Alongside Lighthouse Schools Partnership, we have started our journey towards being accredited as a nurturing school, through Nurture UK.

What is Nurture? 

Nurture as a practice means relating to and coaching pupils to help them form positive relationships, build resilience and improve their social, emotional and mental health and wellbeing. When used in school, nurture improves attendance, behaviour and attainment, and ensures every child is able to learn.

The nurturing approach to education offers a range of opportunities for children and young people to engage with missing early nurturing experiences, giving them the social and emotional skills to do well at school and with peers, and to develop their resilience and self-confidence. It encourages pupils to take pride in achieving - addressing the social and emotional needs that can hamper learning.

Whole school approach to Nurture

The nurturing approach to learning makes most impact when it’s not just an intervention, but reaches everyone in a setting. It’s an evidence-based approach which has been shown to improve attendance, behaviour and attainment ensuring every child is able to learn and meet their full potential.

By being a nurturing school, through the National Nurturing Schools Programme, our team can help pupils to develop the social skills they need to thrive, the confidence and resilience to deal with whatever life throws at them - at school and for the rest of their lives.

The Six Principles of Nurture 

There are Six Principles of Nurture that are embedded into our school ethos and which inform our school policy and practice. 

1. Children's learning is understood developmentally

The key theme of this principle is that everyone learns at a different pace and in a different way.  Assessing children’s progress by their chronological age can be problematic when there are a variety of factors which impact on developmental trajectory. All children are individuals, and their unique journeys need to be recognised and respected.

Social, emotional and behavioural development tools such as screening all our pupils with the Boxall Profile®, help staff to assess and track a child’s needs and put strategies in place to support positive development.

2. The classroom offers a safe base

" At their best, schools can function as islands of safety in a chaotic world!" Bessel Van Der Kolk

As a whole school we ensure that our classrooms offer a safe place to learn, offering signals of safety to all of them. All classrooms offer a balance of educational and social, emotional and mental health experiences aimed at supporting the development of children’s relationships with each other and with staff. 

We aim to do this through:

• Starting each day with a welcoming routine - "meet and greets" 
• Look for opportunities to be playful and humourous
• Convey curiosity and empathy -" I can see that you are finding this difficult"
• Regularly refer to visual timetables
• Clearly labelled shelves, drawers to support independence
• Visual checklists to support cognitive overload on working walls
• Calming "toolkits" to support with regulation
• Throughout the day, we refer to and use the Zones of regulation to support managing feelings

3. The importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing

This is about creating a positive ethos which promotes social and emotional development and ensures that children’s individual strengths and talents are recognised and promoted. Wellbeing is reflected in all aspects of school life. Nurture and wellbeing are far more powerful when they are absorbed through various relationships, subjects, routines, and contexts. As a whole school approach our ethos ensures provision and strategies are in place that promote the welfare and wellbeing of our staff as well as pupil welfare and wellbeing.

4. Language is a vital means of communication

Communication is more than just language. 

It is important for pupils to be able to understand and express their thoughts and feelings. Equally, it is also crucial for adults to understand the importance of their own language towards pupils and how this can impact them. Children often ‘act out’ their feelings as they lack the vocabulary to name how they feel.

As a school, we use the Zones of Regulation to help both children and adults to be able to name feelings. These are taught regularly and are part of our school's daily routines.  We have learnt about them in whole school worship as well as part of our Personal, Social and Health Education (PHSE) curriculum. We have shared with our pupils that the green zone is the most conducive for learning. However, we have shared that it is ok to have feelings in all the zones. The Zones of regulation charts are in every classroom and we encourage our pupils and staff to regularly throughout the day put their name against the colour they are feeling.

All of the adults in our school use nurturing language to build and maintain nurturing relationships with our pupils. We adapt our language to aim to make it as inclusive as possible, adapting it to support a variety of communication needs. They use language which is affirming, validating and empathetic. 

5. All behaviour is communication 

This principle promotes the importance of not only aiming to understand a pupil's needs but also adapting our own response and the environment. Not all pupils' behaviour is purposeful or intentional. 

As a school we aim to look beneath the surface of the "behaviours" being communicated and seek to understand factors which may explain it e.g hunger, feeling unsafe, stress, tiredness, lack of self -worth, trauma, masking or not trusting an adult or the situation. 

" Visible consistency with visible kindness allows exceptional behaviour to flourish" Paul Dix 

Our behaviour policy is a relational one that takes into account the need for flexible consistency instead of zero tolerance. Our ethos ensures that we are visibly consistent with visible kindness. Routines are essential but fundamentally, an emphasis on relationships and restorative practices is key. We do this through: warm meet and greets on the playground and in all classrooms; showing an interest in pupils' interests; helping our pupils to know that we keep them in mind; staying calm; accepting pupils and modelling repair.

We have visible consistencies through:

• maintaining clear structure and expectations
• offering choice 
• noticing effort rather than outcome
• recognise successes
• offering safe spaces

6. The importance of transitions in children's lives 

Children experience many transitions throughout their lives, and on a daily basis; transitions from home to school, between classes and teachers, from breaktime to lessons, or moving from primary to secondary school. Changes in routine are invariably difficult for vulnerable children and young people, and Churchill Primary helps our pupils  to transition with carefully managed preparation and support.

We aim to add structure in the form of consistent routines and classroom learning environments and reduce uncertainty throughout the school day. 

We do this through: 

• Meet and greets with key adults on the playground and in classrooms
• Maintaining predictable routines 
• Visual timetables 
• Opportunities for regulating activities
• Transitional keeping in mind objects
• Communications with parents 
• The end of unstructured times is managed carefully and communicated to pupils in advance to support with processing 

We focus on positive endings and beginnings through

• Keeping in mind objects from the new teacher ahead of the summer holidays
• Additional transitional meetings with the new teacher in term 6
• Additional visits and tours of unfamiliar classrooms 
• A proactive approach from staff ahead of transition periods