The History of Newham as a place for inclusion – Inclusion Migrants

As part of Newham Heritage month, Act Up! Newham researched how Newham became well known for inclusive education. Here is the story of 2 families who migrated to Newham in order to be included in mainstream school because Newham had become famous for inclusive education.

We are Act Up! Newham. We wanted to research how well known Newham became for inclusive education and so we interviewed some people who came to Newham from the Netherlands because of it.

Sterre Ploeger’s journey to Newham for inclusive education

One of our members – Sterre Ploeger – came to Newham from Amsterdam when she was 14 years old because she wanted to go to mainstream school.

In this video Sterre tells the story of how she came from Amsterdam to Newham to go to school:

Sterre told us her story and we also interviewed her parents, Yvonne Brouwers and Ferdi Ploeger.

They told us that in the Netherlands there was no inclusive education. Sterre and her parents had to campaign for Sterre to be included in mainstream school.

After hearing about their campaign Sterre was invited to be included in a new primary school in a town in the Netherlands, Almere, as part of a pilot project. Sterre was included and made lots of friends.

She even met the Princess Maxima (who is now Queen in the Netherlands) who wanted to find out about her struggle for education.

But when Sterre needed to go to secondary school, no school would accept her. Her parents even went to court, but the court said that the schools didn’t need to let her come.

Linda Jordan and Chris Goodey – who were very involved in making Newham inclusive – spoke at an inclusion conference in the Netherlands.

Sterre meets Linda Jordan at the conference

Sterre is included in the Royal Docks Community school

At this conference they met Sterre and her family and Sterre’s family got to know about inclusive education in Newham. Because of what they heard at the conference, Sterre’s parents decided to move to Newham so that Sterre could go to mainstream secondary school. Sterre moved to Newham and was included in the Royal Docks Community school.

In this film, Sterre’s parents tell us how this happened:

Thiandi Grooff’s experience of Inclusive Education in Newham

We also interviewed Thiandi Grooff and her mum Trix Grooff.

Thiandi was also not accepted into any secondary school in the Netherlands because she was disabled.

She moved to Newham for 2 years and attended Lister Community school.

Thiandi communicates by typing what she wants to say.

She used this method to get her qualifications at Lister when she was 16 and then the senior secondary school in Amsterdam allowed her to attend. After that she went to an Amsterdam university. She would not have been able to do this without being accepted into secondary school in Newham.

In this film Thiandi and Trix describe what it was like to move to Newham for inclusive education: