There is a nurture group at the school i work at, its kind of a new thing so i am not sure what goes on, but i know its for a few children in Yr1/2 who need extra help etc

Hi Summertime,

I know when I last spoke to them they were very concerned at getting it right, and also to give the youngsters a chance to ask questions. I know they were talking about having the senco, her ta, the school nurse, myself and possibly the EP present. The presentation will not be made by a teacher but possibly by the SENCO or myself.

There was also talk that it would be followed up later in class once the students had had time to consider things and the school has gauged the impact it has had on my daughter.

Actually, its just occurred to me the school nurse is not there all the time, an appropriate lesson has to be found, her TA just finished and has moved. So there could be some good reasons why things have not happened yet. Plus other developments at the school since Christmas may also have created other priorities which needed dealing with first.

any ideas what they are planning

id suggest things likeexamples of how hyper sensitivity can effect her, so maybe use a dictaphone to read out a shopping list with lots of background noise and ask the kids to write down the list, trying to read a book while someone is turning the lights on and off etc

also there are some good games to play with body language. one child leaves the room and the others make a secret rule, ie you can only talk if you have you legs crossed, then the other child has to work out what the rule is before they can join in.

My understanding is that I will be given some input before the event. However on the off chance I did provide some activities that could be used to demonstrate difficulties people can face. These included trying to do a fiddly job while wearing large gloves and some other ideas I got from a web page which discussed these sort of issues.

I like your ideas much better though as they are more relevant to the difficulties my daughter faces.

I help in the Nurture group at our school, I am in with year 7, there are 2 groups, one has reading age of 4/5, the group I am in has a reading age of 6/7. We were doing comprehension yesterday and the work was taken from a year 2 workbook and a few were really struggling with it.

It is a good idea though because a few of them have really come on

Carrie

I work as an LSA in year 6 at the moment for a boy with ADD and on the autistic spectrum, and I have been running a circle of friends for him for the last term.
we set it up originally because he was having problems in the playground, and we wanted to encourage his social skills.
It has been been helpful for him, but it has also been helpful for the other children in the group, I feel they have all benefited from it.

we run lunch time and play time clubs, some are just bring your lunch and others have activities set up, we also have what we call the haven, it is safe and run by peer support. some of the clubs are only for the lower years, but the club that i am involved in is open right across the board. many of the older one help now, and some wouldn't want their friends to know where they go at lunch time cause it would knock their street cred. funny how they don't want their peers to know how nice they are really!

we have what we call an integration group which is pretty much the same as a nurture group. when we get the students in the school at year 7 some of them have problems dealing with the 'big' school environment. some are ASD, some have behaviour issues and some are operating at a much lower level than year 7. eg currently we have a couple of lads that have reading and spelling ages of around 5 years and other difficulties like verbal dyspraxia.They spend some time in the unit and some out in mainstream classes. As the year goes on they spend more time out in lessons and increase the number of subjects they attend. It seems to work well in our school and these lads are progressing well.

Thought I'd join in the Nurture group discussions. We are in the throws of setting up a nurture group initially for ks1 children. we are currently doing the Nurture Group training, this involves among other things how to do Boxall profiles. Marjorie Boxall began nurture groups in the 1970's and they are developing now more than ever. I would recommend you all visit

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for some really good advise and guidance. The Boxall profile in a diagnostic tool and very good at assessing a childs emotional development stage and then recommends ways to meet the gap in needs. we have a large shopping list but no sponsors as yet, but it truly is the best way to meet their needs and get them ready to learn. If anyone knows of a pot of funding going i'd be interested to hear from you!many of our children have huge amounts of baggage and find it very difficult to cope with life- and at the age of 5 that is hard to imagine. This will be the first in this LEA that we are aware of, and we want to get it right especially as we are being watched carefully but more importantly we cant mess with young lives can we?
I wish you all luck with your groups and i hope we can support each other with ideas of good practise.

hi there tracey and glad you got back in

I used the boxall profile and still do occasionally as an initial assessment but its often hard to use to measure progress.

e.g. if you have a child who is very withdrawn initially, once they start to progress they may go through a period of acting out when they feel more secure in your company.

in the boxall profile this will actually raise their score and appear that they are worse than before but this is a stage they must go through.

I agree Summer, by the way thanks for you help to get me online!
The one thing the Boxall trainers were very adamant about was that , yes children will be up and down on the profile but it does show improvement or progress, it shows that what you are doing is having an effect. Taking into account the fact that children may be in a nurture group for up to 5 terms it is important to not stop especially when movement is apparent. Eventually the levels will come good and level out as their needs are met securely and consistently but importantly, over time.
I knew this would be interesting conversation!

the only other problem I find is that its so time consuming to fill in too, when we use it we do one to evaluate the child in a nurture setting but also get the CT to fill one in too to evaluate him in the class situation just to make sure that at least a little of the progress we are seeing in the nurture group is having some effect in the class and sometimes it takes a long time to see this progress in different settings.

trying to get the CT to fill it in sometimes is like pulling hens teeth and you often wonder if they are talking about the same child.

Ha Ha! yes hens teeth indeed, but that is an important part of the process isnt it - to get a better understanding of the child in his 'own element'.
Time consuming yes but very thorough! we may also use a less in depth assessment alongside boxall such as PAVES or the NfER assessment for emotional development as they aren't so time consuming. But this is the process we are clear we need to do in order to get it right for the big wigs at LEA who hold purse strings and are demainding proof that it will improve 'standards' before they will give it their 'blessing'.

Hens teeth and hoop jumping , along with the odd miracle- i feel like a circus performer not a TA!

oh I can soooooo understand where youre coming from there


as for funding, I'm afraid there is little around our area to be had and we have always had to be very creative as far as staffing is concernerd, but as for toys games and furniture, put out a plea to parents and staff but you could also try your local furniture store. when we set up someone gave us an old tatty sofa but it did the job, until the out of school club started to use the room and one of their kids jumped on it and broke it in two, I contacted my local furniture store and explained our dilemma and they donated a brand new sofa, its nicer than mine at home
its worth it to them for the publicity especially if yours is the first in the LEA so long as they get a photo in the paper, maybe even get a dining room table too

All good ideas, thanks. we have a fundraising agenda and were trying to be creative.
Well, this is sad isnt ut, 6.15 in the evening in the summer hols and were talking about work!
no doubt this debate will continue, thanks for that!