 1972 in Newham, London. She attended a local special school from age five until sixteen and then went on to a local mainstream college.

Here Michelle describes her lack of learning opportunities in school.

  • Michelle Daly
  • Michelle Daly
https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/focus-on-physio.mp3

Transcript

There was a lot of focus on Physio', that used to get on my nerves, I had to have Physio every morning as soon as I went to school. I wore this suit which was called a 'space suit', it was kind of, a bit like, I was pumped up with air, so for an hour a day, in the morning, an hour in the afternoon I had to do bars so, then you've got to think, I was taken out of class for two hours for the day, doing Physio.

So there was, you can see the focus was never gonna be on my, I'm gonna get a job at the end of school and I think when you think of any young people, I think this is some of the sad thing, if you ask parents, even now, 'What, how, where do you see your child's life?' it's not about whether they're gonna get a job or go to college, and I think those are what those schools did, they didn't think about our future, and I think this is what the problems they've got, so in terms of our learning, there wasn't a focus on learning. It was very basic, it didn't prepare us for anything, you couldn't even, at the end of my schooling, I did no exams so I had no grades, so I couldn't get into college, so I then had to come from one segregated school to enter, to another special needs class when I left college.

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