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Primary & Nursery School

Thrive

The Thrive Approach

What does it take to develop healthy, happy, confident children who are ready and open to learning? Recent advances in neuroscience, attachment theory and child development have provided some of the answers to this question.

The Thrive Approach draws on insights from these fields to provide a powerful way of working with children and young people that supports optimal social and emotional development. In particular, the Approach equips you to work in a targeted way with children and young people.

Social and Emotional Development

In the Thrive Approach we use a developmental model to help us understand how we develop socially and emotionally from birth through to adulthood. This model gives us a framework for understanding what healthy child development looks like in terms of behaviour and learning and clarifies what the role of adults should be in facilitating a child’s development at each of the different stages. In addition, the model gives us a lens through which to look at and interpret children’s behaviour, enabling us to identify the particular developmental needs being signalled by their behaviour and to choose appropriate, targeted interventions designed to meet those needs.

Thrive at Harlands

At Harlands we have adopted the Thrive Approach throughout the school. We have two qualified Thrive practitioners:

Mrs Julie Hiscox,

our full time Behaviour and Pastoral Assistant leads with Thrive in KS1 and KS2.

Mrs Jo Draper,

our Reception and Nursery teacher, runs our Early Years Thrive programmes.

Family Thrive

Mrs Hiscox is now a qualified Family Thrive practitioner and runs 6 week courses for parents and carers that introduce the fundamentals of Thrive and how it works in practice. In these sessions parents/carers can learn about the amazing growth of a child’s brain through childhood and help support their emotional development. Some of the key areas covered are:


  • how our brains develop

  • how your right brain talks to your left brain!

  • why play and creativity are so important to you and your child

  • how to support your child at times of change and difficulty

  • everyday trigger times and how to keep calm

  • how to be a behaviour detective

  • Thrive at Harlands