Ilford: The school where teachers never shout at children

But do teachers have the resources and support to tackle a child’s behaviour if they are persistently disruptive to lessons, or if there is a danger to other children and staff?

“I had a child who brought a knife to school,” says Dr Atwal.

“In some schools, that would mean an instant exclusion.”

Instead, he says: “We took the time and met with parents, and sat with the child, to try and understand what the reason was for bringing in a knife.”

He says he discovered the boy, who was in Year 6 at the time, had recently started walking to school without his parents.

The boy had read an article about someone attacking a woman in the park and had brought the knife “for protection”.

Dr Atwal says: “My job was to say, by carrying that knife, you could lead to harm to yourself.

“But if he had just been excluded, how would that support him to change that behaviour?”