Lead of Nurture Support: Heather Oakes

Curriculum Intent

Keyham Base enables pupils to develop positive relationships, manage change and work within a variety of sensory exposures so that pupils are equipped with the skills to explore, be curious and be resilient in their education and a future of flourishing independence.

Keyham Base

Keyham Base is an environment in the school that employs the nurture approach to learning, whereby there is a predominant focus on the emotional needs and development as well as the academic learning of all pupils. The pupils taught in this environment have identified needs in their:

• Social interactions
• Sensory needs
• Developmental needs
• Communication needs

Pupils may have been assigned to this group because they fulfil one or multiple of these criteria. However, for each of the pupils the threshold criteria questions are also applied:

• Can pupils access the education in the main school independently?
• Do they develop positive relationships with peers and adults?
• Can they manage transitions without placing themselves or others in a position of vulnerability?
• Do transitions or sensory exposures cause crisis behaviours?

Pupils are base lined using Boxall profiling and receive interventions from specialist therapists or therapist designed programmes linked to the skills that they need to develop.

It is important to note that: ‘The nurture approach suggests meeting each child at their developmental stage and using strategies and creating targets to help a child progress towards being comfortable in relating to and receiving instructions from others and working in groups, as is expected in a mainstream classroom. In the nurture approach, professionals' understanding of the child is holistic and based on their strengths and areas for development rather than on purely academic targets’ Nurturing-Schools-Pack-FINAL.pdf (glowscotland.org.uk).