Park House in Grimsby teaches some of the area’s most disruptive students. It’s known as the “naughty school” because the majority of its 63 pupils have either been permanently excluded or were at risk of suspension previously. But, as the BBC discovered, it’s turning many of those lives around.
Two of Angela’s students are Summer and Destiny. Summer was permanently excluded from school for bad behaviour and fighting, while the final straw for Destiny was when she set off a school fire alarm. “When there are loads of people and only one teacher in a mainstream school, you don’t get the help you need,” says Summer, 14, who is aiming for a career in hairdressing.
On a nearby cooking hob, Brogan is making a chicken curry. He wants to join the Army and is now looking forward to taking his GCSEs. “I was just getting excluded and that’s how I’ve come here. I was fighting too much, and in class I was having flip-outs,” he says. “It’s a big change for me. I just want to do my work when I’m in class now.”
The school has a gym, a newly renovated outdoor area, a workshop and hair salon to offer hands-on training and inspire careers. While days can be challenging with issues of bad behaviour and, at times, a battle to keep some children in lessons, school leaders put their success down to developing caring and effective relationships with students based around social, emotional and mental health support.
Head of centre John Mansfield says the school is proud of its success rate. Nineteen-year-old Ellie Newport is one of those success stories, now running her own dog grooming business alongside a second job. After a number of suspensions during her school years, she says she owes everything to the academy.
These schools definitely save a lot of kids.
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