Our Nurture Class has the key role of promoting early intervention and inclusion in school. It is part of a strategic school plan and features regularly in our School Development Plan.
At our school, we all believe that the provision of the Nurture Class, which we aptly christened The Yummies Club, is a positive development and should be an integral part of an early intervention strategy for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.
Both the nurture class teacher and the learning support assistant aims to give our pupils many opportunities to develop his or her learning skills as well as the abilities to manage their feelings and get along with their peers. Through these experiences our pupils develop the skills necessary to operate better in their mainstream classroom group.
A typical nurture group day at Floriana would first be by sitting around a table and have breakfast. Everybody will then be assigned roles to clear the breakfast area. The children will then talk about their feelings by sitting in a circle. Here our pupils will be told what is expected to happen during the day. Rules will always be said and reinforced. The pupils will then start doing some literacy and numeracy as planned with their classroom teacher. Here the children are encouraged to work silently and the nurture class teacher together with the learning support assistant monitor, assist and aid the pupils in all their individual needs. The day will be followed either by story-telling or arts and crafts. Free or structured play will then follow. Both the teacher and the learning support assistant will play with the pupils accordingly. Once a week a cookery session is also prepared and done. All children participate eagerly during this activity and they will be delighted to taste their own food! During lunch time children can also toast their own lunch and everyone eat together.
At the end of the session we will evaluate our day and rewards will be given. We will celebrate our success during circle time. At times those pupils who truly behaved, can bring a friend from their class to stay for some time with us during a nurture group session. In order for all this to happen, our students must feel safe and secure. We work hard to encourage these feelings in our students through the ways in which we talk to them and by providing appropriate activities that help the children develop a sense of belonging to a group.
Since Scholastic Year 2008/2009 we have embarked on a whole school strategy making use of Jenny Mosley’s Quality Circle Time model. This is a whole approach to setting up and maintaining a positive management system to:
ö promoting positive relationships
ö creating a caring and respectful ethos
ö helping children develop their self-esteem and self-confidence
ö providing efficient and effective systems and support for all staff
ö creating great lunchtimes and playtimes
ö nurturing the creativity in all people in school
ö Promoting social and emotional development of all children
All classes were presented with a set of golden rules. Emphasis was put on these rules every day, especially every Friday when the special Assemblies were organized. The golden rules were displayed in all classrooms.
Representations between the school administration and higher personnel in the DES, thru’ the college Principal, started in January 2009.
A Professional Development Meeting for all members of the staff was organized in January 2009. The animator was Ms. Brenda Cefai, a member of staff, who was reading for a masters degree in SEBD. In May 2009, the head of school invited Dr. Carmel Cefai, from the University of Malta, for the whole day SDP Seminar. This was done in full commitment of setting up the Nurture Class as from the beginning of the current scholastic year.
