A secondary school has suspended more than 200 pupils in around three weeks following the introduction of new measures to improve behaviour.
Saint Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic Academy in Whiston, near Liverpool, put the disciplinary procedures in place after it was told it "requires improvement" by education watchdog Ofsted following an inspection last year.
Within the first week of the measures being introduced, it is understood that 99 suspensions were handed out, followed by 67 in week two and 36 in week three.
Acting headteacher Clare McKenna said the "vast majority" of pupils had "embraced" the changes and put the hike in suspensions down to pupils "testing boundaries".
"Inevitably, there are also some students who have pushed back and are testing the new boundaries of what is expected of them," McKenna told the Liverpool Echo.
"This has led to a spike in the number of sanctions that have been given – but, just two weeks in, we are already seeing a significant drop (of about two-thirds) in things like short-term exclusions. We expect this trajectory to continue."
The acting headteacher went on to acknowledge there had been "some push back" from parents.
One dad, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Echo that he felt the measures were "extreme" and claimed some pupils are "anxious and worried about going to school".
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
The entrance to Saint Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic Academy in Merseyside
The school has made other changes in recent times including to its leadership team.
Headteacher Lee Peachey and deputy head Anna Kenny disappeared from their roles last year and are still off-duty despite being listed on the school's website, the Echo reports, leaving McKenna in the role of acting head.
The school was previously known as Saint Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School, which received a damning inspection report by Ofsted in 2019 who ranked it "inadequate".
It then joined the Pope Francis Catholic Multi Academy Trust and opened as an academy school in May 2021.
PA
|The new measures have received some backlash from parents
Upon its first inspection in April, 2024, Ofsted found it had shown improvements in some areas including by addressing a "legacy of weakness in the curriculum".
The watchdog, however, concluded it needed to improve across all inspection areas - including the behaviour of pupils.
"Pupils’ behaviour during breaktimes and when moving between lessons is generally calm," the report said.
"However, there remain a small minority of pupils who misbehave in lessons and do not follow the school’s behaviour policy.
"Pupils told inspectors that their learning is disrupted in some of their lessons."