Nurture AT KELLANDS
WHAT IS NURTURE?
The concept of nurture highlights the importance of social environments – who you’re with, and not who you’re born to – and its significant influence on social emotional skills, wellbeing and behaviour. Children and young people who have a good start in life are shown to have significant advantages over those who have experienced missing or distorted early attachments. They tend to do better at school, attend regularly, form more meaningful friendships and are significantly less likely to offend or experience physical or mental health problems.
The nurturing approach 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, develop their resilience and their capacity to deal more confidently with the trials and tribulations of life, for life.
THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT OFFERS A SAFE-BASE
At Kellands, all our children have the right to feel safe and valued. Nurture provision in our school has evolved over the last couple of years and is always responsive to the needs of the children in school.
In Unit One we have our Rainbow Room, Unit 2 and Unit 3 have Nurture Neuks, and between Unit 2 and Unit 3 we have the Zen Zone. These are areas that the children can go to for support with regulating their emotions, cope with transitions, find a calm space to carry out tasks or just take the time that they need to adjust and feel ready for different parts of their day. These spaces have books that are linked to our Health and Wellbeing curriculum, sensory resources and activities, exercise equipment, fidget tools, play equipment, Zones of Regulation strategies and other various items to help our children with the transitions throughout the school day.
We have a Good Morning/ breakfast club which runs alongside our Soft Start in the mornings where the children can have breakfast if they need and chat to staff about how they are feeling ahead of the day and get help with anything they may need.
Nurture staff are on hand to support and provide the care and the safe environment. The children feel that they can chat in the confidence that we are here to help with whatever they may need. We feel that building relationships and trust is the base for good communication amongst staff and pupils.
Language is a vital means of communication
For continuity and transitions the same Visual Timetables are used throughout the school. We use Widget and where further structure, and support is needed children have their own personal timetables. The staff have lanyards with visuals to aid with communication and we are a Makaton friendly school.
Visuals are displayed daily to help children choose their lunches independently, select resources and activities and used in lessons to support with instruction and tasks in class.
We use widget and Makaton symbols to support children with literacy in the form of word banks and Colourful Semantics resources.
We also use visual Task Plans to help children support themselves with independent tasks and following instructions.
All of these resources alongside our safe spaces have been invaluable with helping to settle children with ADHD, Autism and other conditions. Children who have found attending school extremely difficult are now coming to school and participating in subjects and tasks.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRANSITIONS IN CHILDREN'S LIVES
At Kellands, we support children with transitions that happen at every stage of their lives. We are aware that children may find different transitions challenging, and we provide support when it is needed.
Transitions could be coming into class after playtime or lunch, a different teacher, a change to timetable or moving to new schools. Nurture staff work with class teachers to provide support in various forms, such as visual task plans, 'Keep the Heid' strategies, sensory resources, their own desk , visual timetables, emotional toolkits and social stories.
For change of stage, pupils are creating Pupil Profiles, Personal Passports and Sensory Profiles to allow pupils to share any worries and strategies with their new teacher.
LEARNING IS UNDERSTOOD DEVELOPMENTALLY
At Kellands, we look at each child and where they are on their learning journey. Lessons and tasks are pitched at the level the child is working at and with appropriate support and structure. They may be supported by a PSA, use visuals, task plans, or follow a more structured independent educational plan (IEP) and attend additional support for learning. (ASL) For emotional and social support and education we use the Boxall resource for assessment, planning and tracking of social and emotional skills development . Children are referred to Nurture by their class teachers with the permission of parents.
Play is the way forward at Kellands. Whether indoors or outdoors. The Kellands' children spend their week learning, exploring and growing through play, all types of play. This is evident in Nurture where we also use play, sensory activities and developmentally appropriate tasks.
We have organised regular visits from our Kellands baby to help build empathy and care for others, played with therapy dogs, had weekly firepit fun in the playground, spent time in the park and on Bennachie, built dens and grown vegetables, baked healthy food and treats and complete our class tasks outdoors.
The upper school Nurture group spends time at our school allotment growing and caring for the school plants and vegetables. They also as work on team / friendship activities to build resilience and a growth mindset.
Some of our pupils follow individual timetables and alternate pathways with horse riding , swimming and more planning for outdoor activities in their week.
All Behaviour is communication
At Kellands, we have a range of needs, and we aim to 'get it right for every child'. We believe that all behaviour is communication and encourage our children to share their thoughts and feelings through 'The Zones of Regulation'. This whole school approach is a visual, colour-coded resource to help the children identify the emotion they are feeling and find and select strategies to help them cope with the emotion. This strategy is embedded in our Health and Wellbeing Curriculum and strategies can be seen in classes and around the school. The Leadership team, class teachers and Pupil support assistants have 'Walk and Talk' sessions with children who need the time to chat about their thoughts and any worries going on in their lives. Pupil support assistants take children for planned regular breaks to the hall and outside if needed.
As a staff we believe the emotional wellbeing of our pupils is of the utmost importance.
The importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing
Nurture is the foundation to developing the social and emotional wellbeing of our children and therefore their skills in other areas of the curriculum and as future confident, successful, contributing and responsible adults. The last few years have proven this in many ways.
With support and time and the correct structures in place our children can thrive in the Kellands environment. We are committed to always training the staff and learning new ways to support our children. Recently Colin Foley from the ADHD foundation came up from Liverpool to deliver whole school training . Last year Marion from Autism Understanding Scotland carried out training with us.
Various members of staff have been on Trauma and bereavement training.
It has not always been plain sailing and it is not without challenges, but with nurture at the heart of our school ethos our children that struggled previously are now in school and class and participating in school life and learning at their own pace.
