Jennifer Horgan: Schools could learn from example of relaxed performances in theatre

It’s a great idea, not only to run relaxed performances, but to share an introductory video online. 

Neurodivergent people, and those with disabilities, may suffer more anxiety than others. 

Providing a sneak peek of the theatre’s layout and the detail of the show is therefore appropriate.

The video explains that for some people, feeling comfortable means being able to make noise and move around. 

For this reason, the shows are sold at half capacity. Viewers are welcome to come in and out as they please, and lights and sound are managed for their ease and comfort.

Understanding the deep empathy autistic children can feel, the ‘villains’ of the show chat during the video, explaining that it is all make-believe, showing themselves with and without their costumes, and assuring young people that nobody need worry about Cinderella.

Hand dryers in bathrooms are turned off for the duration of the show. 

I know these are often an issue for people with heightened sensory processing — one of my own children struggles with them, as do I. I generally come out of public toilets feeling rattled.

The Opera House has received numerous emails from parents thanking them, expressing their joy at being able to attend a pantomime with their entire family this Christmas. 

It is a wonderful development, a truly just and thoughtful initiative, and one to be applauded from the aisles and beyond.

And yet, watching the thoughtfully composed video, narrated by Therese O’Sullivan who plays Fairy T, I feel tearful.

This performance, I know, will be perfect for many viewers who spend the rest of their days struggling to navigate rigidly neurotypical spaces, and rigidly neurotypical schools.

There are many wonderful schools, teachers, and SNAs out there, doing all the things mentioned in Cork Opera House’s relaxed performance video. 

Inclusion is not a place, it is a feeling

We have come so far, and yet we have some distance to travel. As academic Craig Goodhall says, inclusion is not a place, it is a feeling.

I have heard it said, even in the best of our schools: “Yes, but we are still a mainstream school.” 

The message being this — we will do what we can to help your child, but rules are rules. Homework is homework. Detention is detention. Certain lines can’t be crossed.

Punishment is at the core of the problem facing many neurodivergent young people in our schools today. Punishment is, I would argue, at the core of rising absenteeism too. 

The Department of Education’s report, released this week, highlights rising absenteeism in schools and explicitly references issues around assessment methods and inclusion.

What is striking about relaxed performances is the lack of punishment and rigidity. 

The video is laden with reassurances. No, nobody will get cross if you shout or leave and come back. Nobody will shush you in adult fury.

What if this story of a theatre also became the story of our schools?

It is quite possible that ‘mainstream’ schools can work very well, even with flexible boundaries to accommodate difference. 

All mainstream schools, we seem to forget, are also neurodiverse schools.

The Opera House’s appreciation of the need for half capacity is key.

Irish classrooms are too full, given the sharp rise in children with documented and undocumented needs. 

It is not enough to have scheduled sensory breaks with an SNA. All children need fewer bodies in the room.

But returning to discipline, compulsory homework and afterschool detention also need to go. 

That will sound outrageous to many educators and parents, but it is also extremely obvious to anyone willing to look at education through a truly inclusive lens. 

I am not saying that, at senior cycle especially, students don’t need to work at home, but homework must be encouraged and advised, never compulsory, and never punishable by detention.

Consultation — not punishment

In senior cycle, if a child is not completing homework in a subject that demands it, there should be close consultation between schools and families.

This requires considerable work by school staff, which brings us back to the capacity issue. The same individualised work would need to be done in relation to lateness. 

The child’s right to an education comes first. It is not reasonable for a school to punish a child for their exhaustion, their sensory over-load, their individual needs, or their family circumstances.

This is on my mind this week, looking at the Opera House’s video, because I’m also upset by the Department of Education’s recent guidelines on seclusion and restraint. 

I trust groups like Inclusion Ireland when they say they don’t go far enough, because I have sat down with numerous parents, and I have listened to their stories.

I also trust Inclusion Ireland because one in three of their board members has an intellectual disability. They understand that a different experience is not a less important one. People are rights holders — all people, equally.

The practices I see in nearly all schools, evidenced in the text of their behavioural policies, signifies a deep rot — an absolute inability to genuinely appreciate difference.

This is at its most severe when it comes to the use of discipline against our most vulnerable children, and at the furthest end of discipline is the practice of seclusion and restraint.

Inclusion Ireland conducted a survey with AsIAm earlier this year with almost 500 responses; 27% of the children and their families who completed the survey reported that their child had experienced restraint in school, and 35% had experienced seclusion.

CEO Derval McDonagh identifies the issue with the new guidelines clearly. 

“Where a school has used restraint, they are asked to report this to the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). The NCSE has no powers of investigation.

“The report that the school is expected to complete does not name the child or identify them in any way.

“It is therefore not difficult to imagine that a child could experience multiple restraints in each period and have multiple reports written about them, without a robust way of investigating what has happened to that child or indeed putting a stop to it.”

The guidelines in general are incredibly positive, but the failure to include robust safeguarding for these children is a travesty. 

The Department of Education suggests that child protection issues should go straight to Tusla and yet, sadly, against comprehension, I have interviewed numerous parents who have reported school-based abuse to both the gardaí and Tusla and who have been told to go back to the school’s board of management.

Disability activist and journalist Julie O’Leary, who participated in the earlier drafts of the new guidelines, is also frustrated.

“There are pockets of good work but there is far too much emphasis on the system rather than the human rights of the children involved.

“Behaviour is communication. Many young people are trying to tell us the system is not appropriate for them but as a society we are not hearing it.

“The consequences also lead to teachers and SNAs not being safe and comfortable in their jobs, and the guidelines don’t go far enough to make them so.” 

All schools need to change how they treat and discipline children.

I admire Cork Opera House for their wonderful efforts, and I would like to see more relaxed performances across theatres. It’s a great option for families looking for a seasonal treat.

But it also brings to my mind the schools children attend every single day of the week.

My hope is that all schools follow Cork Opera House’s lead, becoming more relaxed, more empathetic, and more deeply committed to equality and inclusion.