Nurture
Welcome to West Cliff’s Nurture Page
At West Cliff we are dedicated to each child as a whole and want to nurture and develop everyone as an individual, no matter what their starting point in life or experience prior to starting within our setting or one they may encounter along their journey with us.
Our aim is for them to thrive within our environment, with their needs and emotions being understood and allowed to flourish.
We achieved the National Nurturing Schools Award in December 2023, following our work with Nurture UK.
We received a glowing report, which included lots of positive comments.
‘West Cliff is a happy place to be. You want them to enjoy school and they certainly do.’ (parent)
‘I really like school. It is a very calm place.’ (pupil)
‘The school does a lot for [staff] wellbeing.’ (staff)
‘The senior leadership team regularly reflects on workload to make it more manageable.’ (staff)
‘The difference that school has made is amazing. I can’t put it into words.’ (parent)
‘If we need anything, we can turn to each other. ‘There are so many knowledgeable staff who are always willing to help.’ (staff)
‘We are part of something bigger: a trust-wide family that supports and nurtures us too.’ (staff)
‘Everyone is extremely caring.’ (parent)
‘Everyone is safe and kind.’ (pupil)
What is nurture?
The concept of nurture highlights the importance of social environments – who you’re with, and not who you’re born to – and its significant influence on social emotional skills, wellbeing and behaviour. Children and young people who have a good start in life are shown to have significant advantages over those who have experienced missing or distorted early attachments. They tend to do better at school, attend regularly, form more meaningful friendships and are significantly less likely to offend or experience physical or mental health problems.
The nurturing approach offers a range of opportunities for children and young people to engage with missing early nurturing experiences, giving them the social and emotional skills to do well at school and with peers, develop their resilience and their capacity to deal more confidently with the trials and tribulations of life, for life.
- Children's learning is understood developmentally
- The classroom offers a safe base
- The importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing
- Language is a vital means of communication
- All behaviour is communication
- The importance of transition in children's lives. The six principles of nurture were developed by educational professionals Eva Holmes and Eve Boyd (1999).
West Cliff Primary School - Our Nurture journey so far.
We began our Nurture journey in the summer term of 2020, with funding from the OA board in Scarborough. This was because of the discussions around exclusions in secondary school and the need for an approach for the coastal schools to address this. West Cliff and the YEAT trust joined this journey because Mrs Zanelli (CEO and headteacher of West Cliff) was sitting on this board and discovered that the principles of Nurture were the strands upon which we wanted our academy trust to stand.
West Cliff was also in the process of opening ‘the rockpool’ at this time and the model of a nurture group fit perfectly with out vision for this SEMH hub for Whitby children.
We are currently in the process of becoming a Nurture accredited school where the 6 principles of nurture will be embedded across the school and be the foundations on which all other areas of learning and development are built.
All children will have a Boxall profile done for them by a familiar and trusted adult. The Boxall Profile is an invaluable resource for the assessment of children and young people's social, emotional and behavioural development. The Boxall Profile helps with early identification and assessment, supporting staff to develop their observational skills and their understanding of children and young people's difficulties. Target setting and intervention can then be pulled from the assessment and individualised, achievable targets that reinforce behaviour and skills can be addressed. Finally, the assessment can help staff review children and young people's target behaviour.
The Boxall profile of children working within the Rockpool and those with SEMH needs within the school will have individual programs of work developed and delivered to address their developmental needs and to address behaviours that inhibit or interfere.
The Rockpool
The Rockpool opened in West Cliff Primary school in November 2021. It is an 8 place Targeted Mainstream Provision (TMP) for children with an EHCP for the primary need SEMH. The provision for each child will be tailored to their individual needs – with academic input, work on their EHCP targets, addressing the gaps in their Boxall profile. Each bespoke timetable will ensure that gaps in each child’s development will be reduced and that their strengths and abilities nurtured and allowed to flourish with a small, safe environment but also with time within their year groups to ensure they have social interactions and develop friendships.
