The Thrive Approach

We want all the children in our community to flourish, so we have introduced The Thrive Approach in order to support their emotional and social development. Our aim is to help your children feel happy and secure, be able to enjoy friendships, relate well to others and be ready and able to learn.

The Thrive Approach is a specific way of working with all children that helps to develop their social and emotional well-being, enabling them to engage with life and learning. It supports them in becoming more self-assured, capable and adaptable. It can also address any troubled, or troubling, behaviours providing a firm foundation for academic attainment.

Positive relationships are at the heart of The Thrive Approach. We use these relationships, together with play and creative activities, to give children key experiences at each different stage of their development. Repetition of these activities supports their development, helping them to:

• feel good about themselves and know that they matter

• increase their sense of security and trust

• increase their emotional well-being

• improve their capacity to be creative and curious

• increase their self-esteem and confidence to learn

• learn to recognise and regulate their feelings

• learn to think before behaving in a certain way

• ...and much more.

How does it work? Appropriate for all children from birth to adulthood, The Thrive Approach draws on the latest research into brain science, child development theory and attachment theory. It helps us to understand how babies’ and children’s brains develop, and how parents, teachers and other professionals can best support this development by providing the best experiences for the children at each stage.

The Thrive Approach also helps us to better understand the children’s needs being signalled by their behaviour. Sometimes, children may struggle as a result of temporary setbacks or other, longer term changes in their lives such as a separation, a bereavement, a family illness or accident, or even the arrival of a new baby. They may signal their distress by becoming more withdrawn, or distant, or perhaps more challenging or disruptive, or even by trying too hard to please. If this happens, we use The Thrive Approach to look beyond the behaviour to give these children the support they need to get back on track. Sometimes, they only need a little extra support in class and sometimes they may need additional one-to-one time to help them along.

Take Five

Take Five is a breathing practice that is used in school to improve the wellbeing of our pupils, through breathing, grounding and awareness. The practice cultivates pupils' ability to be resilient to setbacks, challenges and change in their daily lives. Pupils feel safer and more in control of themselves through developing the capacity to manage strong emotions. 

Golden Mile

The Golden Mile is a safe and simple way to improve both physical and mental health through physical activity. Every pupil can get involved by walking, jogging or running around the playground.

Further Sources of Support

Healthy Family Teams

Healthy Family Teams are part of the Healthy Families Programme. They are an integrated service for children, young people and families which brings together care provided by health visitors, school nurses, the Family Nurse Partnership Programme (for first time teenage mums) and the National Childhood Measurement Programme.

Further information regarding the services they offer can be found on their website via the link below.

Healthy Family Teams have social media channels and support websites. They can be followed on Twitter @NottsHFT at https://twitter.com/NottsHFT and on Instagram @nottshealthyfamilyteams at https://www.instagram.com/nottshealthyfamilyteams/

Their support websites can be found via the links below.

Emotional and Mental Health Support