Our son came in at the beginning of year 6 as a troubled boy with very challenging behaviour and had reached the end of the line with his local primary school. We wanted a school that could meet his academic needs as a bright child but also be able to help him develop emotionally and manage his behaviour to reintegrate with mainstream schooling when he was ready. He is now a mature young man about to embark on A levels with 2 GCSEs under his belt and he's still only 14 years old.
He is training to be a gymnastics coach after having won regional medals in sports acrobatics and has competed in athletics for North Yorkshire schools in Pole Vault, breaking the N Yorks schools championship record for his age and being one of only 7 athletes selected from the district to go to the national athletics championships. The school approach to embrace and praise the good they see in all the boys and deal sensitively with the unacceptable behaviour is so refreshing. As a parent we get reports outlining strengths to encourage rather than continually being waited for at the school gate to be talked through a catalogue of misdemeanours.
Without Breckenbrough, my son could have been a delinquent truant underachieving and alienated, now he is achieving his academic goals and able to exercise self control to enable him to integrate into sporting activities as well as make friends with local young people in the youth club which the school encourages.
The opportunities to develop leadership skills through the marvellous outdoor education programme provide an excellent foundation to enable pupils to be sensitive to the needs of others and work together as a team to succeed and meet challenging goals. Effort and attitude is praised as well as actual physical achievement. The system of merits gives rewards for good behaviour towards personal targets and the system of consequences for bad behaviour means that pupils are led to an understanding of how what they do impacts on others.
In summary, Breckenbrough is an excellent and unique school and I would thoroughly recommend it to any parent with a child you know has academic potential but needs a caring supportive atmosphere to succeed.
P.A.
