'We had to rebuild trust in our school after street disorder'

A year on from street disorder in Leeds which saw a police car overturned, a double-decker bus torched and 23 people jailed so far, local schools have been picking up the pieces.

On 18 July 2024, teachers at Bracken Edge Primary School were winding down ahead of the last day of term before the six-week summer holidays.

That evening, trouble erupted in nearby Harehills after police assisted social workers in taking four children into emergency foster care.

The next day teachers faced classes of confused children and families who were "terrified to come into school".

"18 July last year was a really tragic situation and really worrying," says assistant headteacher Amy Potter.

"Lots of the families that people assumed might be involved were not at all and were actually terrified to come into school.

"There was a real period of having to build trust up because lots of our communities weren't born in this country and might not be familiar with how things are done professionally in this country.

"There's been a huge amount of work that's gone into that but then all of a sudden there was this huge and understandable mistrust."

The timing of the disorder could not have been worse for the school. Friday was the final day of term and with many families keeping their children at home, staff were about to go six weeks without seeing the children at all.

"It felt really hard from an educational point of view, and as a teacher and an educator, to send these children away for six weeks and not see them, that was really worrying," adds Ms Potter.

"But also there's been a huge amount of work at Bracken Edge, we've done many projects to build trust up to try and encourage children back into school and to work with the local community."

One of those projects was The Riot, a theatre in education piece created by a group of young performers at Leeds Heritage Theatres.

The Riot tells the story of a young person who has recently immigrated to Leeds who is preparing to run away from their foster carer.

The schoolchildren are invited to a workshop about moments of the child's life and reflect on what could have been done differently.

Catherine Hayward, learning and engagement manager at Leeds Heritage Theatres, says theatre allows children to test ideas in a safe environment.

"If you're wanting children to feel like they belong, everybody is equal when you're making theatre together or when you're watching theatre together.

"So it's a good way of trying out ideas, trying out scripts, saying words, saying things that might feel a little bit uncomfortable. But it's not you saying it, it's your character saying it. So you have that safe space to explore ideas."

The Riot toured Bracken Edge Primary School, Hovingham Primary School and Bankside Primary School, working with 420 children.

It was created by Ashley Peckri and performed by Gabriel Simpson, Beth Walkden and Madeleine Ivanov, all of whom are members of Leeds Actors in Training programme.

The project first came about when Bracken Edge headteacher Caroline Carr called the outreach team at Leeds Heritage Theatres.

Ms Potter says the children "loved" the experience and key to that was giving them an active role in the performance, allowing them to make decisions.

"It really engaged the children. They don't even realise they're learning," she says.

"Lots of our children are new to English or to the country but there's something everyone can take from theatre and that's what we found, that our children really engaged in the workshops and they could see how what they were doing had an impact on the change."

A year on, Ms Potter says things have changed at Bracken Edge - a huge amount of work has gone into rebuilding relationships, especially with the Roma community.

"Unfortunately one community got the slack for the riots but there's a huge amount of other factors that fed into that. We're a diverse area and we're proud to represent them all," she says.

"I really feel our children and the children from the local schools understand what it is to be tolerant, to be respectful and we hope we can see that continuing into the community.

"I will continue to love working in this area. I'm sure, as in many communities, there will be troubles along the way but hopefully what we've done is rebuild some trust and we'll continue to build that positivity."

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