At St Germans 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 that is able to offer support to both children and families with behaviour, special needs, attendance and emotional stability.  

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.

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.

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.

Thrive promotes their emotional and social growth by building positive relationships between a child and their peers and helps them explore and understand their feelings through various activities.

Why might my child attend a Thrive session?

Many children experience difficulties during their time at school. These may include:

• Difficulties with friendships.
• Getting into trouble at playtime.
• Finding it hard to settle in the classroom.
• Finding it difficult to manage their strong feelings.
• Not knowing who to turn to when feelings are too big 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.

What will happen in a Thrive session?

The session may be on an individual basis or as part of a small group of children. During each session there will be an activity which may include:

• Story telling
• Circle games
• Arts and crafts
• Sand play
• Movement and relaxation
• Cooking and preparing food
• Role play and puppet work
• Games

More information

For more information about the Thrive approach see the website: www.thriveapproach.co.uk or contact the school office on 01803 214100

Resources

We are very proud of the resources we have built up to support our children. Most of the resources are based in our special Rainbow Room. Other resources are accessible around our school.

Other activities:

Forest School

We are always looking for ways to encourage the social and emotional growth of our children, ways that they can learn to work together and face challenges together co-operatively.

We have developed our Forest School to encourage curiosity and exploration. Our activities support risk taking and develop self esteem through hands on experiences in a natural setting..

Our Health and Wellbeing Governor is Dr Claire Brewis