WELL BEING and NURTURE
Alongside what we do at school, there is a lot you can do at home to support your child's mental health and well being.
Below are some websites that you may like to use with your child to encourage mindfulness and support well being.
- Cosmic Yoga
- Meditation for Kids, Headspace
- Calming Class, Flamingo Chicks
- Improving Children's Mental Health, Place2Be
Children often like predictability and using a visual timetable at home to prepare them for activities is often useful. We use visual timetables at school so children know what activities come next in their day. We use them in school by popping up the day's lessons and then removing each picture once the activity is completed. Would your child benefit from this at home too?
Mental Health Leads and Learning Mentor
We have a Mental Health Lead (Mrs Parrott) and a Deputy Mental Health Lead (Mrs Lannon) who both oversee and deliver provisions to support children's mental health. Please see below. Small group interventions as well as 1:1 support for children such as regular check ins, small social interaction groups and social stories are just some of the ways in which we offer support.
The Nest (Nurture Group)
Our wonderful Nurture Provision (known as The Nest) is a proven effective school provision to help the children further develop their personal, social, emotional and communication skills in a smaller nurturing group. Provision include circle time, interaction and problem-solving games, sensory activities, art and snack time.
The Nest may run at different times during the school year and is led by our Learning Mentor and a Teaching Assistant. Teachers will work closely with parents/carers should their child be selected.
Feelings Club
'We all have the right to feel safe, all of the time'.
Feelings Club focuses on developing children's understanding of personal safety. It develops their emotional literacy skills and explores the link between their feelings and behaviour, encourages good communication and helps to identify networks of support.
We will work closely with parents/carers of children attending this club.
PSHE
Please click on link to see teaching and learning for Personal, Social, Health and Emotional education.
Bear Zones
Zones of Regulation is an approach used to support children to further develop their social and emotional skills. Essentially, it helps pupils to better understand their feelings, as well as teaching strategies to aid them in regulating their emotions and behaviours.
Pupils are taught to associate their feelings (negative and positive) with a colour in the first instance and then use vocabulary to describe it e.g. 'I am feeling red' (for angry, mad, out of control) or 'I am feeling green' (for calm, ready to learn and happy). The children also then develop a 'toolkit' whereby they have a strategy to use for specific feelings e.g. 'I am feeling red/angry, so I will go to the calm zone and read a book'.
Every classroom is set up with a 'calming zone' where children can go to regulate their emotions and behaviours.
You may want to set up a 'bear zone' at home. Below are some display resources you are welcome to use.
Ideas for helping children to calm
Executive Functioning
At The Grove we are developing the children's executive functioning skills. Executive Functioning Skills are the processes that help children focus, remember and mange their behaviours. Through structured and supported play, problem solving activities, supportive routines and learnt scripts we help our pupils to be flexible in their thinking, control impulses and manage their behaviours. In Spring 2026 we introduced 'Aware Bear' who will represent a different theme each time. In Spring 2026 assemblies, teaching and interactions taught the children how to 'stop, think and talk' before acting.
