Teach-Primary-18.3

L I SA P I GG SPACE Making How one school used a four-step process to create new nurturing environments 66 | www.teachwire.net I n September 2018, I walked into my new school. I’d been offered the post when two children from my previous school had transferred there, and I had unfinished business. I was nine months into being a new SENCO: I needed to do my qualification and the two children who had transferred were midway through an Education Health Care (EHC) needs assessment with the Local Authority. Straight away, I could see that SEND was a massive area of need, but it was being swallowed up by safeguarding concerns and put on the back burner. I needed to get SEND back on the agenda. The school had three pupils with education, health and care plans (ECHPs), and that was enough for me to question what we as a school could, and should, be doing. 1. Identify and nurture It soon became apparent that even though the three children with EHCPs had the correct provision in place, more needed to be done to support all of our school’s pupils with SEND. At the time we only had one nurture space, which was specifically for our Reception children. This wasn’t enough even then, and during the following five years the number of children with SEND difficulties increased massively and continues to do so. We brought in two new members of staff, who had a great vision for the future of the nurture space: it would be a place that could build the children’s sense of achievement, and where they could grow positive relationships and friendships within the school community. The space, now called Patch, and based around a farmyard-themed doll who loves and nurtures vegetables, provides role play areas and reading corners as well as sensory areas to help children develop their resilience and independence. All children within this provision now have a Boxall profile and a strengths and difficulties questionnaire filled in by their class teacher each term. This provides us with vital information that we can use to track and guide our planning. It’s a great tool and there are many versions available online. 2. Create a calming space In January 2019, we had our next vision: the Den. With an ICT suite surplus to requirements when the school bought more laptops, we ripped out the desks and purchased a sofa to bring the Den to life. Initially, this space was for one child, who couldn’t regulate in the classroom and spent most of his days wandering around school with a Teaching Assistant following closely behind him. We needed to work with him on his strengths and help him communicate his behaviour more positively. Next to our new Den was a set of toilets that were never used, so we ripped those out too, creating a calm room with padded walls and safety glass, which was another space where children could go to regulate. The Den is now dedicated to providing children in KS2 with coping strategies, and has been a huge success. “SEND was a massive area of need in our school, but it was being swallowed up with safeguarding concerns” However, there is another element of the Den which is undeniably one of the children’s favourites – Bella, our adorable phantom cockapoo, who was recently joined by her sister, Honey. 3. Outdoor learning Fast-forward to March 2020 and Covid-19 made school become a very different place. Our vision for children to be able to access both their classroom and a nurturing space was now impossible, thanks to the introduction of ‘bubbles’. Even Bella needed to stay in her own bubble. It was, however, a good time to get outside and develop our outdoor learning area.