It is 9am and the Right Rev Peter Hullah, Church of England bishop and principal of Northampton Academy, has just come from the school gates, where he has been welcoming pupils at the start of the day. The academy, which opened in January 2006, replaced and merged the population of two failing schools in the UK east Midlands town.

“We have had to tackle lateness. But today we actually saw people running to get to school,” says Mr Hullah. “I thought: ‘Crikey!’ But that didn’t happen just with a pronouncement – we had to work with families, demonstrate rewards and punishments.”