Archive for 2023

Nurtureuk is proud to announce that it has achieved certification to ISO27001, the international standard for information security management.

To achieve certification, we have successfully completed a detailed two-stage audit with an external auditor looking at every aspect of how we manage systems, protect the data we hold, and progressively improve how we manage information.

Achieving the ISO standard shows the effectiveness of our approach to handling information, from recruiting and developing team members, to managing access to our systems, and making sure data is backed up continuously.

We know that we are trusted by schools, local authorities and other partner organisations to securely hold data on children and young people on the Boxall Profile® Online platform, as well as other confidential information. We take this responsibility extremely seriously. Achieving ISO27001 certification reflects our commitment to provide services that our partners can have full confidence in.

Today is World Mental Health Day and the purpose of it is to raise the awareness of mental health and drive positive change for the future. 

This annual awareness day is run by the Mental Health Foundation, the UK’s leading charity for everyone’s mental health. They drive positive change towards a mentally healthy society for all. They aim to find and address the sources of mental health problems in order for people and communities to thrive.

According to the Mental Health Foundation, “75% of children and young people who experience mental health problems aren’t getting the help they need”. This is a growing concern and it needs to be acted upon as soon as possible. The consequences of not addressing the mental health development of children and young people can extend to adulthood which can limit their opportunities of leading a fulfilling life.

Schools need to prioritise children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, after all this is at the heart of education. Inclusive approaches to education can support pupil’s mental health and wellbeing which in turn can help to keep them in school. Increasing amounts of children are absent from school every year and we need to do all we can to get them back into school.

We recently co-hosted a panel at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, in which the panel discussions centred around inclusive approaches and tackling exclusions at school. The panel consisted of a great line-up of speakers, including the Chair of Commission on Young Lives; Anne Longfield, the Director of London’s Violence Reduction Unit; Lib Peck, Cabinet Member for Education; Cllr Anntionette Bramble, and our CEO Arti Sharma. It was an invigorating discussion about how nurturing approaches can positively impact pupils’ mental health and wellbeing so that they can remain in school and succeed with their education. It was recommended at the conference that more schools should adopt a whole-school nurturing approach. This can be the positive change that children and young people so desperately need.

The priority of schools should be to meet children and young people’s social, emotional and mental health needs. Many children and young people have experienced significant trauma in their lives, including bereavement, neglect and abuse, or witnessing parents experiencing mental health problems or substance abuse. All of these experiences can negatively affect their mental health. As a result, they may have difficulties with attention, learning and emotional control. These difficulties may translate into aggression, anger outbursts and challenging behaviours. 

With sufficient nurture and support from adults, children can develop the skills and resilience they need to cope with stressful experiences and improve their mental health, in turn allowing them to become ready to learn at school.

To find out more about the nurturing approach and why we recommend implementing it across the whole school, please click here.

We know that a nurturing approach can have an incredible effect on the lives of children and young people, and we love to hear about the real-life impact it has in the schools we work with. The following case study was from a school on our Nurturing London Violence Reduction Unit Programme which finished in 2022. The storyteller is the head of inclusion and leads a nurture specialist support centre in North London. 

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Our school had already embarked on a journey to transform our behaviour policy towards a much more nurturing approach that reflected our values and objectives as a school. My role was to facilitate this transformation with our members of staff, so when the programme came along I recognised the potential for what was offered to help us move the transformation along. The big difference for me was that this was tried-and-tested practice that provided a solid evidence base going back 50 years; I knew that having the kind of evidence you can’t argue with would help to convince some reluctant staff members that there was value and merit in adopting a more nurturing and trauma-informed approach to understanding and dealing with behaviour. Before we joined the programme, there were pockets of excellent nurturing practice already happening in the school, but this was by no means across the board.

Our school is lucky to have a Therapeutic Wellbeing Practitioner on staff who works with both children and staff. All staff had received previous training in supporting our pupils’ social and emotional development but I noticed that it was the ethos of individual teachers who were naturally more nurturing in their approach that was making a difference with individual pupils. 

I feel that the main internal barrier we had as a school in terms of becoming more nurturing, was the fixed behaviourist mindset that many staff had in understanding behaviour. Some staff had pre-existing opinions about nurture somehow being a “soft approach that is all about cuddles”. This attitude, as well as the pressures to deliver the curriculum which is target based, left little inclination or time for staff to consider a more nurturing approach.

