School transforms behaviour with compassionate approach

The head of a secondary school featured in a BBC documentary said adopting a "compassionate" approach transformed staff relationships with pupils.

Beacon Hill Academy in Sedgley, Dudley, previously cut exclusions from 400 a year to "single figures" after implementing new behaviour strategies.

But headteacher Sukhjot Dhami said the pandemic had a "significant" impact on learners' social and emotional health, which created further challenges.

BBC Two's Helping Our Teens introduced behaviour expert Marie Gentles to the school to help reduce undesirable behaviour.

Programme makers followed pupils' return to school after Covid, probing concerns over rising child mental health issues and declining behaviour standards.

"I underestimated the impact of the pandemic," said Mr Dhami.

"Since we’ve been back we’ve seen a significant shift in the number of learners that have now got social emotional and mental health issues."

He said exclusions had fallen dramatically in the four years since he took over through "high expectations" and "the amazing work of staff, but some students still struggled with strict behaviour policies.

"That number is now down to single figures but what we did need to do at the time was to rebalance behaviour," he added. "But there are other challenges and those are the challenges you see in this documentary."

Behaviour expert Marie Gentles worked with staff, parents and children to introduce a an approach that supported individual need.

"It’s not about allowing young people to get away with behaviour or... they never have a consequence," Ms Gentles, a former headteacher, said.

"It’s about understanding why the behaviour has occurred and what the needs are that have manifested into this undesirable behaviour," she added.

Jayliyah, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) was at risk of exclusion and had already been asked to leave two other secondaries when she started working Ms Gentles.

"She helped me just calm down and just listen. She listened to me, which I really liked because at the time teachers didn’t... they just saw angry girl," said Jayliyah.

Mr Dhami added the key was developing relationships with the school's 1,000 learners.

"There was a time when Jay and I couldn’t necessarily be in the same room together," said Mr Dhami.

"There is an element of patience but it’s also about understanding the individual learner and working with Marie we’ve really been able to develop that further."

The documentary can be seen on BBC Two at 21:00 BST and on the BBC iPlayer.