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Written evidence from nurtureuk

Key points

1. Nurtureuk (formerly the Nurture Group Network) is dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of children and young people and removing barriers to learning by promoting nurture in education.  This includes nurture group provision for children and young people with social emotional and mental health needs, and a whole-school nurturing approach that benefits all pupils and staff in a school.  Nurturing approaches are underpinned by the Boxall Profile, a unique assessment tool for teachers and staff to identify and monitor the social, emotional and wellbeing needs of their pupils so they can plan effective support and early-interventions.

2. 17.3% of pupils receiving special educational needs (SEN) support and 12.4% of pupils who have an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan have their primary need as social emotional and mental health (SEMH)[1].  However, many more children and young people receiving SEN support will have SEMH needs that are not recorded as their primary need.  Indeed, the primary reason for a pupil to require SEN support will, in many cases, cause additional anxiety and SEMH needs for the pupil.

3. Our practitioners and members report that the increasing focus in primary and secondary schools on test and exam results in recent years has increased pressure on students[2]. The changes made to curricula and tests across the phases have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable such as those with SEN who are being held up to a standard which is out of reach for some.  In addition, the increased focus on results often means more intervention time and less time in lessons such as art, music and drama which are perceived in some schools as low value but which often benefit vulnerable students the most.

4. Our practitioners and members in some areas also report severe problems in accessing external agencies when required to support SEN pupils, in particular CAMHS and social services, as those agencies are under so much pressure. 

5. To better support pupils with SEN, nurtureuk recommends a 3-pronged approach: 

• Schools and teachers should monitor the social, emotional and wellbeing needs of their pupils using the Boxall Profile so they can plan effective support and early-interventions.  This is particularly important for pupils with SEN who have SEMH difficulties as their primary need or as an additional need.

• Schools should adopt a whole-school approach to support the mental health and wellbeing of all pupils and staff, such as the National Nurturing Schools Programme. With increasing levels of anxiety and mental ill-health amongst children and young people, nurtureuk believe that all pupils, in particular vulnerable pupils with SEN, would benefit from a whole-school nurturing approach that embeds a nurturing culture to improve the mental health and wellbeing of all pupils and staff in a school. 

• Children with SEMH needs should have access to a classic Boxall Nurture Group, which have been proven to improve the social, emotional and behavioural wellbeing of children and young people, and to reduce exclusions.

6. Nurtureuk is a charity that aims to break cycles of low achievement and tackle social exclusion by ensuring that an unequal start in life does not mean an unequal chance to engage with learning.  We work to ensure that every disadvantaged or disengaged child has access to a nurturing intervention in mainstream school to equip them with the skills and resilience they need to make the most of learning and school. 

7. We do this by supporting the development of nurturing interventions in schools through training, resources and support.  Nurture interventions include the classic Boxall Nurture Group® and a whole-school approach to nurture, the National Nurturing Schools Programme.  They are educational psychologist-designed, teacher-led interventions for disengaged and troubled children that remove behavioural barriers to engagement and attainment in schools through recreating missing or distorted early attachments.

8. The Boxall Profile is a unique online assessment instrument enabling teachers to develop a precise and accurate understanding of individual children’s social and emotional competencies, and to plan effective interventions and support activities. It is a highly regarded diagnostic and assessment tool and is currently the most popular measurement used in schools in England to understand the wellbeing and support needs of their pupils (Department for Education, 2017, Survey: supporting mental health in schools and colleges).

9. Nurtureuk recommends that schools use the Boxall Profile to gain a better understanding of the wellbeing of their whole school populations. By profiling all children in a school, the teaching staff have a more rounded view of the children and young people in their care and can identify children and young people who may have additional support needs at an early stage.

10. The National Nurturing Schools Programme (NNSP) is a whole-school approach that upskills teachers to embed a nurturing culture to improve the mental health and wellbeing of all pupils and staff in a school.  This is in line with the recommendation in the Education Committee and Health Committee’s joint 2017 report, ‘Children and young people’s mental health – the role of education’ for schools to adopt “a whole school approach that embeds the promotion of well-being throughout the culture of the school and curriculum as well as in staff training and continuing professional development”.

11. With one in 10 school children suffering from a mental health problem, rising rates of exclusions and worrying levels of stress and exhaustion among teaching staff, the NNSP offers schools a way to develop a happier, more resilient and more successful school community.  The NNSP is based on the six principles of nurture that have successfully underpinned nurture groups for over 40 years. These are:

• Children’s learning is understood developmentally
• The importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing
• All behaviour is communication
• The classroom offers a safe base
• Language is a vital means of communication
• The importance of transition in children’s lives  

12. Nurtureuk recommends that all schools take a whole-school approach to supporting the wellbeing of their pupils, such as the NNSP.

13. Nurture groups comprise of six to 12 children or young people who have SEMH needs supported by two trained adults.  Nurture groups are, on average, provided five times a week for two to three hours per day per child, and are the only intensive psychosocial intervention available full-time while allowing students to remain a part of their mainstream class. The average pupil will return fully to their mainstream classes after two to four terms.  Both part-time and full-time nurture groups have been found to work well and nurture groups are effective in both primary and secondary school settings.

14. There is extensive evidence of the positive impact that nurture groups have on removing barriers to attainment for children and young people with SEMH needs and improving resilience, wellbeing and mental health.  For example, ‘The Impact and Cost effectiveness of Nurture Groups in Primary Schools in Northern Ireland’ (Queen’s University Belfast, September 2016) evaluated the impact of 30 groups in Northern Ireland and found them to be cost effective and “highly successful in its primary aim of achieving improvements in the social, emotional and behavioural skills of children from deprived areas exhibiting significant difficulties”. The evaluation shows that while 77.7% of children who entered nurture groups as part of the trial were exhibiting difficult behaviour, this reduced to just 20.6% at post-intervention test. 

June 2018