Additionally, the pandemic and resulting lockdowns and bubbles was a really big challenge to our whole school community. We experienced illness, with many of our staff becoming unwell and we also experienced loss, with two of our pupils losing parents to the virus.

There were three elements of the programme that were key to our school becoming a more nurturing place – training, resources and the relationship we have built with our nurtureuk consultant. The Wellbeing Box of resources was very well received by staff and pupils in our nurture centre, particularly the puppets. We find these very useful in communicating with our pupils and a useful tool to facilitate conversations and give pupils an effective way to voice their feelings and emotions. 

Completing the Theory and Practice of Nurture Groups training fortified and solidified our practice in the nurture centre and gave me the confidence and knowledge to set up the physical environment in the most effective way. The course gave us the building blocks to inform more nurturing thinking and gave us the knowledge to explore the factors behind behaviour and to discuss and find solutions in-house. I found the relationship we built with our nurtureuk consultant through the project to be really helpful and this was also true for the wider staff who met her during training sessions. They felt that they could approach someone with specialist knowledge who could provide advice and answers for our specific context.

After we completed the nurture group training, I noticed positive changes in the way we practised in the nurture centre. This was especially evident in the work of the nursery nurses now as they are more empowered to integrate the curriculum into the daily practice. We discuss the planning for individual pupils together as a team and each staff member supports each other in implementing the plans, which is much more effective.

Having access to the Boxall Profile® Online has made it quick and easy for us to access and complete assessments for the pupils placed in our provision for a usual period of 12 weeks. The information from the Boxall Profile®, particularly from the Developmental Strands, makes it possible for us to focus the support and identify strategies that will be effective. Using the information, we are able to understand the complex needs behind the behaviour preventing the pupil from attending their mainstream classes at the time that they come to us. We are able to communicate to the school and the parents some of that insight into understanding the need better and we are also able to set expectations about the progress we hope to make in the time that the pupil is with us.

One of our pupils attended a mainstream school where the staff body had very little knowledge and experience of nurture. As a result of this, they had not managed to identify any of his underlying needs and was labelled as “just naughty” when he started with us. He was very explosive and appeared to need to maintain absolute control with both the adults and the other children in the classroom. He had a complicated family environment where there was a history of addiction and also a history of learning difficulties. We were able to identify his strengths very early on and were able to work with these as well as establishing a warm and positive relationship with his parents. Our knowledge and our willingness to find solutions has really paid off and he is a great success story of someone who would likely have been excluded from his mainstream environment and been seen as a failure. His success in our environment has seen him accepted at a smaller one-form entry school that has an established nurturing ethos, which was facilitated by our staff. His parents are overjoyed seeing his progress and seeing him settled in an environment where he will thrive. 

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We are delighted to have been commissioned by the London Violence Reduction Unit to deliver a new programme alongside delivery partners Tender. The Inclusive and Nurturing Schools Programme aims to tackle school exclusions across 70 schools in seven London Boroughs. 

If you’d like to find out more about our nurture training, please visit our website.

As we get closer towards the end of August, many young people will be feeling stressed as they await their exam results. They may be feeling a lot of pressure to meet expectations – be it their own, their family’s or their schools – and knowing the impact the results can have on their future plans. 

The Six Principles of Nurture give us a greater understanding of how best to support our young people when they feel stressed or anxious. For example, exam result days feature in several major life transitions for young people; from GCSEs to further education, further education to higher education or employment, or university results day. 

It’s vital for parents, carers and families to understand that all behaviour is communication and that providing a safe base for young people is key. Your young person may not be able to communicate the stress or anxiety they’re feeling prior to receiving their exam results, so may be withdrawn or isolated, or display challenging behaviour. By providing a safe base, your young person has the opportunity to understand and manage their emotions. 

Here’s some of our top tips on how to support your young person in the run up to results day:

• • Listen: Your young person may be experiencing a range of emotions as results day approaches. Providing time and space for them to talk is important, whilst acknowledging their hopes or worries, and any pressure they may be feeling.
  • Celebrate the effort: Before results day arrives, celebrate how hard they have been working through exam season! Let them know you’re proud of how hard they worked, no matter their results. 
  • Make flexible plans for the day: Your young person may want to be distracted on the day, depending on their results. Ask them in advance if they have any ideas, or you could suggest a trip out, a walk, dinner out or a takeaway, a movie night, or spending time with friends. Each young person will handle their stress differently so be prepared for plans to change!
  • On the day: Be on hand if possible to support them in whatever way they need. And remember that your words matter, so respond to their results carefully and conscientiously. 
  • Next steps: If your young person is disappointed in their results, they may not want to talk through the next steps on the day, so give them the time and space they need to process. Do some research or talk to the school to understand what options are available – whether it’s retakes, remarking or alternative courses – so that when they’re ready, you can support them to find the next best steps for them. 

