Behaviour improving at Northampton school after 'school bank' scheme launched

Cambian Northampton School, in Queens Park Parade Kingsthorpe, was rated by the education watchdog in 2017 as 'Requires Improvement' but an additional report, published this month, noted progress has been made.

The school is based in a detached house, which is run as an independent day school. It admits pupils between 11 and 18 years old who have a range of behavioural, emotional and mental health difficulties.

In 2018 all pupils leaving the school achieved GCSE passes in English, mathematics, biology and spoken English - the best results to date. Some pupils also achieved GCSE passes in physics.

Baseline assessments are now made by the headteacher when each student starts at the school, in order to measure their progress.

"Inspection evidence and a scrutiny of pupils’ workbooks suggests that the majority of current pupils are making good progress," Ofsted inspector Peter Stonier says in his report.

"This is particularly the case in English. The headteacher and staff now have a very clear understanding of the progress pupils are capable of.

"Teachers have provided pupils with more appropriate challenge and the progress pupils have made has improved."

A previous interim assessment took place in October 2017, which found that staff did not implement the school’s behaviour policy well.

But over the last 18 months this has changed.

Now the headteacher has implemented a new rewards and sanctions system where points can be converted into money that can be deposited into the school bank.

This can then be exchanged for a visit to a café or shop.

Pupils are issued with a weekly pay slip that shows how much they have earned that week and if anything has been deducted through any poor behaviour.

Mr Stonier added: "Pupils told the inspector that this behaviour system is working well and it encourages pupils to behave, accept challenges and have a positive attitude to school."