Sheffield Inclusion Centre: School for city's excluded children is now the best it's ever been

And, sadly, Sheffield has also historically not had the best provision to help those children have a second chance.

Since Sheffield’s Inclusion Centre – a school for the city’s children who have been kicked out or aren’t welcome in any others – has never risen into Ofsted’s ‘Good’ graces.

It was rated ‘Inadequate’ in its first ever inspection in 2013, and despite efforts to improve, only earned ‘Requires Improvement’ in the decade since.

It’s sad, then, when in 2019 Government figures showed Sheffield had a permanent exclusion rate 65 per cent higher than the national average.

It paints a picture of children – often with a history of abuse, troubled home lives complex behavioural problems – facing weak hopes of a second chance.

But now, Sheffield’s Inclusion Centre is on the up – and so are the prospects of its students.

A new report says the school – which this year has 165 children on its roll – is the strongest its ever been.

GCSE passes in all three core subjects of English, Maths and Science up from four per in 2019 to 65 per cent in 2022.

In almost every area – from pupil achievement to attendance to emotional support – inspectors praised Sheffield Inclusion Centre for working to shake off its previous lacklustre ratings.

The latest report, published September 21, addresses the centre’s headteacher Tuesday Rhodes, who was appointed in late 2019.

"It is clear that pupils are beginning to respond positively to the richer and more ambitious subject curriculum,” the report reads.

"You and your colleagues are tireless in trying to bring about improvements to cases of entrenched, stubborn habits of poor attendance.

"Pupils are rising to staffs’ expectations of what they can achieve. For instance, we saw pupils eager to learn about electronic circuit boards, about the workings of the heart and about how to structure a story with interesting language and grammatical devices.”

The inspection on July 5 does not yet affect the centre’s overall grade of Requires Improvement – that will come in a full inspection at a future date.

Ms Rhodes told The Star: “It’s great to have had this letter from inspectors as we work towards a Good or Outstanding rating from Ofsted and getting our pupils ready for the next stage in their lives.”

The headteacher claims efforts to open hairdressing and food tech rooms have meant students are leaving with better qualifications and exams results than ever.

Other actions have included breaking up the centre into 10 ‘bases’ to help different groups of their children.

"The biggest challenge when I arrived was we had all these children from different backgrounds – domestically abused, criminally exploited, SEND pupils – under one roof,” said Ms Rhodes.

"We decided to split them up among the 10 bases and really tried to develop the relationships between students and parents or carers.

"I think parents were so used to getting calls home and expecting ‘what have they done this time’. We began calling home to say how well someone had done and try to build these relationships up again.”

Sheffield Inclusion Centre will likely receive a full inspection in the next year.