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How Was School?

Disabled People’s experiences of education over the last century

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  • Themes
    • Before School
    • School Life
    • Learning
    • Getting Around
    • Living away from Home
    • Relationships
    • Opportunities and Expectations
    • Discipline
    • Identity
    • Mistreatment
    • Life After School
    • Reflections
  • About
    • About Oral History
    • About the Project
    • Further Links
    • About ALLFIE
  • Timeline
  • Resources
    • Schools Pack
    • Additional Worksheets
    • Additional Free Materials
    • Further External Resources
  • What Young People Say
    • Making Decisions
    • What Doesn’t Help
    • What Helps
    • What’s Important
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Deborah Sowerby

Deborah was born in 1949 in London. She spent some time in hospital as a young child and then was sent to a residential special school in East Sussex at the age of five, staying there until she was sixteen and then going on to Art School.

Discovering the Social Model


Here Deborah describes the impact of returning to study in later life via the Open University.

Covering Up


Here Deborah describes keeping her past and herself secret after school.

Alarm Clock


Here Deborah describes getting used to the world after school.

Feeling a Failure


Here Deborah talks about her sense of failure as a child.

Left Behind


Here Deborah talks about moving class and leaving her friends behind.

Interventions


Here Deborah talks about her days on the hospital wing of her residential school.

Recognition


Here Deborah recalls having her ability recognised in her Art lessons.

Being Corrected


Here Deborah talks about the culture of ‘treatment’ within her school.

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© The Alliance for Inclusive Education 2025 · Disabled People’s experiences of education over the last century

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