Alex Wilson is head at Heath School 

A RADICALLY revamped curriculum and approach to teaching excluded children has led to a school being ranked as one of the best in the country.

Sessions ranging from making food, using public transport, making podcasts, to vocational courses and lessons in the performing arts along with “cultural experiences” around the capital are among a raft of changes brought in at Heath School in Gospel Oak.

The pupil referral unit (PRU) in Agincourt Road, which was put under new management in 2022, has been rated by Ofsted as “outstanding” in three out of five key categories.

It is part of a “new narrative” at the school that is aiming to quell the rising number of exclusions in Camden and is turning heads among education experts across the country.

Heath School head Alex Wilson told the New Journal said: “We had a reset. We brought in uniforms.

“We changed the leadership. We brought in curriculum. We brought in a behaviour policy.

“You struggle to find a PRU would have anything like that as a report. Certainly London-wide, and also across the country.

“It’s really about developing an offer that attracts the students and actually makes them want to come to school.

“Most of them at the school have been somewhere they have failed, and were told was not for them. We are giving them something to succeed in.

“For many, our school is the first place they felt success, the first place they felt loved. They had never been in a school where you feel valued.

“But that will come to an end at some point and they will have to leave us. The transition can be daunting.”

Mr Wilson said that daily food lessons had been popular and were helping students “develop as young people, regulate and learn how to be kind to each other”, adding work experience projects were linked to the classes and there was a plan to set up a café and restaurant in the school too.

A DJ is working with a track with students and staff from the Roundhouse come in to do drama sessions.

The school also provides more standard vocational courses, for example in construction, hair and beauty, sports and performing arts.

All of the students got maths, English and vocational qualifications required “to progress to their desired post-16 destination”, Ofsted said.

A key part of the “reset” is the use of “active learning” where groups of students go out on supervised trips to develop skills.

“They have climbed the O2 Centre, been up over the Tottenham stadium, to museums – it’s about building up their cultural capital,” said Mr Wilson.

“They are assessed on their ability to engage through the day in a number of experiences. This includes taking public transport.

“A lot of them haven’t been outside of Camden. And when they leave us that’s a real barrier.

“If they haven’t learned how to manage on public transport. If they haven’t learned how not to blow up in certain situations, then we have not set them up to succeed.”

The school sends staff into Camden secondary schools to work with students at risk of being excluded, in a bid to buck the “national trend of increasing exclusions”.

The New Journal has reported on the shocking rises in exclusions numbers over the past decade – back in 2019 there were 700 pupils excluded from Camden schools.

Mr Wilson said: “Exclusions are continuing to increase and that puts a real strain on us.

“These young people are extremely complex. If you keep adding new characters, it becomes difficult.

“The bigger question, is why are more students unable to stay in the mainstream setting?

“Why are more and more people being excluded from normal society? I think that possibly there aren’t enough resources in the mainstream schools to provide the type of provision that we do.

“The reasons why they are behaving the way they are, it’s down to a lack of resources, a lack of time for that cohort.”

The Ofsted report said the school’s students showed “outstanding behaviour and attitudes” and praised the new management for the “expansion of the curriculum” and the “wide ranging experiences that enriches cultural capital” of the active learning programme.