Offer positive strategies and support for promoting emotional wellbeing and mental health

Nurture groups are a short-term, focused intervention for children with particular social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Typically, groups consist of up to a dozen pupils who spend time within the nurture group according to need and are supported by two staff, both trained in nurture theory.   

They provide opportunities for social learning and for children to engage with nurturing experiences they may have missed, resulting in attachment difficulties and developmental trauma. The aim is to provide pupils with social and emotional skills and help them to develop resilience and strategies for managing everyday challenges.  

Typically, nurture groups benefit children and young people who: 

• find it difficult to deal with stress and anxiety or to ask for help 
• get easily frustrated and fear failure 
• lack a sense of self-worth 
• find it difficult to build relationships and share resources or attention with others. 

 Top tips 

• If setting up a nurture group for the first time, try to visit existing groups in other schools first. 
• Establish monitoring and evaluation procedures to assess the impact of your provision. 
• Ensure that at least one member of staff has received training in nurture group theory and practice (see below). Knowledge of areas such as attachment theory and social and emotional learning are also extremely valuable. 
• Develop a pupil selection process that is understood by staff and parents. Boxall Profiles (see below) may be one way to assess children who would benefit from nurture provision. 

Further resources 

• Find out more about nurture groups.  
• Access more information about nurture groups staff training. 
• Learn about the Boxall Profile (a tool for assessing social and emotional difficulties). 
• Share this booklet about nurture groups with colleagues and parents. 
• Read this case study about developing a nurture group for secondary students.  

In addition to the universal provision schools provide, some pupils will benefit from individual support. The nature of this will depend on both the needs of children and young people and the resources available. 

Many schools invest in specialist training for staff (in particular, for teaching assistants) to help them support individuals and small groups of pupils. As with other aspects of this benchmark, as well as benefiting pupils themselves, the investment often pays off in terms of improved behaviour and engagement with learning. 

Interventions may include specific therapeutic support (generally carried out by external providers) as well as support delivered by members of staff with specialist training. They may be delivered in small groups or one-to-one. 

Therapeutic support might comprise inputs from an educational psychologist or counsellor or clinical approaches such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). 

Schools-based support could include things like: 

• play, art and Lego therapy 
• emotion coaching 
• mentoring 
• circle of friends 
• therapy dogs or other animals. 

Top tips 

• You can monitor the impact of interventions using tools such as the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (see below). 
• Attendance, behaviour and achievement data may also be valuable in assessing the benefits of interventions for individuals and groups of children. 
• Different interventions will be effective for different pupils so, as well as assessing pupil needs, consider auditing the skills available in-school and the types of external provision on offer when planning specialised staff training to ensure that you can offer a range of support. 
• Seek support and advice from public health teams, local authorities and specialist mental health services and organisations about local services and training.   

Further resources 

• The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is one way schools can measure children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. 
• Check out this toolkit which provides a useful introduction to a range of evidence-based interventions that can be used to support children with SEMH needs. 

Most young children and many teenagers will, on occasion, find it difficult to manage their emotions. Others (particularly those with a range of conditions such as autism and ADHD) may require specialist help, but all will benefit from whole-school approaches to identifying and regulating feelings. 

Improving self-regulation enables pupils to remain calm, cope with their emotions and respond appropriately to their environment. It helps them to engage with education, form relationships and develop self-esteem and also results in reduced anger incidents and frustrated behaviour. 

Schools that support wellbeing effectively understand that behaviour is a form of communication and that ‘bad’ behaviour often signals that a child is struggling to process their feelings. In such circumstances, simply ‘punishing’ the behaviour will be ineffective and also lead to further negative feelings such as shame or a sense of failure. Providing support to identify and manage those feelings is more effective. 

As well as considering how individual children can be helped to self-regulate via conversations, time-outs, mentoring, counselling, etc., schools can use whole-school approaches such as zones of regulation or more targeted support such as that offered by trained emotional literacy support assistants (ELSAs). 

Top tips 

• Ensure that school policies take a relationship-based approach to managing behavioural issues and focus on providing pupils with the skills to regulate emotions. Employ restorative approaches and focus on interventions designed to de-escalate behaviour incidents. 
• Invest in specialist staff training around social skills, anger management and solution-focused approaches. 

Further resources 

• Find local ELSA training. 
• Look at the ELSA resources for primary and secondary schools. 
• Access the TES zones of regulation resources.  
• Use the Twinkl resources for managing emotions.  

