ABSTRACT
This book has been about those children, and their parents, who are the most difficult group to engage in education; the ‘rhinos’ as a school I used to work with called them (Really Here In Name Only),and the others who have proved resistant to all our initial hopes and expectations.It is immensely frustrating when families do not respond to what we have to offer:when we make appointments to see them they’re not there.Or,when we have tried to be as flexible as we can about timekeeping, uniform, curriculum and so on, they still don’t seem to be able to deliver on all the promises that were made. It can feel like endlessly going round over the same old arguments with no real progress to show for all our efforts. I was once presented by a school with a blank photograph frame.The names of three children that I had completely failed to get to attend were printed at the bottom, marked ‘Ben’s Class of ’91’! I do know how difficult it can be.
