SummaryThe project was set up to test if Home‐Based Reinforcement (H‐BR) can be effectively employed to modify inappropriate behaviours, to improve attendance, to increase the amount of work completed, and to improve the motivation of the targeted children in two bottom stream 3rd year classes. The decision as to which classes should be targeted mas jointly arrived at by the five teachers who agreed to be involved. A few children from each class who were not seen as a problem’ were not included. The total sample thus consisted of 24 children, 10 from Class C and 14 from Class D. Preliminary statistical analysis, visual inspection of the data, and verbal responses from all those who participated would suggest that this intervention strategy has helped to improve the targeted children's behaviour, motivation, academic performance and attendance. More importantly, all the teachers are unanimous in their view that had this intervention programme not been instituted, there certainly would have been deterioration in all these aspects of their school behaviour. The discussions with the staff, children and their parents further indicate that they have found the programme useful and easy to implement. Finally, a unique feature of this project is that this would appear to be the only study which has been carried out in the UK which has attempted to assess the effectiveness of H‐BR.