The value of pupils taking greater roles within school decision-making is increasingly recognised. Encouraging pupils to take on leadership roles and supporting them to develop the qualities and competencies this entails can be a valuable way to promote self-esteem and help them to develop resilience and other skills to support their own wellbeing. 

Rather than reserving leadership roles for pupils who are seen as being the most able or confident, schools should consider how they can also enable more vulnerable pupils to see themselves as potential leaders. 

Some ideas include: 

• Appoint pupils as school ambassadors (for example, anti-bullying or wellbeing champion). Ensure that these roles are meaningful and that, where relevant, training is provided. 
• Involve pupils in staff recruitment. 
• Establish peer support, buddying, play leader and pupil-led mentoring or coaching programmes. 
• Encourage pupils to share expertise and teach each other. Get teachers and other staff to ask pupils for advice – particularly those with low self-esteem or who struggle to see themselves as ‘experts’. 
• Create frameworks of responsibility within classrooms. Check in regularly with post-holders, praise their performance and show that you value their support. 

Give pupils opportunities to both influence and implement decisions that affect their school and the wider community. Encourage pupils who would benefit from such opportunities to stand for election to the school council and other bodies and also consider the options listed below.   

Top tips 

• Involve children and young people in decisions about teaching, learning and assessment. 
• Think beyond traditional leadership roles and where possible, create positions to suit particular pupils. 
• Form partnerships within the wider community to support the creation of other leadership opportunities. 

There is strong evidence that participating in extracurricular activities increases self-esteem and positive social behaviours among children and young people. It helps to develop resilience, build confidence and promote good mental health. Such activities provide opportunities to succeed, master skills and respond to challenges in a positive way without the pressure of assessment or exams. 

Participation also supports the development of friendships – often with children and young people outside pupils’ usual social groups and who have similar interests. This in turn promotes the development of social skills and a sense of belonging. Arts-related activities, in particular, help young people to express their feelings. 

Crucially, these activities should take place in an environment that is less competitive, formal or pressured than much of the school day. 

Activities could include: 

• team and individual sports and martial arts 
• clubs associated with interests, games or cultural background or identity (electronics, web design, quizzing, caring for animals, chess, gardening, LGBT or BIPOC club) 
• book or writing groups 
• campaigning or volunteering 
• pupil publications, newspapers or radio stations 
• performing arts  
• visual and creative arts and crafts (animation, sewing, woodworking, photography, jewellery making). 

 Top tips 

• Host as many activities as possible on site to make them easy to access (for example, build a school garden or bring in tutors to support specialist sports). 
• Work with other schools to make more activities viable. 
• Run an event to publicise all the activities on offer.   
• Canvas pupils for ideas of activities they would enjoy. 
• Provide opportunities and facilities for pupils to set up and run their own clubs and share skills. 
• Share information about other activities available locally and invite practitioners to offer ‘taster’ sessions, if possible, in school. 

Having a range of dedicated quiet spaces available within school can aid the provision of specialist support and encourage children and young people to seek help when they need it. It can also assist them to self-regulate by learning when they need to take a break and providing a welcoming place to practise their own strategies for supporting wellbeing. 

These spaces can take many forms depending on the age and needs of your pupils and the use to which they are put: 

• Offer more ‘formal’ spaces where children can meet with counsellors or other staff for one-to-one sessions or small group support. Make these spaces as attractive and welcoming as possible – for example, by including pupil artwork on the walls and having drinks and snacks available. 
• Provide nurture or sensory rooms for children with additional needs.  
• Allocate spaces where children can go specifically to calm down with help from staff trained in supporting self-regulation. These might contain resources to aid with mindfulness or art therapy activities. 
• Establish quiet corners in primary classrooms where children can go for brief time-outs as and when they need them, or similar spaces out of class for secondary students.  
• Set up outdoor spaces such as peace gardens, wooded areas, gazebos or other areas where children can play quietly or chat with friends. 

Top tips  

• Regularly discuss the role and value of calm spaces to ensure that there is no issue or stigma attached to their use. 
• As with other provision, consider how such spaces combine to offer a mixture of universal and targeted support and meet the needs of all pupils. 
• Some locations may be designated for pupils who are referred by staff but ensure that there are also places that all pupils can access themselves if they need quiet time or a chat. 
• Where possible, issue more vulnerable pupils with ‘time-out cards’ which allow them to access support whenever they need to without having to seek permission from other staff members. 
• Think about the location of quiet spaces. Depending on their function, it may be useful to include them in the main school building or outside. Consider accessibility, the best way to encourage use and reduce stigma, proximity to other services and classrooms, etc.