The Nurture Group at  Underwood West

Hello and welcome to the Nurture group - a place of encouragement, understanding and celebration.

This is a place where children have the opportunity to grow in confidence and become engaged, successful learners in their classrooms and the school community. 

Our Nurture group provides a safe environment where adults and children work closely together; a place where mistakes and accidents are discussed; where boundaries are put in place and where children learn about themselves and their world, at a pace and in a way that suits them.

The purpose of Nurture is to offer children opportunities to re-visit early learning skills and promote and support their social and emotional development. There is much evidence that children’s learning is most effective when they have a sense of emotional well-being and positive self-esteem. The Nurture Room provides children with this opportunity and so helps to develop their maturity and resilience.

The Nurture Room is a place of learning.

The Nurture group is a small group support for children who may feel insecure in school, or who are in need of more teacher attention, intensive learning and bespoke behaviour management support than can be provided in their mainstream class. The Nurture Group and is a small group of 15 children working each morning with a teacher and teaching assistants.

Nurture group staff: 

Mrs J. Bateman - Teacher

Miss N. Hand - Teahing Assistant/ELSA

Miss B. Ralphs - Teaching Assistant

Miss C. Davies - Teaching Assistant

The Aims

The Nurture Group aims to provide support to enable children to cope with and adjust to normal school life. The staff teach and develop curriculum based skills through a range of multi-sensory and practical  activities in a calm but safe and interesting environment. Learning activities are aimed at each child’s ability level. The curriculum is chunked and delivered at a slower pace which allows the children to emded and build on their learning and skills. 

There is a great emphasis on developing language and communication skills with a focus on behaviour and on social learning skills, giving the children a chance to experience success and raise their self-esteem. The children are encouraged to celebrate their own progress at acquiring skills, such as: listening, sharing, turn taking, co-operating and the understanding of the feelings of others and of their own.

There is a focus on teaching life-skills. 

The day

Each morning starts with a circle/feelings time after the children have registered with their class. This is followed by a times table practice and games session. Then the numeracy lesson where daily guided maths group work takes place. After that, the children participate in a small group guided reading session and then a writing lesson with again small group guided work. Daily, bespoke spelling, handwriting and grammar sessions take place. All children receive adult support throughout the morning. The children read daily, and it is important that they practice reading at home too.                                                                                                                                   

The children return to their class for assembly, playtime, lunchtime and for ICT and PE lessons.  If a class is having visitors or go on a trip, then the children will join their class to participate.       

Every Wednesday morning the group attend Forest Schools.                      

The Room

The Nurture room is a calm and relaxed environment that promotes security through consistent routines and clear boundaries with carefully planned learning opportunities.   

Assessment

Academic, social and behavioural targets are set for each child on a Special Educational needs Plan (SEN) or on an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) and these targets are reviewed regularly and shared with the child, class teacher and parents. The children’s progress is tracked using PIVATS assessment tool.

There will be opportunities when you will be invited to join the group and participate in activities with your child.  You will also be able to look at your child’s learning and share their successes.