At Heath Mount Primary School, every child matters and all children need to feel safe, valued, special, appreciated and included.

We want every child coming to our school to feel happy, content and confident, ready to embrace the day in our secure, caring and friendly environment.

However, some children face many challenges, which means that some of their social and emotional needs may be greater than those of others.

By using The Thrive Approach, we will help support and guide the children in our care to allow them to develop emotionally and distinguish between their feelings to help them manage these appropriately.  

The school is very proud of its dedicated team of Thrive Licensed Practitioners who are able to offer support to both children and families with behaviour, special needs, attendance and emotional stability.

Our Thrive Licensed Practitioners

• Mrs Khan
• Mrs Smith

 
We aim to:

• Provide alternative support for children who are experiencing emotional, social or behavioural difficulties.
• Provide a safe and calm environment for children to develop their skills.
• Enable children to take pride in their achievements and enhance self-esteem.
• Help children to manage their feelings and develop skills to enjoy and participate in school life.
• Use positive approaches to manage all behaviours.
   

What is Thrive?

Thrive is a therapeutic approach to help support children with their emotional and social development. It is a whole school approach based around the latest research into the role of creativity and play in developing emotional resilience.   The Thrive approach offers practical strategies and techniques and is built around online assessments which identify children’s emotional development and provides action plans for their individual needs. Whole classes can also use Thrive techniques and activities to address any issues or as part of PSHRE sessions in school.

Research has shown that how we behave is linked to how we feel and our emotions are linked to how we learn. By teaching children to recognise and notice these feelings and emotions it can help with their development and learning.

Children  sometimes need some extra support with their emotional growth and this can be temporary or over a longer period of time.

Who has Thrive sessions?

In our school, everyone does! Though they might not realise it. All of our pupils have access to class-based Thrive activities.  Each class has Thrive sessions as part of PSHRE in areas such as sharing, turn taking, the importance of rules and respectful behaviour. Many children will respond to the care, understanding and support given by parents, family, friends and teachers. However, some children need a little bit extra.  We understand that some behaviour is the children’s own choice, however, there are times when children become dysregulated and may need further support in order to regulate themselves.  

At Heath Mount Primary School, our staff uses strategies in order to do this so that pupils can strive to do the right thing and make appropriate decisions.  We recognise that behaviour is a form of communication and that there is a reason behind every behaviour.

Some children will also require individual or small group sessions. Just like adults, some children experience difficulties during their time at school and theses difficulties may also be present at home. The thrive approach enables us to pick out the specific difficulties and plan activities to address theses difficulties.

Some of the typical areas we work on in Thrive sessions are:

• Getting on with others during playtime. 
• Settling into classroom routines. 
• Managing strong feelings and emotions. 
• Forming positive and sustainable friendships. 
• Knowing who to turn to when their feelings are too big for them to manage on their own.
• These situations can lead to many different feelings which may seem overwhelming at times. They might include: anger, frustration, sadness, loneliness, confusion or anxiety.

All these feelings are very normal and happen to a lot of children. The Thrive sessions are to help children learn to manage their feelings and teach them strategies that will help promote their learning at school.

The Calm Room

We have a new calm room installed as part of our on-going provision for Thrive. Our calm room helps children calm down and focus on themselves so they can be better prepared for learning and interacting throughout the rest of the day.