Gold star for the head who got results by excluding 300 pupils

A HEADMASTER who suspended 300 unruly pupils in his first week in charge received a glowing report from school inspectors today.

Paul Grant believed parents and children needed to "taste" change if the appalling behaviour he inherited at Robert Clack school was to improve.

Ofsted praised the 1,800-pupil comprehensive in Dagenham - along with four others in London - for "defying" the link between poor results and deprivation.

Mr Grant spent his first six months in the job disciplining pupils, touring lessons and meeting parents. At one point he drove the school minibus around Dagenham looking for truants.

On his first day, he suspended 100 pupils for poor behaviour, a figure which rose to 300 after a week.

Mr Grant said he took a "radical" approach because he wanted people to "get angry" about the poor behaviour that was blighting children's and teachers' lives.

"We would have foul-mouthed abuse of teachers, deliberate disruption of lessons, children refusing to go to lessons, and a significant number smoking openly," he said.

"The school had a serious fire started by pupils and there was a significant gang culture. Consequently we had a lot of frightened children.

"I believed that if I could lay down a marker for every single child, soon it would not be 300 going home, it would be the hard core ringleaders who are always at the heart of this type of poor behaviour.

"It was a matter of weeks before the feeling came through that the children could take pride in themselves - and the school. They understood that bad behaviour would no longer be tolerated." Mr Grant also offered children £100 in cash for turning up to every lesson and re-instated formal assemblies.

During the following 10 years the school was transformed. Ofsted has just given it a second "outstanding" rating in a row.

In a report, Excelling Against The Odds, Ofsted praised the clear commitment of headteachers to sorting out poor discipline as crucial to raising academic standards.

The study said: "When Paul Grant took over as head-teacher, behaviour was appalling. In his own words, he began by 'stirring up the hornets' nest', doing 300 fixed-term exclusions in the first week. He made a point of seeing the parents of every excluded child, sometimes at 06.00 or 23.00.

"In many cases, parents were initially aggressive and abusive." But through his efforts to get to know all pupils and staff well, Mr Grant keeps them "on their toes".

Inspectors praised 12 state secondary schools across England as "outstanding" despite serving some of the poorest communities.

The four other London comprehensives identified in the report were Seven Kings in Redbridge, Lampton in Hounslow, Morpeth in Tower Hamlets and Plashet School, Newham. At Lampton, head Sue John quickly identified teachers who would not contribute to raising standards when she took over. Many quit as a result. But young, talented staff were quickly promoted and a once unpopular school with poor results is now judged "outstanding".

Teachers at Morpeth are confronted with the school's one-page plan for the year at regular intervals - it is pinned on the back of lavatory doors.

Discipline has been so good at Seven Kings that ministers recruited headteacher, Sir Alan Steer, to become a behaviour czar.

Bushra Nasir, head of Plashet School, inspires her diverse mix of pupils by telling them she is just "a local girl made good".