Woodfield Academy Nurture Group

The Nurture Group at Woodfield is a small group of pupils, its’ composition is carefully thought-out to create a balanced and functional group.

The Nurture Group is a short-term provision for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties which are creating a barrier to learning within the class.

The Nurture Group assess learning and social and emotional needs and gives help that is needed to remove the barriers to learning.

As the pupils learn socially, they develop confidence, become responsive to others, learn self-respect and take pride in behaving well and in achieving.

We select pupils by canvasing the staff team and asking them to consider pupils who may benefit from Nurture provision. Staff are informed that pupils that may benefit from Nurture usually are unable to regulate their responses to stress and anxiety and get easily frustrated. We also tell staff that pupils who may benefit sometimes find it difficult to:

· Trust adults and build relationships

· Share resources and the attention of adults and other pupils

· Ask for help

· Have a feeling of self-worth

· Explore the world around them

· Attempt new things confidently without fearing failure

When we have a list of pupils, we then send out Boxall profiles to the pupil’s form teachers, and other members of staff who know them well.

The Boxall Profile helps us assess the pupils’ social and emotional needs. On completion, the scores of each individual pupil are compared to the standardised emotional literacy scores of children and young people of a similar age group. This will then show where our pupils have developmental and diagnostic needs.

We then select a group of pupils from KS2 and KS3 and inform their parents/carers that we are offering their child a place in the group.

When the Nurture Group starts in September, the groups have one lesson a day where we deliver programmes for our pupils to help promote and support their social and emotional development. Subjects covered include; social skills, recognising and managing our emotions, raising self-esteem and we also support pupils to overcome anxiety and attachment issues.

Pupils attending the Nurture Group remain an active part of their main class, spending appropriate times within the nurture group according to their need, and typically return full time to their own class within two to four terms.

The Nurture Group is a place of learning, we offer Nurture pupils and other vulnerable pupils within school a place where they can feel safe and secure and therefore develop their individual needs further. The Nurture Group helps provide our pupils with the opportunity to develop their maturity and resilience.

We have termly coffee mornings where we invite parents of the Nurture Group members to come along and take part in some crafts with their child. This gives the Nurture staff a good opportunity to build up a relationship with the Nurture group member’s family.