Youth Work rediscovered in a school context: understanding the needs of excluded young people and their families by seeing beyond the professional

This article considers ongoing concerns about the difference in schooling outcomes between educationally disengaged (mostly excluded) students and their peers. Consecutive state funded secondary schooling models appear to be struggling to address this (Edwards 2018; Farouk and Edwards 2021). We suggest that this has been exacerbated in part by an outdated curriculum (see Edwards and Palmer 2021; House of Commons 2017) and overreliance on the punishment and deficit focussed responses written into many behaviour policies (Edwards and Farouk 2024). While these policies may, they argue, promote best conditions for teaching, inappropriate responses to dis-engagement and disruptive behaviour may be making the issue worse. We therefore consider the role that youth work might play in addressing these concerns. Specifically, we look at youth work through the lens of a civic activity as part of upbringing (Davies 2016; Edwards and Evea 2025 forthcoming) emerging from within community and family relationships that may provide a way forward. Drawing on our own experiences of implementing youth work practices in and with Senior Leadership Teams in secondary schools, we demonstrate how youth work practices can enhance the educational and personal development outcomes of students who are, or who are in danger of becoming disengaged with their education, particularly those facing school exclusions. Furthermore, we argue youth work can be used to help resolve some of the issues created by a rigid and inflexible education system with its over-reliance on zero tolerance behaviour policies.