The principles of nurture group provision can be traced back to 1969 and the work of Marjorie Boxall in Hackney and the emergence of John Bowlby’s attachment theory.
Basically, if a child’s early experiences lack nurture, care, and love this can have a significant impact on their social, emotional, and cognitive development.
A guide to nurture provision was published by the charity Nurture UK in 2019 and includes links to the full research base behind the approach.
But fundamentally, the idea of in-school nurture groups is to help children to develop the relationships that they might have missed out on during their earliest years. Without this intervention, pupils’ needs risk going unmet, and their problems will only get worse.
Nurture groups explained
According to Nurture UK (2019), there are now more than 2,000 such groups operating in UK schools. It states that the six principles of nurture are:
- All behaviour is communication
- Language is a vital means of communication
- The importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing
- The classroom offers a safe base
- Children’s learning is understood developmentally
- The importance of transitions in children’s lives
The traditional format of nurture groups is structured. The optimum size is a group of 12 or so including a mixture of children with challenging behaviour alongside those who are anxious and withdrawn.
Attendance in the nurture group is part-time and limited in duration with the child remaining on the class register and participating as much as possible in the mainstream classroom and activities with their peers.
Nurture group teachers are the key to its success. Modelling friendship, trust, and compassion, they are expected to build relationships and ensure that the children in their care feel loved and are treated as if they were their own.
The Boxall Profile is used as a diagnostic tool and measures improvement. Parents are closely involved and great care and attention is given to preparing dedicated space where children can come together, eat together and be part of a family.
Although some schools invested heavily in nurture in the early years, it wasn’t until 1996 and the book Effective Intervention in Primary Schools: Nurture by Marjorie Boxall and Marion Bennathan that many school leaders really saw the potential of deploying this approach on a wider scale.
Could the nurture group principles be protected but adapted to allow more schools to invest in this approach? Over the years, schools have taken the principles and crafted ways of allowing their children to be part of a nurturing ethos within the confines of the resources and building limitations that they have.
The approach has even made it up to secondary phase, with some schools setting up year 7 and 8 nurture provision.
Settrington All Saints CE Primary School
Settrington is a small school with 89 pupils arranged in four classes. Although it is a rural school it has a varied demography with a mixture of farming families, social housing, and professional families. Ofsted’s latest report described the school as having a “big heart”.
The school, near Scarborough, has adopted the whole school nurture approach with additional nurturing interventions.
Kate Hind, reception and year 1 teacher, explained: We are committed to inclusivity and going down the nurture road seemed an obvious step to take.
“There is a dedicated nurture space in every classroom and self-regulation is a particularly important skill that is woven through their classroom experience.”
Books highlighting different emotions are shared with the children and the “colour monster” is used with the youngest children to help them show how they are feeling.
All children are checked through the Boxall Profile and then specific children are targeted for either one-to-one with the emotional literacy support assistant (ELSA) or for group work. The sessions last for 30 to 40 minutes depending on their purpose and number of children and are held in their library.
Ms Hind continued: “Children self-select for the lunch-time nurture group. It is run by a different member of staff and lots of practical activities take place such as art and craft.”
Also part of the provision, an old outside toilet block has been converted into a “reading stable” complete with hay bales where children can withdraw and read a favourite book.
Following 18 months of training, Settrington was awarded the National Nurturing Schools Award in 2023 by Nurture UK. Staff had learnt about the theory underpinning nurture while also carrying out practical tasks to accompany it.
In this small school they have established an environment that helps them quickly identify when a child needs support and strategies they can apply when needed.
In the future, Ms Hind would like to develop the outside space further including establishing a sensory garden and building on links with a local care home.
She added: “We live in a very small community so fostering this aspect of our work is important to us, particularly in terms of transitions. Our parents have been amazing in their response and gave fantastic accounts to the auditors of how their children have grown in their ability to self-regulate.”
Daubeney Primary School
Daubeney Primary School in London is a large school with 387 pupils. It is part of the Blossom Federation and is committed to nurture group principles.
Executive headteacher Robin Warren, head of school Gregory Logan, and pastoral care manager and nurture lead Jennifer Bird want to see nurture groups available to all the pupils in the area who require this support.
Ms Bird explained: “We started a nurture group nine years ago because of three girls we admitted who had such severe behaviour issues that even the PRU couldn’t cope.
“We had to do something. I visited a school with nurture provision and was convinced then that it was the right way forward for us.”
They had £5,000 to work with and used this money to turn a room into their base, making it as homely as possible. Nurture UK provided advice and support and for six weeks they worked hard to establish strong relationships with the girls, the relationships that they had been missing in their lives.
By the sixth week the pupils began to respond. Today, they are still in mainstream education, having transferred successfully to secondary school.
It is worth noting that if these three girls had followed the usual course of one-to-one provision that their behaviour might have precipitating, it would have cost as much as £127,000.
Since then the school’s nurture provision has continued to flourish. ‘
Ms Bird continued: “We have had 36 children altogether go through our room and since Robin became executive headteacher we have established a dedicated nurture base called ‘The Nest’.”
The base includes a classroom but also a kitchen and living room. You can take a virtual tour of The Nest on the school’s website (see further information).
The nurture provision at Daubeney runs to the traditional format. The pupils are in the nurture room every day from Monday to Thursday. The day begins with breakfast and is followed by literacy, phonics and whatever the children are covering back in class.
Ms Bird added: “Alongside this we include Boxall activities and the focus is on creating the relationships needed for our pupils who are suffering from trauma and attachment difficulties.”
On Friday and for PE and music lessons, pupils return to their registration class.
“We really are passionate about the life-changing opportunities that nurture can bring,” Ms Bird said. “If we could only win the lottery we would make sure that every child who needs it in Hackney, had access to nurture.”
Final thoughts
At a time when advocates are calling for more financial support from local and national government to help keep pupils in school, Nurture, in whatever form the school can manage, is an investment in time, money and requires dedication that can alter the life chances of young people.
- Suzanne O’Connell is a freelance education writer and a former primary school headteacher. Read her previous articles for Headteacher Update via www.headteacher-update.com/authors/suzanne-oconnell
Further information & resources
- Boxall Profile: boxallprofile.org
- Daubeney Primary School: daubeney.hackney.sch.uk/year-groups/nurture
- Nurture UK: nurtureuk.org
- Nurture UK: Nurture Groups: For all education settings, 2019: nurtureuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Nurture-Groups-Booklet-Dec-2019.pdf