Queen Boudica Primary School

The Thrive Approach promotes children’s and young people’s positive mental health by helping adults know how to be and what to do in response to their differing and sometimes distressed behaviour.  The Thrive Approach is based on established neuroscience, attachment theory and child development and was developed over a 25-year period.

Within our setting we have trained Thrive Practitioners who oversee assessment of the whole school as well as individuals, deliver small group and individual Thrive sessions and deliver whole school wide training, so that all staff are able to use the Thrive Approach.

In recent years we have seen a decline in the mental health of our young people and also a decline in the services that can support children and their families with this.  The Thrive Approach enables the school to work swiftly with children and their families to put support in place, either as a solution or preventative measure or while a child is waiting for external services to become available.  Some children may need individual Thrive sessions over a long period of time while others may benefit from small group activities over a shorter period.  The Thrive Approach can be tailored to the individual need.

Over the past 12 months we have worked with many children delivering individual and group Thrive sessions, as well as training to staff.  This work has been invaluable in allowing the emotional needs of the children to be met so that they can then access a broad and balanced educational curriculum.

During the summer holiday 2020, the school undertook a project to transform an unused part of the school into a Thriving in Nature area to be used with small groups of children across all year groups.  Staff and parents collaborated in building work and the SENCo and SEN LSA have used this area throughout the year to deliver Thriving in Nature provision to small groups of children.

During these sessions the children were able to learn strategies to support them with their emotional wellbeing and growth and learn the neuroscience behind how our brains process emotions.  They were also able to experience outside learning as well as increasing their ability to work successfully as part of a group.