Nurture Provision at Etherley Lane
Aim: The development and provision of a Whole School Nurture approach to learning, using the 6 principles of nurture.
At Etherley Lane, we have carefully planned and created a bespoke Nurture provision, which is designed to address the social and emotional needs to support children in their learning. The Nurture group’s intent is designed to help children with social skills, develop confidence and self-respect and to take pride in achieving and being the best that they can be. Currently, 12 children from Years 4, 5 and 6 are part of our Nurture family and they have their sessions on Monday and Wednesday afternoons with Mrs. Mangles and Mrs. Yates, who are our Nurture trained specialists in school. The Nurture provision in school is overseen by Mrs. Mooney.
Our Nurture group’s approach to learning addresses the impact of a child’s social environment on their emotional wellbeing, social skills and how ready they are to engage in school life and the wider community. By providing children with these nurture experiences, our highly skilled staff intend to help children develop the social skills they need to thrive and the resilience and confidence needed to deal with whatever life throws at them.
The impact that our Nurture group has on our children is significant and although the main goal is to improve our children’s social, emotional and behavioural difficulties our nurture group has positive results across a wide range of areas.
- Improved social skills– We want our children at Etherley Lane to become confident and develop their self-esteem which will allow them to take pride in their work and behave in a positive way. Our children will become better at dealing with and managing their emotions, learning to empathise with others and build positive relationships with both children and staff.
- Improved attendance– At Etherley Lane a main priority is to ensure that our children feel safe and secure within our school. By feeling safe and secure within our Nurture group, children show more enjoyment of being in school which impacts positively on their attendance.
- Improved attainment– By providing Nurture provision for our children at Etherley Lane, this has a positive impact on their academic performance such as their language and literacy skills.
- Improved behaviour– The impact of having a Nurture group hasa significantly positive impact on children’s behaviour. Our children feel more relaxed and regulated within the classroom environment and our children are able to cope and manage better with challenges that they may face during the school day.
- Improved parent/child relationships– The impact of children being part of our Etherley Lane Nurture group shows that their relationships with their parents and carers have improved. Children will show more care towards the significant adults in their lives and be able to communicate with confidence in their home environment.
- Impact on the whole school- At Etherley Lane our staff are exceptional at forming relationships with our children and our Nurture group only tightens this bond further. This in turn helps create a whole school Nurture ethos.
Examples of the activities the children do in Nurture:
To see an example of our planning for Nurture sessions, please click here.
ELSA Provision at Etherley Lane
What is ELSA?
An ELSA is a Learning Support Assistant in school who has had specific extra training in Emotional Literacy from an educational psychologist. ELSAs also receive on-going group supervision with an educational psychologist where common issues, anonymised cases and intervention plans are discussed. At Etherley Lane, Mrs. Aldred is our ELSA.
ELSAs support the social, emotional and behavioural development of pupils. For example they help pupils who have difficulty with friendships, anxiety, shyness, bullying, anger, low confidence.
ELSAs work with class teachers to identify targets for pupils and design support sessions. They can work with individuals or small groups of pupils. Sessions usually happen weekly and last for 30-60 minutes. Sessions usually run for between 6-12 weeks.
ELSAs love to work with parents and encourage them to be part of the planning process.
What happens in sessions?
Sessions are designed to be fun and motivating for pupils. ELSAs choose activities that are matched to the child’s interests and needs. Activities can include games, role-play, story writing, puppets, model making, talking and listening. All of the activities are linked to the emotional literacy targets identified for the child by the teacher and ELSA.
