You heard me swear but you never heard me!” Negotiating agency in the Pupil Referral Unit Classroom

Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) are out-of-school centres which cater for a diverse range of students in the United Kingdom, including those students who have been permanently excluded from school, those who are at risk of permanent exclusion and those who refuse to attend school, are pregnant, or are without a school place. While they are substantially different from mainstream state schools in their staffing and curricular obligations, their main objective is to prepare students to return to mainstream settings by offering additional emotional, behavioural and educational supports (Meo & Parker, 2004). As such, PRUs typically attempt to deliver short-term educational provision with a view to securing longer term gains. However, the time-compressed nature of this work, together with the complex array of challenges experienced by PRU studentsi often means that there is a tension between students’ personal liberties and the wider social obligations of staff in these institutions