Nurture Groups in School and at Home

Connecting with Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

Paul Cooper, Yonca Tiknaz

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781843105282
• eBook ISBN: 9781846426001
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the ways in which pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties can be effectively engaged in schooling - either in school or at home. It explains the social and emotional underpinnings of learning and presents practical strategies for aiding engagement.

Nurture groups, originally devised and implemented in the 1970s, are specially designed classes that cater for pupils having difficulties in adjusting to the requirements of mainstream classrooms. Paul Cooper and Yonca Tiknaz present evidence of the success of nurture groups from the perspectives of the children participating in them, their parents and school staff members who manage nurture groups in schools, and examine what factors affect the success of the group. From this they draw key messages for effective practice, including the fundamental importance of recognising a child's emotional needs and meeting them, and the pivotal role of the relationship between the teaching staff co-ordinating the group.

Nurture Groups in School and at Home will provide essential information and accessible advice for teaching professionals running nurture groups in schools and for parents and carers running them at home.

CHAPTER 1

Nurture Groups

This chapter describes social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and introduces the nurture group concept, describing what it is that nurture groups set out to achieve. It also introduces the basic underpinning assumptions of educational nurturing by exploring the relationship between learning, feelings and behaviour. In other words, this chapter introduces the basics of ‘educational nurturing’ and gives a brief introduction to some of the issues that are dealt with in more detail later in the book, such as why some children might benefit from being placed in a nurture group.

DEFINING SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIOURAL DIFFICULTIES

It is useful to think of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) as an umbrella term incorporating a diverse range of behaviours ranging from ‘acting out’ behaviours such as aggression, non-compliant behaviour, vandalism and bullying, to ‘acting in’ behaviours such as social withdrawal, anxiety, depression, extreme passivity, eating disorders, substance abuse and self-harm. Acting out behaviours have a tendency to receive more attention from parents, teachers and the wider community, because they impinge in negative ways on the lives of others. Acting in behaviours, on the other hand, are more likely to be hidden from public view, or even deliberately concealed by an individual. Authoritarian educational and parenting practices can be seen as key contributory factors in the creation and maintenance of both types of SEBD, since acting out behaviours are often modelled on coercive management styles, whilst acting in problems can be fostered in the recipient of such a management style.

One way of thinking about SEBD is in relation to mental health. It is a source of concern that prevalence rates for mental health problems among 11–16-year-olds are increasing. A recent publication by the UK’s British Medical Association (2006) estimated that 20 per cent of young people experience a mental health problem at some point in their development, and 10 per cent experience these problems to a level that represents a ‘clinically recognisable mental health disorder’. The range of problems includes emotional disorders (such as anxieties, phobias and depression); self-harm and suicide; conduct disorders; hyperkinetic disorders; autistic spectrum disorders; psychotic disorders; eating disorders; and substance and drug abuse. Twenty per cent of this group of young people are diagnosed with two or more disorders.

Of course, SEBD covers more than just mental health problems. Delinquency among young people often overlaps with mental health problems, and both of these major areas seem to relate to adverse social circumstances in the communities where young people live and the schools they attend. The young person who exhibits mental health problems and/or social deviance (including delinquency) is likely to have difficulty in engaging in the school experience and, in the absence of effective intervention, is at great risk of experiencing a deterioration in their presenting difficulties as they move towards and through the adolescent years (Rutter and Smith 1995).

A crucial factor that can be both a cause and effect of SEBD is what David Smith, in the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, describes as ‘attachment to school’ (Smith 2006). Attachment to school can be defined in terms of the degree of commitment towards and engagement in schooling that students feel. Students who have a strong attachment to school have feelings of attachment to teachers, and believe that success in school will lead to significant rewards in later life. Weak attachment to school is characterised by indifference or hostility towards teachers and scepticism about the value of schooling.

Weak attachment to school is not necessarily related to mental health difficulties, delinquency or social deviance, but is often a problem in itself that can lead to disaffection and alienation. These are problems of a psychological nature that impair the individual’s capacity for social and academic engagement that can, in turn, lead to reduced life chances.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO NURTURE GROUPS

Nurture groups are small classes in infant and primary schools for students with social, emotional, behavioural and learning problems. There are also nurture groups in secondary schools, but these are less common. A ‘classic’ nurture group has 10 to 12 students, and two staff, a teacher and a teaching assistant. A central aim of nurture groups is to provide students with a secure and safe environment that provides the conditions necessary for them to develop emotionally, socially and cognitively (Boxall 2002). In classic nurture groups, the lessons are highly structured and the nurture group staff ensure a supportive and routinised learning environment within which students’ experiences are carefully managed.

The authors of this book view nurture groups as temporarily separated transitional settings which enable students to cope more effectively with the demands of mainstream schooling. Nurture group candidates often present SEBDs which prevent them (and sometimes their peers) from engaging with the schooling experience constructively. Nurture groups are specifically designed to remove or reduce these barriers and therefore to prevent these children from disengaging with the education system in the early stages of their educational history. In addition, nurture groups can have profound and positive effects on whole schools, as well as on relationships within families, such as between carers and children and/or between siblings.

