Although recent government initiatives have drawn attention to the importance of listening to young people, attempts to pay attention to their views about their education experience are rare. Drawing on two studies of disaffected and disadvantaged pupils, this article analyses what can be learned from taking their views into account.

School leaders in highly disadvantaged urban communities across the globe walk a tightrope, caught between the needs of communities and the requirements of national policies. This article aims to enrich our understanding of the potential of school-community relationships. It examines the policy discourse on urban schools and the practice of community leadership. The policy context is one of UK and international concerns about divisions in society and the rise of political extremism: concerns which, in the UK, have led to a policy focus on community cohesion. The article offers a conceptual framework-a theory of action-as a possible road map for school leaders to manage through this complex and evolving arena of policy and practice. The templatedeveloped through earlier work on urban schools-is underpinned by a focus on trust (as the lubricant to link communities together) and social capital (as a way of harnessing the 'social energy' of communities for positive good). The template is tested against the leadership of two school principals in challenging contexts in London and Greater Manchester. The author concludes that there is potential for schools to create space for the voices of the marginalised and disenfranchised to be heard. This analysis will resonate with school leaders serving disadvantaged communities in many international contexts and signals a new departure for leadership.

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This article summarizes findings from an ongoing research and development project, 'Reengaging disaffected pupils in learning', which involves troubled and troublesome students in five London schools, all in challenging urban contexts. It outlines the project's approach, key features of which include: involving the students themselves as change agents; enabling them to experience learning in an active outdoor education environment; creating time and opportunities for staff to work with their students in new ways; and developing strategies which will remove some of the barriers to learning for disaffected students. The article reviews the impact of the project to date, particularly the ways in which involving pupils in a new learning environment -an outdoor education experience -can transform their views about themselves as learners. It also offers a broader analysis of the implications of developing a change strategy designed to re-engage marginalized pupils from urban schools in learning. Perspectives on disaffectionFrom a policy-maker's perspective, pupil behaviour is seen as an endemic problem: from a practitioner's perspective, it can be a major challenge. The stakes are high. According to recently published figures from the UK's Department of Education and Skills, almost 10 per cent of boys aged 13-14 were suspended in 2003, more than 200,000 pupils were given a total of 344,000 fixed term exclusions and there were 9880 permanent exclusions, an increase of 6 per cent over the previous year (Slater, 2005a).