Nurture Group

Rainbow Fish

Welcome to our Nurture Group-Rainbow Fish.

What is a Nurture Group?

Nurture Groups are a small provision (8-12 pupils) with in a school, supporting children who have difficulties in the mainstream classroom, children attend on a part-time basis for a period of 2-4 terms.

The nurture room is designed to be a bridge between home and school, where missed learning opportunities are addressed to the individual’s profile of needs.

The sessions are led by specially trained staff, the relationship between the staff is always nurturing and supportive, providing a role model that children observe and begin to copy.

The purpose of Nurture group is to offer children opportunities to revisit early learning skills and promote and support their social and emotional development. Children’s learning is most effective when they have a sense of emotional wellbeing, good self-esteem and a feeling of belonging to their school community. Nurture provision provides children with this opportunity and therefore helps to develop their maturity and resilience, giving them skills to do well at school, make friends, deal more confidently and calmly with the trials and tributes of life, for life.

Who are Nurture Groups for?

There will always be children in school facing life challenges that detract from their ability to engage with learning. Children may attend sessions in Rainbow Fish for specific reasons, for example;

• Friendship difficulties- keeping / making friends
• Finding it hard to listen to others or join in
• To share and take turns
• Under developed language skills
• Being quiet / shy
• Find transition difficult- moving home, class
• Difficulty making trusting relationships with adults and other children
• Struggle with the mainstream classroom environment
• Low self esteem

How will Nurture Group help children?

Attending Rainbow Fish boosts confidence and self esteem and therefore provides children with the extra help sometimes needed to improve social skills and independence, for example:      

• Empathy
• To listen
• To share and take turns
• To settle into a particular environment
• To concentrate
• To accept losing a game
• To join in
• Build upon communication skills
• Manage situations and increase their skills to become successful learners
• Laugh with others and at yourself
• Learning acceptable ways of behaving
• Expressing likes and dislikes

Staff are committed to assessing the particular needs of all pupils and providing well organised and intensive support to overcome barriers to learning, enabling success back into mainstream class.

What do the children do in

Rainbow Fish?

The Rainbow Fish room is designed to have a nurturing home atmosphere, there is a seating area used for activities and snack time, a cushioned area for play, relaxation and work and an outside space which provides us with a much cherished garden.

Rainbow Fish takes place in the afternoon, children and adults follow a structure and routine around a theme for the session;    

• Daily register- self management skills
• Circle time- group listening and speaking
• Structured play- social interaction / individual and shared play
• Activity of the day- arts and crafts, baking, science, exploring the outdoors
• Snack time- social learning / attending to others needs.
• Story time and relaxation- enthuses on traditional stories, yoga breathing and stretching / mindfulness activity

​At each session children are made aware of what they will be learning and improving on. Staff provide a variety of experiences, approaches and resources to address the needs of individuals.

Parents and carers

Rainbow Fish considers its door is always open and welcomes parents /carers to visit and join the sessions. Invitations are sent out for special events.  Children always enjoy sharing their achievements. They proudly show of their scrap books, a record of their learning journey in Rainbow Fish.

You will be respected and valued and most importantly your child will be supported.