Remember: grades aren’t everything. Make sure your child feels celebrated and supported regardless of their results! For more information, please see the additional support linked below. 

Support for young people:

• https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/blog/exam-results-stress-advice-for-young-people/
• https://www.aqa.org.uk/student-and-parent-support/managing-stress-when-waiting-for-results

Support for parents:

• https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-your-education-and-training-choices/exam-results/parent-guide
• https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-a-z-mental-health-guide/exam-time/

We know that a nurturing approach can have an incredible effect on the lives of children and young people, and we love to hear about the real-life impact it has in the schools we work with. The following case study was from a school on our Nurturing London Violence Reduction Unit Programme which finished in 2022. The storyteller is a Senior Leader at a large community primary school in North-West London. 

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At the start of the programme, our challenge was to see how we could include nurture practice to complement our existing practice. The Nurturing London Programme offered us the opportunity to look at our whole-school practice. We saw it as a perfect fit which allowed capacity for a nurturing approach to grow right across our school through the training and upskilling of our nurture group staff, in the first instance, and then for all staff. The programme never felt like an add-on, but rather a way of embedding and galvanising our vision of the practice we valued.

We had a foundational knowledge of attachment theory, but we felt that a consistent nurturing approach in our classroom and curriculum was just not there. Our staff had a mixed understanding of the principles of nurture, so there was a lack of consistency based on different beliefs of how behaviour should be managed. I think this resulted from a combination of misconceptions that viewed nurture as a “soft approach”, and also a lack of specialist knowledge and training in the concepts underpinning it. Staff needed to see what the actual work looked like and to observe for themselves the links with their existing practice. If this didn’t happen, we would be fighting against a tide of “zero tolerance” philosophy.

I would say that this binary view of having to choose between the opposing “soft” approach and “zero tolerance” in addressing behaviour was our biggest obstacle in our whole-school nurturing journey. I believe that this view is prevalent amongst our parents too, and it became more prevalent during the pandemic when we were quite isolated from parents. What we know is that there is always an individual story and context behind all behaviour, but this is sometimes hard to “sell” to parents. What I have seen is that when a teacher has a greater understanding of and experience with a nurturing approach, then it is easier to get the parents on board. We encourage nurture across the board, meaning that nurture infuses all of our relationships and our priorities as a school. We constantly make reference to nurture practice and its underlying principles to our parents.

At the start of the programme, we didn’t fully realise the breadth of what was being offered to us. Our Lead Consultant (LC) was instrumental in supporting us in the implementation of the training, staff capacity, timing and roll-out of everything we had access to. They were able to guide us at each point along the journey as to how we could build on our nurturing capacity by utilising the project offer. We knew right from the beginning that we wanted to build a lasting nurturing practice and the Theory and Practice of Nurture Groups training really helped us to build the capacity for long-term, sustainable practice; the cost of doing that outside of the project would have been prohibitive.

Utilising the Theory and Practice of Nurture Groups training offered as part of the programme to upskill three male members of staff in nurturing practice has been a core element of our success in creating a broader and wider perception of using this approach. The training and using the Boxall Profile® to create a depth of understanding of the roots of behaviour really demonstrated to them that this was not a “mumsy” approach, but something very powerful to create change. We’ve seen these members of staff transform from using a “military approach” to adopting more playful, meaningful and rich connections that have been hugely successful.

We have seen that early nurturing intervention has prevented and reduced instances of fixed term exclusions which are usually centred around one or two individuals with complex backgrounds and needs. Something that really stood out for me was seeing the “PRU to prison pipeline” that was shown to us at one of the monthly networking meetings. It really hit home, because before seeing this, I had always viewed exclusions and its consequences as a secondary school problem. I know that for at least one pupil with a very complex story, that if they had been able to attend a nurture group in Year 1, the outlook would be a different one. There is always more work to be done around exclusions, but we know where we want to be and we are headed in the right direction.

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We are delighted to have been commissioned by the London Violence Reduction Unit to deliver a new programme alongside delivery partners Tender. The Inclusive and Nurturing Schools Programme aims to tackle school exclusions across 70 schools in seven London Boroughs. 

If you’d like to find out more about our Nurture Group training, please visit our website.