The Nuture Base
The Grange Therapeutic School now has a fully functioning Nurture base. This has been set up as some of our children have generally missed out on early learning experiences and the opportunities to form secure attachments with significant adults.
This has resulted in a wide range of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties which we feel can now be most appropriately nurtured within this nurturing context. All pupils have access to the appropriate national curriculum but this is delivered within a context that simultaneously supports the development of social and emotional skills and recognises and meets the needs of young children who are functioning at a lower level (both socially and academically) than would normally be expected at their current chronological age.
Our nurture base rooms are intended as educational settings but clearly include elements of a secure and supportive home alongside the normal classroom furniture.
Beth Hodgson (Head of Lower School) and Katherine McKenna (class teacher) along with Dr. Tina Rae have recently published their book, Nurturing Social and Emotional Skills. The book not only sets out to explain the rationale for developing the programme and adopting a ‘nurturing’ approach at the Grange, it also contains the social and emotional skills programme which is set out in easy to follow activities based around the five SEAL domains.