National Nurturing Schools Award – Nurture UK
ABOUT THE AWARD
For any school wishing to embark upon it, the National Nurturing Schools Programme is a two-year journey undertaken with the aim of supporting pupils and stakeholders. Based on the six principles of nurture that have successfully underpinned nurture groups for over 40 years, this programme enables schools to develop and embed a nurturing culture. The programme has been developed by NurtureUk, the world’s leading authority for nurture in education and awarding body of the Certificate in Theory and Practice of Nurture Groups, the nationally recognised qualification for running a nurture group in schools.
WHAT IS A NURTURING SCHOOL?
A nurturing school is a place where:
PUPILS BENEFIT from an approach that supports children and young people with their specific needs, the school’s focus being that learning is understood developmentally.
PARENTS BENEFIT by being involved and welcomed in the school, seeing the improvement in their children’s learning, behaviour, confidence and attendance, with a better outcome for their children both in and out of the school and classroom.
TEACHERS BENEFIT from having an opportunity to focus on their pupils’ individuality whilst ensuring the best social, emotional and academic outcome. Teachers will also enable a culture where every stakeholder’s voice counts.
SCHOOLS BENEFIT from showing their commitment to developing an ethos and culture that is inclusive and supports everyone in and associated with the school.
COMMUNITIES BENEFIT from having a school that wants to be at the heart of the community and demonstrates its essential role in children and young people’s lives.
WHAT DOES NURTURE LOOK LIKE AT BROOKBURN?
The following are examples of how nurture, and the principles of nurture, are being embedded across the school, with support from our staff and pupils.
Core values: Our core values have recently been updated after consultation with key stakeholders. Mental health and wellbeing is one of the six fundamental core values that as a school, we aim to support your children in thriving with during their journey with us.
Curriculum: We teach a robust PSHE/RSE curriculum as part of our statutory responsibility but additionally, have embarked on our journey as a Unicef Rights Respecting school (led by Miss Kingsford, we aim to achieve the silver award by the end of this academic year) and have class Unicef ambassadors who represent pupil interest and support the Senior Leadership Team in driving improvements in our school, to better the educational opportunities for all pupils.
Extra-Curricular Opportunities: Aligned with our global citizenship core value, we have elected Eco Buddies and an Eco Council who are proactive in ensuring that Brookburn is sustainable and taking measures to support the environment and our climate. Additionally, a teacher nominated pupil parliament will be established by the end of term and additionally, we are lucky to have the support of outside agencies like UK Sports alongside Art and Drama projects, often run with the support and backing of our PTA.
Mental Health and Wellbeing: The school uses an assessment tool throughout the school to monitor and observe progress in any pupil identified as having a Social, Emotional or Mental Health need. These assessments enable us to plan support for individual pupils more effectively, and review outcomes following a package of support that may be offered. We also have daily mindfulness activities, journaling (where children in KS2 reflect on and record any feelings that they have) and focus on breathing exercises too.
Emotional Literacy: As a school, we are embarking on a journey of improving pupil awareness of the range of feelings and emotions that they experience throughout the school day. Taking a whole school approach, we are using Zones of Regulation to help improve pupils’ emotional literacy and understand how behaviours can be linked to emotions. Key to this approach is that all emotions are validated and children know that it is ok to feel any range of emotions at any time.
Inclusion Team: Key members of the school’s leadership team meet weekly, and look at cases across the school holistically to identify where any pupils are struggling and need more support. This includes discussions around Safeguarding, Attendance, SEND and social and emotional support. The school work closely with a range of agencies to ensure the support in place meets the needs of individuals.
Environment: Since April 2021, we have begun a school wide project to improve our physical school environment for pupils and staff. This has included painting 6 classrooms thus far, and scaling back the level of colour and busyness on walls and displays. We have purchased new furniture to improve storage, reduce clutter and overall, make work spaces calmer, distraction free and purposeful. This project has affected both classrooms and shared spaces throughout the building, and will continue to be a focus area moving forward.
Staff training / Professional Learning: Supporting staff as a key stakeholder group is an essential part of our nurture approach. Not only do we have a well-being policy in place for our staff, we have also invested in training for them linked to the nurture award, as well as training around complex needs, behaviour and trauma informed practice, including key areas such as Attachment.
Community: We are so lucky to have the support of our wider school community. The PTA have been very supportive of the nurture project thus far, and do so much to support the school in various endeavours that have nurture principles running through. We also have the opportunity to work with local secondary schools like Chorlton High, offering additional experiences to pupils that again, strengthen nurture links.
If you have any questions, or would like more information about the Nurture Award, please don’t hesitate to contact Mrs Owen (Deputy Head) or our SENDCo who will be more than happy to help. The best email address to send queries through to is admin@brookburn.manchester.
