Northfield School and Sports College
“Truancy levels dropped dramatically”
Northfield School and Sports College wanted to move away from isolation booths and exclusions towards a more restorative approach to behaviour.
By introducing Thrive, staff have been able to better understand the needs behind students’ behaviour, build stronger relationships and help young people feel safer, more understood and more able to access learning.
The Context
Northfield School and Sports College is a large secondary school in Stockton-on-Tees, with a specialist provision for visually impaired pupils.
- Location: Teesside
- Pupils: 1,541 (ages 11–16)
- FSM: 29.2%
- Thrive introduced: 2021
- Licensed Practitioners: 1
Why Thrive?
The school had been using isolation booths and exclusions, but leaders could see that this approach was not creating lasting change.
When staff spoke to students about their behaviour, there was always a reason behind it. The team wanted to move away from sanctions and towards something more restorative, helping students repair relationships with staff so they felt more comfortable in school and better able to access lessons.
Thrive gave Northfield a structured, research-backed way to listen to students, attune to their needs and understand what might be driving behaviour. It also helped make pastoral work measurable, giving staff greater confidence that their support was having an impact and providing useful evidence for Ofsted.
MOVING AWAY FROM SANCTIONS
How Thrive was implemented
Thrive was used to bring together the school’s pastoral work and create a more relational approach to supporting students.
- Staff began looking beyond the behaviour itself to understand what might be happening underneath.
- The Approach helped staff repair ruptures in relationships and support students back into learning.
- The neuroscience behind Thrive helped students understand their emotions and responses in simple, accessible terms, making them feel less alone and more able to reflect calmly on difficult situations.
- Thrive also gave the school a way to make pastoral support more measurable and evidence its impact.
Thrive has really helped us to pull everything together, to listen to our students and attune to their needs in a structured way that is underpinned by science and research.
Samantha Strange
Personalised Learning Centre Manager, Northfield School and Sports College
FROM TRUANCY TO CONNECTION
Students seeking support
The biggest change Northfield has seen is a dramatic drop in truancy.
Students who used to leave the school site or spend much of the day hiding in toilets are now seeking out Thrive Practitioners to talk about what is going wrong. This gives staff a starting point for reparative work.
Instead of seeing only fight, flight or avoidance, staff can begin to build bridges, understand what is happening and support students back into learning.
Helping students understand themselves
For Samantha Strange, Personalised Learning Centre Manager at Northfield School and Sports College, the neuroscience behind Thrive was especially powerful.
It helped her understand her own responses and build more empathy for students. She began thinking about how overwhelming situations can feel for young people and found that explaining the neuroscience in simple terms helped students understand their own emotions.
One Year 10 student, who was often dysregulated, began to understand why she reacted in certain ways. When staff talked this through with her, the physical signs of dysregulation started to ease. Her breathing became more regular, she was able to calm down and she could begin to reflect on what had happened.
Samantha says students find this understanding empowering, because they begin to realise they are not different from everyone else and that their responses make sense.
celebrating progress
Helping students feel safe enough
to learn
Thrive has helped staff support students who had previously been very difficult to reach.
One student had become very withdrawn and found it hard to open up. Staff realised they had been trying to reach her at a cognitive level when she first needed to feel safe.
Through Thrive activities focused on safety and connection, she progressed from being unable to look at an adult to sitting down and talking through what was wrong. She had previously attended hardly any lessons. She is now attending all but one.
For Samantha, these steps matter. Sometimes progress is about celebrating the fact that a student is in school at all. One student had not attended for 18 months two years earlier, but was back in school.
TRAINING THAT CHANGES PRACTICE
Personal and professional impact
For Samantha, Thrive Licensed Practitioner training had a powerful impact both professionally and personally.
Learning about the Thrive Approach changed how she responds to students and how she understands her own reactions. It also reinforced the importance of relationships when someone is overwhelmed.
Shortly after starting the course, Samantha became unwell with Covid and worried she had fallen behind. Support from her trainer and fellow delegates helped her feel calmer and able to continue. That experience shaped how she now talks to students when they are struggling.
Thrive training exceeded my expectations and it has brought me huge benefits professionally and personally. It’s been an amazing journey that has completely transformed me.
Samantha Strange
Personalised Learning Centre Manager, Northfield School and Sports College
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