WHEN she was 13 years old, Andrea (not her real name) suffered abuse by her mother’s partner and other family members. It changed her personality overnight.

“I was a bright student. I was going places and would probably have got straight As. But then something changed. My mind set was totally different. After one half term break, I went back to school a completely different girl.”

Andrea, now 25 and from Southampton, said her experiences at home changed her into an extremely disruptive pupil.

“You hate the world don’t you? Hate everything that’s around you. I think I just wanted to vent and take it out on everybody.”

Andrea’s teachers bore the brunt.

“There was a lot of abuse towards the teachers,” she said. “A lot of not listening. I caused massive disruption in class. I got detentions and exclusions.”

Looking back as an adult, Andrea says there seems to have been little effort by teachers to understand why she had changed personality.

“The teachers weren’t actually acknowledging that I needed help. As a child, you want protecting and that wasn’t happening in my case. No one asked why a child could just change from being a happy go lucky girl to an abusive mess. Why is that happening?

"I think if someone had actually taken the trouble to sit down and talk to me sooner, it could have been very different.”

Fixers, the charity that gives young people a campaigning voice, has helped Andrea make a film loosely based on her own experiences.

She hopes it will encourage children to speak out if there’s something bad going on at home, but the main target is teachers.

She explains: “The main message to teachers is to listen. If bad behaviour needs a detention or whatever then fair enough. But at the same time talk to them. Find out why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

Eventually, Andrea told the truth to her school's deputy head teacher. She was in Year 10, and had been disruptive for several years. She recalls him being the only adult she felt she could trust.

"I had no-one in my family or friendship group who I could trust," she says.

"But this teacher never turned his back on me. No matter what I did he always tried something else. Every time I kicked off in school he would always try and see a different alternative to punishing me.

"One day I remember sitting in his office. I had just tried to set fire to the school. He wanted to know what was going on. I lied at first but then I told him what was going on at home. I suppose I told him because I knew I could trust him."

After she disclosed the abuse to the teacher the police and social services were called. Her mother refused to have her back at home, so Andrea was placed in emergency care.

“People need to ask why a student who was okay is suddenly so different,” says Andrea, who now lives with her partner and is expecting her first child.

“Ask them – are you okay? Sometimes that’s all they need.”

Fixers works with young people aged 16-25 across the UK by providing them with professional resources to help them campaign on issues they feel strongly about.

The charity has helped more than 21,000 youngsters across the UK to have a voice in their community on issues such as cyber-bullying, self-harm, suicide or transphobia.

The project was supported by the Blagrave Trust.