Angela Keane is a BACP-accredited counsellor and psychotherapist who works with adults and adolescents. She has been involved in state secondary schools as a governor, counsellor, parent and pupil. Earlier in her career she was a lecturer in English Literature at a number of universities.

Foundations Introduction: adolescence in the state school story 1. Stories of development and change: theories and practice in schools Part 1: Rebuilding 2. The ordinary devoted teacher and the secondary modern in the 1950s3. The natural child: the Newsom Report and progressive ideals in the 1960s Part 2: Backlash 4. Comps and delinquents: declining school standards in the 1970s5. 'There's No Such Thing as Society': dysfunctional families and the 1980s' comprehensive6. Stress in the system: opting out and aspiring up in the 1990s Part 3: Fragmentation 7. 'Every Child Matters': the 2000s' school as a holding and shaming environment8. Splits and mergers: the academy stories of the 2010s 9. Individuation, trauma and identity: stories of resistance and school utopias Afterword: The COVID reset that didn't begin