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Who dares wins

James and Tony share their experience of delivering The Art of Being Brilliant in a pupil referral unit.

As part of the merry platoon of ‘Art of Brill’ trainers, we delight in the sheer variety of audiences we work with. One day we’re talking to business execs and the next day it’s nine year olds!

One of our recent missions was to share the science of happiness and positivity with a group of 11 to 14 year olds who are currently excluded from mainstream schools for all manner of behavioural reasons (AWOL no doubt being one of them). These youngsters were now attending a pupil referral unit which gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘the man from the PRU’.

We were warned that these were very tough kids so this job would need two trainers. Early signs were interesting. On arrival the local constabulary were attending an incident in the car park so we were locked in a classroom until calm descended. Knowing the government is very keen on the idea of placing ex-service personnel into schools ‘to teach them some discipline’, we toyed with the idea of boldly abseiling down from the roof, SAS style, smashing into the classroom in full military gear. However, on reflection we decided to enter through the reinforced iron-gated front entrance, armed only with our positivity and bullet proof grins.

We spent two refreshing and humbling mornings working with the youngsters who were genuinely pleased to see us.

Two things really struck us.

First, despite going through a difficult patch in life, most of these young people had the same dreams and ambitions as others in mainstream schools. One was desperate to become a motor mechanic, another to own her own nail bar, a third relished the idea of being a detective, yet another a computer programmer and so on. These were ambitious kids, who knew or had a good idea of what they wanted as a destination in life but simply lacked the skills to plan the route.

Secondly, the staff were a really concentrated group of 2%ers, who wore smiles on their faces despite dealing with challenging behaviour. They looked for the best in every situation and in every one of their pupils, even if they were having a really tough day. They never give up on these young people and neither should we.

Rather, we should dare to help them win.

James Hilton and Tony Seymour