‘It’s about developing relationships with pupils’: the school working to reduce suspensions

With post-Covid behaviour issues set to peak this year, one headteacher is trying to reduce impact on learning

• ‘Bubble’ of post-pandemic bad behaviour among school children predicted to peak
• Fifty English secondary schools suspended more than a quarter of pupils after pandemic

Morpeth in Bethnal Green, east London, is an “outstanding” school that has been developing new ways to try to reduce suspensions and deescalate the kind of behaviour issues increasingly affecting schools across England since Covid.

Even before the disruption of the pandemic, headteacher Jemima Reilly was concerned about the number of pupils losing learning due to suspensions and exclusions. The school began working with an organisation called The Difference, which works to promote inclusion and improve outcomes for the most vulnerable pupils.

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