Sutton Coldfield MP Andrew Mitchell officially opened an innovative new ‘intervention hub’ at Fairfax Academy, which was funded by a grant from Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust (SCCT).
Andrew Mitchell MP, Inge Kettner, Vice-Chair of SCCT, and Fairfax Principal Sean Castle outside the new Intervention Hub.
The groundbreaking hub, which was built over the summer with funding of more than £35,000 from SCCT, provides a place for students to spend time, where they receive intensive mentoring and coaching following incidents of poor behaviour.
Staffed by a Behaviour Lead and a Mental Health lead, the new building is in a sectioned-off, landscaped area near Fairfax’s sports hall.
Mr Mitchell, who was joined by Inge Kettner, Vice-Chair of SCCT, Fairfax Principal Sean Castle and Karen Bloor, of Fairfax Multi-Academy Trust, unveiled a plaque to officially open the Hub on Friday, November 24.
He said: “It was a great pleasure to see how this Hub is making a difference to students’ lives and is clearly enabling an innovative approach to helping students who display behavioural issues.
“Sutton Coldfield is lucky to be blessed with very good and forward-thinking schools, and this brilliant idea at Fairfax is a great example of that innovative outlook.
“It’s also a great example of how the Royal Town’s oldest charity – Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust – continues to support very important schemes with vital funding.”
Inge Kettner said: “Anything that helps keeps children in school and gives them the opportunity to make a success of their lives has to be a good thing, so we were very happy to support this project.
“We work with other organisations that deal with children who are often outside of the school system through exclusion, and we know from their results that it is so much harder to turn their lives around – so early intervention like this can be vital.
“Supporting education is one of our primary eight aims at the Trust and it was great to see how pupils are already benefitting from this grant.”
Fairfax Principal Sean Castle said: “We are very grateful to Andrew Mitchell for coming along and opening our Hub today, and finding out more about how it is contributing to transforming the culture of the school.
“Last year we launched our Behavioural Curriculum, which is about teaching our students social norms and helping them understand how to behave in certain situations, covering everything from how we walk through corridors to taking pride in our appearance and treating each other with respect.
“The Hub is a very important part of the journey we are on as a school, in terms of behaviour. Like all schools, when students are involved in an incident of poor behaviour, we have a specific tailored programme for them to follow, which aims to refocus them so they can get back into the classroom relatively quickly.
“However, the Hub provides a place where some students can benefit from a longer, more intensive time period out of lessons, to have mentoring and coaching around that particular behaviour.
“For example, for some students being in the Hub is a much more productive form of suspension, as they will come into the Hub and still get their lessons, while being mentored and supported,” he added.
