Thrive
At New Close, we strongly believe in the importance of good emotional and mental health. Enabling young people to have a set of skills that they can use when facing challenges in life will ensure that nothing can detract from their ability to learn effectively and grow strong as an individual. Through our positive behaviour policy, personal development programme and curriculum, we are always seeking opportunities to enrich our children's social and emotional development, as well as their mental health. As a staff, we have been learning about how attachment and trauma influences a child's social and emotional development, as well as how best to support all our children, all of the time.
Across the school, for all children, we use the Thrive programme to support children in their emotional and mental health, this runs alongside all our curriculum areas and wider school experiences. Thrive is an initiative developed and supported by educational psychologists and scientific research, which recognise that children learn better and are happier in school if their emotional needs are met. In each class, Thrive profiles are completed on all children, this forms a starting point for staff to create action plans and activities that improve children emotional well-being.
However, there will be those who require additional support and we use our Thrive practitioners to do this. They have been trained to plan and deliver programmes of support to pupils who are experiencing temporary or longer-term additional emotional needs. Some of the work is delivered on an individual basis, but sometimes small group work is more appropriate, especially in the areas of social skills and friendships. Sessions are fun, using a range of activities such as games, role-play with puppets or arts and craft. Sessions take place in our very own 'Thrive room' which provides a calm, safe space for the child to feel supported and nurtured.
Through this intervention, we aim to provide support for a wide range of emotional needs:
- Recognising and managing emotions
- Emotional resilience
- Managing conflict
- Self-esteem
- Social skills
- Friendship skills
- Anger management
- Loss and bereavement
How does our support work?
Children are usually referred for Thrive support by their class teacher, Senior Leaders or the SENDCo to identify and prioritise which children require a weekly programme for the next 6 - 8 weeks. With the programme aims in mind, and the profiling/initial assessments we make, we then plan support sessions to facilitate the pupil in developing new skills and coping strategies that allow them to manage social and emotional demands more effectively.
You can read more about Thrive support here.
