The Educational Psychology Service has been involved in supporting the development of nurturing approaches within Aberdeenshire schools. Our aim is to support all schools to develop nurturing approaches so that children and young people have the best chance to learn in school.
To do this we have developed a training package which is a combination of face-to-face and online learning. This has been delivered to over 500 staff from primary and secondary schools across Aberdeenshire and there are currently more staff being trained.
The sessions focus on developing an understanding of the core theories underpinning a nurturing approach before moving on to explore how nurturing approaches can be delivered at a whole-school level. A follow-up course has also been developed which supports practitioners who are looking to introduce a more targeted approach to nurture develop this for within their setting.
Staff are invited to engage with an audit tool throughout the training which supports their own professional learning and goal setting. In addition, staff are supported to identify different self-evaluation tools which can help them to evaluate the impact of the approaches they implement. The evaluation information gathered thus far indicates that for the staff involved, the sessions have increased both their knowledge of nurture and their competence to put the ideas in to practice.
On-going advice and consultation will be provided by the school’s Educational Psychologist as practitioners move forward.