Nurture groups are not a new form of educational provision. They were devised by Marjorie Boxall, an educational psychologist, who set up the first groups in the Inner London Education Authority in the early 1970s (Bennathan and Boxall 2000) in the UK. Having gone through an initial period of popularity, which lasted for the best part of a decade, nurture groups dwindled in numbers, with many of the original groups being closed down (Bennathan and Boxall 2000). In 1998 a national survey found less than 50 groups in the UK (Cooper, Arnold and Boyd 1998). Current (unpublished) evidence (provided by Nurture Group Network in 2006) identifies over 400 groups throughout the UK. This figure reflects only those groups that have registered with the Nurture Group Network. Even at 400, this represents an 800 per cent increase over eight years. Since NGN records show that more than 3000 people have attended four-day award-bearing training courses preparring them to work in nurture groups, the actual number is likely to be much higher.

The possible reasons for this dramatic increase in numbers are complex. At this stage, it is sufficient to say that nurture groups have become a very popular form of provision, both with teachers and carers, at a time when there is considerable concern about the ability of mainstream schools to meet the needs of students with certain special educational needs, SEBD in particular. Changes in educational policy, such as the introduction of national tests for 7, 11 and 13-year-olds, have led to increased pressures in British schools which have been seen to have unfortunate consequences for many young children. Nurture groups appear to offer schools a way of helping children to engage with social and academic aspects of schooling. In turn, they are likely to help students to be more resilient in the face of external pressures such as national testing.

STUDENTS RECEIVE MORE ATTENTION

Nurture groups are specially designed classes that cater for students who are having difficulties in adjusting to the requirements of mainstream classrooms. It is generally believed that students who will benefit most from nurture groups are those who, for whatever reason, have a need for a classroom set-up that allows students to receive more individual attention than is often available in the mainstream classroom. This means that the students each have many opportunities to speak to adults and to get help with their schoolwork. It also means that the adults get to know each student really well. Nurture group staff also engage in intensive interactions with pupils to support them (Nind 1999). These factors combine to help the adults and the students work together in ways that enable each student to get access to experiences that will help him or her develop and improve his or her learning skills, as well as the abilities to understand and manage their feelings and get along with other children.

Some of the children in the nurture group, when they first start attending the group, will be very quiet and withdrawn, whilst others may have a tendency to be excitable and disruptive. Because the members of staff are able to give such close attention to each student, they are able to work hard at getting the quiet students to ‘come out of themselves’ by engaging them in conversation and designing activities that will gradually help them to feel more comfortable with interacting with other children. They are also able to help students to deal with anger problems and, by observing children carefully, spot the situations which normally lead to disruptive behaviour for specific students. Staff can then prevent disruption from happening. For example, they can do this by teaching the child specific skills for dealing with problem situations (e.g. how to deal with other pupils wanting to borrow equipment), by distracting students from the negative situations (e.g. engaging pupils in an alternative activity whilst the teacher deals with the request to borrow the equipment) and so on. This is not to say that nurture group staff are always successful in preventing students in the nurture group from misbehaving. It would be a very unusual pupil who did not misbehave sometimes. When students in the nurture group misbehave the staff will respond, dealing with the behaviour in ways that are designed to encourage pupils to learn that the best way of getting what they want is to behave in ways that are considerate of other people’s feelings.

LINKS BETWEEN LEARNING, FEELINGS AND BEHAVIOUR

Obviously, a key purpose of schooling is to promote students’ learning. However, it is increasingly apparent that the kind of learning that is supposed to go on in schools is often undermined by feelings of emotional insecurity that prevent students from concentrating and participating. In fact, nurture groups are built on the principle that the foundations of learning are emotional and social.

A very important feature of the nurture group approach is an understanding of the ways in which the kinds of learning that students are expected to do in schools is closely linked to how they feel about themselves, and how well they are able to get along with other students. It is argued that learning problems, such as difficulties in learning how to read, or problems with understanding numbers, can sometimes be the result of a child’s feelings of fear and anxiety which act as a barrier to the child’s engagement with the learning task. This reminds us just how stressful the whole business of learning in the classroom can be.

Every time a teacher asks a student to try to carry out a learning activity there is always the possibility that the student will not perform the activity as well as he or she might, or as well as the teacher expects, or as well as other students in the same classroom. We have all been in this situation as children, and we continue to experience similar situations in our adult lives. Although learning new skills can be fun, it can also be very threatening. When we succeed in learning something new it makes us feel good about ourselves. Success breeds success. Once we have succeeded in overcoming one challenge, we have a little more confidence the next time we are confronted with a similar challenge.

Students who benefit most from being in nurture groups are those who seem to have particular difficulty in engaging with classroom learning and getting along with other students in their age group, and who become anxious or angry when in learning situations. The nurture group provides a comfortable and caring environment in which opportunities are given to students that allow them to engage in activities according to their particular level of need. This means that students who have had difficulty in learning how to play will be given the chance to engage in play, at first with an adult, and later with other students and on their own. It is through these experiences that students develop the skills necessary to operate in a classroom group.

