For everyone at Ladywood Primary and Nursery School, our first priority is to care for every child in a safe and friendly environment. 

Children cannot always put their needs and feelings into words, but the way children behave can tell us a lot about how they are feeling. In the old days children who were finding life hard were sometimes given harmful labels, like ‘naughty’ or ‘very shy’.

The Thrive Approach draws on the latest research -from current neuroscience, recent attachment research, current studies of effective learning and current models of child development – in order to help the school to understand the needs being signalled by children’s behaviour. It gives us targeted strategies and activities to help them re-engage with learning and life.

Children who need a little bit of extra help are identified through our whole-class screening process, by class teachers, or through communication with families or outside agencies. For some children there may be an obvious reason why they need a bit of extra support. This might be bereavement, family break down or an identified medical condition such as ADHD. For others, there can be no obvious trigger to why they are finding some aspects of school and/or home life difficult.

Working closely with parents and class teachers, our Thrive team carry out full assessments of identified children’s social, emotional and behavioural needs. This helps us to build a bespoke Thrive Action Plan of activities to support their needs.

Every child at Ladywood will access Thrive activities (although they may not realise it); most art, sport or Forest School activities are taught within the Thrive Approach. Your child may need regular out of class Thrive time (one-to-one sessions or in a small group), to support their social and emotional wellbeing. Thrive is just like any other learning intervention. If children find aspects of their learning tricky, we give them extra support, and it’s the same with social and emotional learning, if they are experiencing emotional difficulties, they will be given additional support. 

For more information about the Thrive Approach, visit the Thrive Approach website.