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Overview
After a successful initial pilot project
Children Schools and Families is supporting the development of up
to 15 nurture groups to meet the needs of children who are vulnerable
at the start of their school careers.
Most children start school
with confidence and enthusiasm but sadly a few do not.
- They may have had disrupted early years
with limited opportunity to build secure emotional attachments, find
it hard to accept the constraints of being part of a group and have
no expectation that teachers will value them and encourage them.
- They may show this by not responding to
the teaching offered, being withdrawn and unteachable, or perhaps
by reacting with hostility to the staff and to other children.
- They will make little progress; they may
reach the stage of exclusion, a damaging experience for the child,
and sometimes the last straw which leads troubled families to breakdown.
Nurture Groups aim to recreate
normal development patterns by identifying gaps and following a reliable,
predictable structure so that the children feel safe and begin to trust,
explore and learn. The principle underlying the groups is that the child
will be responded to at whatever developmental stage he or she is presently
at.
- "Classic" nurture groups are
an inclusive, Key Stage 1, mainstream provision, usually located in
larger schools in areas of high social need.
- They are classes of 10 to 12 children,
supported by the whole staff group and by parents. They have their
own teacher and teaching assistant who collect them from their base
class after registration and return them there for the last part of
the afternoon. The groups spend up to 9 of the 10 weekly sessions
in the group. An individual child may be a member of a nurture group
for between 1 and 4 terms.
- The rationale is that these children are
not innately disturbed or limited in ability, but have missed out
on the early experiences that promote positive development. They have
not learned to make trusting relationships with adults or to relate
appropriately to other children, so they cannot settle in school.
The adults’ role is to understand these gaps
in development and to meet the children at the stage they have reached.
They work together to recreate the processes which underpin successful
early learning, offering emotional acceptance and focused teaching.
Schools with Nurture Groups
The following schools are currently establishing
Nurture Groups:
Alban Woods Infants |
Watford |
Bedwell Primary |
Stevenage |
Bellgate Primary |
Hemel Hempstead |
Camps Hill Primary |
Stevenage |
Chaulden Infants |
Hemel Hempstead |
Meryfield Primary |
Borehamwood |
Oughton Primary |
Hitchin |
Peartree Spring Infant |
Stevenage |
Shephall Green Infants |
Stevenage |
Stream Woods Primary |
Hatfield |
Swallow Dell Primary |
Welwyn Garden City |
The Havers Infants |
Bishop's Stortford |
The Leys Primary |
Stevenage |
Operational Guidance
Nurture groups form part of the Authority’s overall response to
children with challenging behaviour, which is set out in the Behaviour
Support Plan and associated policies. Nurture groups provide early intervention
and support for young children without Statements and are fully integrated
into mainstream school policies and structures. The
Hertfordshire's Operational Guidance document is available only to Hertfordshire
Schools:
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