UNRULY pupils are to be given anger management lessons in a radical new move unveiled today.Disruptive youngsters are to receive lessons in anger management to improve their behaviour – believed to be some of the first in the country to have such courses.

UNRULY pupils are to be given anger management lessons in a radical new move unveiled today.

Disruptive youngsters are to receive lessons in anger management to improve their behaviour - believed to be some of the first in the country to have such courses.

Orwell High School is undertaking the project to stop the pupils being excluded and to get them back into their normal classes in the right frame of mind for learning.

The work is aimed at its most challenging students to reduce the disruption a small minority of youngsters can cause to the education of the rest of the students.

But the new Inclusion Programme has also been developed to try to keep the disruptive students in school and ensure their education is also not interrupted by periods of exclusion from school.

Headteacher Peter Tomkins said students who were identified as having behavioural problems that put them at risk of exclusion would be referred to the new programme.

He said in a few schools anger management had been tried by bringing in outside experts, but Orwell would be the first to have it in-house as part of an ongoing programme.

One part of the project will see students withdrawn from the main curriculum and taught by behaviour support assistants in an Inclusion Room.

While following their normal curriculum, pupils will also follow programmes in behaviour modification and anger management.

They might spend one or two lessons in the Inclusion Room, or be in for the whole week. However, the aim of the scheme is to reintegrate students back into the main school.

As students are reintegrated the second part of the programme kicks in.

Behaviour support assistants who have been involved with them in the Inclusion Room will support students in their main school lessons.

The aim of the programme is to tackle the cycle some students get into where they spend a lot of time either being isolated within school or excluded.

"We believe it is important to be inclusive while also ensuring that the effective education of all students is paramount," said Mr Tomkins.

"The Inclusion Programme will begin from students' individual needs and refocus them on the school's core task of learning.

"Our mission statement is 'Learning together. Succeeding together'. And this programme will help ensure that learning is happening for all students."

Parent Stuart Long, whose son Alex, 14, is a pupil at Orwell High, welcomed the idea of anger management training.

"I think it's worth a try - there is no discipline today at school and you cannot blame the teachers because that's the rules they are tied by. In our day we had the slipper or were stood in the corner, and you knew there was punishment," he said.

"If these courses and taking them out of lessons does improve behaviour and makes them knuckle down it will be excellent."

Tim Beech regional organiser for the National Association Schoolmasters Union Women Teachers (NASUWT) supported the move.

He said: "We welcome an attempt at improving pupil behaviour. It has been a major concern of members. There has been an increase on assaults and low level disruption in the classroom such as refusing to follow instructions and general disobedience. It should not be tolerated."

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