The story is nightmarish and complex, but culminates in a sickle cell anaemia diagnosis, and a recommendation that he be sent to a state-run ESN boarding school. When he was six, his life was altered completely by what was meant to be a routine dental appointment. His parents came to the UK from Jamaica in the early 60s. But she does find people who feel able to talk, and carefully draws out the many aspects of their stories. She records one phone conversation (with consent), and plays it back, the voice distorted, in which an ex-pupil explains the lasting stigma of being labelled “slow” and “backwards”, and who says their family doesn’t even know they went to an ESN school. It was indeed a scandal.Įarly in the film, Shannon explains that getting people who were put into “ESN” schools to talk on camera is proving difficult, even now. Subnormal: A British Scandal (BBC One) is a crystal-clear documentary by Lyttanya Shannon (McQueen is executive producer), which shares the true story. It wass part of an unofficial segregation policy in the 1960s, which saw hundreds of black children labelled “educationally subnormal” and moved out of mainstream schools by the state. Education told the story of a 12-year-old boy, Kingsley, who has trouble reading and is sent to a “special school”. T hose who saw Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s masterful series of standalone dramas, will no doubt remember the powerful final episode.
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