The History of Newham as a place for inclusion – Act Up! Newham’s reflections

As part of Newham Heritage month, Act Up! Newham researched how Newham became well known for inclusive education. Here are our reflections on our research.

We are Act Up! Newham.

We think it’s important that stories about disabled people are told by disabled people.

We agree with the slogan of the disabled people’s movement that there should be ‘NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US’.

As a group of disabled actors it’s important that we did the research and can share our own perspectives on it.

An introduction to our project

We researched the history of how Newham became famous for inclusive education.

We interviewed a lot of people.

We interviewed people who helped to make Newham inclusive.

We interviewed disabled people who were included in their local school when they were younger.

We interviewed people that moved to Newham so that they could go to mainstream school.

We are going to use these interviews to make a show about the history of inclusive education in Newham.

Here is a film of us introducing our project:

How inclusive education in Newham affected our lives

Many of us went to school in Newham.

By doing this project we realised that we were able to be included in our local schools because of the work that other people had done before us.

We interviewed many disabled people who were included in their local mainstream school.

We found it very interesting to hear about their experiences, but we also want to share some of ours.

Here are some of our experiences at mainstream school in Newham:

Awa Jagne

Awa Jange

I went to Plaistow Primary and Lister. At primary I loved sports days. They made it easy for me to join in. At Lister I had a lot of friends and people in the hallway used to say hello to me and that was nice. And my brother and sister went to the same school so that was nice because if I needed anything then they were there.

Pritesh Patel

Pritesh Patel

I went to Brampton primary school and then Manor primary school. I liked school dinners and going on school trips. I liked doing art classes. Then I went to Brampton Manor secondary school. I liked dance classes best.

Sterre Ploeger

Sterre Ploeger

I came from London to Amsterdam because I wanted to go to school. In Amsterdam all the schools said no. In Newham they said yes so I went to school and I was happy. I went to the Royal Docks. I liked meeting people and making friends. I liked performing in the show Les Miserables. I liked doing all the things with the other people and working with the other people.

Glory Sengo

Glory Sengo

I went to a different primary school at first but then I moved to Nelson Primary school because they had more resources. I miss Nelson Primary school because I liked it very much and I wish I could go back to primary school. I liked doing maths and cutting pictures out. At Nelson Primary school they helped me to talk. I liked laughing and joking with my friends.

Act Up! Newham’s reflections on what we learnt

We interviewed a lot of different people.

We learnt a lot.

We wanted to share with you what we learnt and what we thought about it.

Here is a film we made to share our thoughts with you.

There are our personal opinions and thoughts about the project.