Scarborough Pupil referral service

Scarborough Pupil Referral Service

Elaine Mallen is a woman with a mission, and not only that but with the vision to see how the mission is to be accomplished. Her teaching career started in a large comprehensive school, where it soon became apparent that the ethos was to regard disruptive children as a nuisance, and to contain them, rather than to address their problems.

Elaine found herself in such a class in her very first day teaching, and as a result she developed strategies which would encourage and reward such children, rather than shout at them. After four years she moved to other schools, including Brompton Hall School for a period, where the whole school approach chimed with her way of dealing with disruptive children, which was so refreshing’

The pupil referral unit in Scarborough (the PRU) at this time was failing. Elaine applied for the post of Head-teacher and was appointed about three years ago with the task of turning the PRU round to support children who had been permanently excluded from mainstream schools. She emphasised that these children were, in the main, not bad children but children who had been abandoned and ill-treated. The regime of strong support and well defined boundaries meant that children began to feel valued, and could then make significant progress both academically and socially to ‘catch up’.

The premises in which the Unit works is far from perfect, but the dedicated teaching team and strong support from parents has overcome these difficulties.

Parents suddenly found themselves being invited to come and see how well their child was progressing rather than being summoned to hear that their child was behaving badly. The recent OFSTED report was very complimentary about the leadership and concluded ‘Teachers are passionate about their jobs, the school and the pupils’.