In order for students to feel confident about play and work it is important that they feel safe and secure. Nurture group staff work hard to encourage these feelings in their students through the ways in which they talk to the students, and by providing activities that help them develop a sense of belonging to the group. The nurture group room is also specially designed to help students feel comfortable and safe. This is achieved by having all of the features of a normal classroom (e.g. books, desks, whiteboard, computers) along with items that would normally be found in a comfortable home setting (e.g. carpets, soft furnishings, dining table, cooking facilities).

All of these features of the nurture group are directed at helping students feel secure, feel good about themselves, and feel able to work on formal National Curriculum topics and therefore make educational progress. In short, the nurture group sets out to help students develop positive feelings towards school, based on feelings of safety in the school setting; the experience of being cared for by the nurture group staff; the experience of success in getting along with other students; and the experience of achievement in learning activities. All of the time that students are in the nurture group, they are also keeping in close contact with their mainstream class. This prevents nurture group students from developing feelings of exclusion from their mainstream peers. After a relatively short period of time (usually between three and four school terms) they are usually able to return to the mainstream classroom on a full-time basis.

CONCLUSION

A key objective of nurture groups is enabling social and academic engagement. Social and academic engagement can be defined as children’s active participation in activities that are designed to promote or secure access to learning in the curriculum. Marjorie Boxall (Bennathan and Boxall 1998) has a very useful concept that helps us understand what is at the heart of nurture groups, when we think about them from a cognitive perspective (Cooper 2005). She refers to the organisation of experience which signifies the processes by which students give purposeful attention, participate constructively, connect up experiences, show insightful involvement and engage cognitively with peers. It follows from this that an explicit feature of the organisation of experience concept is social inclusion. Put simply, students become actively engaged in the formal learning activities of the classroom through social engagement with others – usually the teachers, teaching assistants and their fellow students. Crucially, this insight reveals to us the inappropriateness of views of teaching and learning that separate cognitive development from emotional development and the social context in which learning takes place. Integral to effective learning in classrooms is the facilitation of appropriate social engagement and the provision of an emotionally supportive environment. The educator brings subject and pedagogical knowledge to the classroom and enables students to access this knowledge through these combined processes. Nurture groups provide a powerful, working illustration of some of the practical implications of these insights.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

Chapter 2, A Nurture Group in Action, explores the practical ways in which students can be supported when they are in nurture groups. This includes an account of the organisational features and routines of nurture groups, as well as a discussion of specific features of a nurture group curriculum. In Chapter 3, What School Staff Say About Nurture Groups, we explore the views and experiences that are expressed by adults working in schools about nurture groups. The information for this chapter is based on research carried out in schools which have nurture groups in different parts of the UK. Three important elements of our argument in this chapter are: 1. the need for a whole school commitment to and support for the nurture group, which is based on 2. a shared understanding of the nature and purposes of the nurture group, and 3. the values underpinning the nurture group concept.

Chapter 4, Carers, Children and Nurture Groups, looks at nurture groups from the perspectives of carers who have children in nurture groups, and children themselves. As in Chapter 3, this chapter draws heavily on research carried out in UK schools and the first-hand accounts of carers and children with direct experience of nurture groups. A crucial feature of this chapter is the indication that the nurture group can act as a catalyst in the carer–child relationship, having positive effects which are experienced in the home setting. In Chapter 5, Selection of Students for Nurture Groups, we focus our attention on how students are selected for nurture groups. To explore this, we look at the decision-making process within schools, as well as some of the specific tools that are used to assess students’ suitability for nurture groups, such as the Boxall Profile. Emphasis is placed on the importance of consultation and effective communication in the selection process.

Chapter 6, Do Nurture Groups Work? Existing Research on Nurture Groups, examines research evidence that evaluates the effectiveness of nurture groups. The different forms that nurture take are highlighted in this chapter, as well as key factors that influence the effectiveness of different nurture groups. In Chapter 7, Involving Carers in Nurture Groups, we examine the roles that carers can play in helping nurture groups to be effective. It is argued that children often make the best use of opportunities provided by the nurture group if experiences they have outside of the school setting are consistent with the aims and purposes of the nurture group approach. This highlights the importance of the relationship that develops between the carer and the nurture group staff. Where this relationship is positive and based on mutual respect and understanding, children’s experiences in the family context will tend to build on and extend t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other Books in the Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Series Editor’s Foreword
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 Nurture Groups
• Chapter 2 A Nurture Group in Action
• Chapter 3 What School Staff Say About Nurture Groups
• Chapter 4 Carers, Children and Nurture Groups
• Chapter 5 Selection of Students for Nurture Groups
• Chapter 6 Do Nurture Groups Work? Existing Research on Nurture Groups
• Chapter 7 Involving Carers in Nurture Groups
• Chapter 8 A Model for Analysing Problem Situations: SALAD
• Chapter 9 What Makes a Successful Nurture Group?
• Chapter 10 Key Messages for the Practitioner
• Appendix
• References
• Subject_Index
• Author_Index