Exemplary Central Bedfordshire school will support schools with challenging behaviour, in new government initiative
Tuesday, 20 April 2021
Oak Bank School, an Outstanding special school in Leighton Buzzard, is one of the first 22 schools nationally to be selected to lead the Department for Education’s new behaviour hubs project.
The school, which caters for pupils who have social, emotional and mental health difficulties, including associated challenging behaviours, will work with other schools to help them improve their behaviour culture.
The behaviour hubs project aims to support 500 schools across the country that struggle with poor discipline over the next three years, and will begin at the start of the summer term.
As a lead school, Oak Bank has been identified as having exemplary behaviour, and will partner with other schools to identify how and where they want to improve, diagnose specific issues and develop new approaches to address poor behaviour. This might include bespoke training, one-to-one advice and ongoing mentoring.
Oak Bank is an outstanding-rated school and was credited for having a highly effective system in place to manage behaviour in its most recent Ofsted report, where staff were credited for applying the rules and expectations consistently.
Peter Cohen, Executive Head at Oak Bank, said:
We are thrilled to be one of the first schools involved in this initiative, and are looking forward to working with other schools to offer our support and expertise. I have a fantastic team at Oak Bank, and our involvement in the scheme is testament to their hard work and the culture they have established here.
Councillor Sue Clark, our Executive Member for Families, Education & Children, said:
I am delighted that Oak Bank has been chosen as a lead school for this project. It reflects the excellent behaviour management work the exceptional school team carries out under Peter Cohen's leadership. I am really pleased that their work is being recognised and that they will be able to share good practice to support other schools.