The Thrive Approach

Why have we adopted a Thrive Approach at West Lancashire Community High School?

• Young people’s behaviour is linked to the way they feel and our emotions are linked to how we learn.
• Learning to recognise and notice these feelings and emotions can support their development and learning.
• Everyone has a right to feel safe, valued, special, appreciated and included.

 

The Approach

The Thrive Approach focusses on 6 development areas, all with milestones that need to be met at each stage. The Thrive approach identifies healthy and interrupted development and through assessments, practitioners can identify strategies and activities to support the interrupted development through 1:1 or small group work.

 

Students will have their own profiles and will have a range of targets to work towards to ensure they can manage their emotions and feelings using a range of strategies that are implemented across the whole curriculum.

 

Who are our Thrive Practitioners?

 

Mr Dave Mullen Key Stage 3 Thrive Practitioner	Mrs Danielle Gibbons Key Stage 4 Thrive Practitioner	Mrs Louise Holcroft Key Stage 5 Thrive Practitioner	Mr Fulvius Fernandes Family Practitioner

 

Each Thrive Practitioner will support each department to implement whole group and individual profiles and provide support for the delivery of strategies and activities.

 

Each Thrive Practitioner will undertake bespoke 1:1 sessions with identified students in specific Thrive areas.

 

What methods do we use?

 

The Thrive Approach is an ethos that we have adopted. One method our staff will use is PACE. Below is a breakdown of how we implement the PACE approach.

 

P	Playfulness Adults should be – open, available, flexible, engaged, have a sense of fun and be imaginative and connected.
A	Acceptance Acknowledging the child and their emotional state as being true and valid, and representing this back to them.
C	Curiosity Showing authentic interest in finding out about the child and their experience.
E	Empathy Being alongside the child without negative judgement

 

 

VRF’s Vital Relational Functions These are the techniques that adults use when supporting a young person’s emotional state during a crisis.

Attune This is where you are alert to how they are feeling. You demonstrate that you understand the intensity, pitch, pace, volume, expansiveness, or special experience of the child’s emotional state.

Validate This is where you are alert to the child’s experience. This needs to happen before you move to help them regulate it. This is the beginning of being able to think about feelings

Containment This is where you demonstrate that you understand the pitch, intensity, quality of their feeling or mood and that you can bear it. This where you show that you can take their deep distress, raging anger or painful sorrow and make it a survivable experience. Catch it, match it and digest it by thinking about it and offering it back, named, in small digestible pieces. This builds trust for the child, in you, in adults and in the world.

Soothe, calm, stimulate This is where you must be alert to how they are feeling and demonstrate emotional regulation by soothing and calming their distress. Catch it, match it and help the child to regulate the feeling up or down. They need to experience being calmed before the can do it for themselves.

 

Thrive in Key Stage 3

The underlying ethos in Key Stage 3 is to build trusting relationships with our students.  We value the power of a smile or saying a child's name.  We recognise that our students have their own journey's and experiences that affect how they may present to us.

Thrive forms an integral part of how we co-regulate and support our students through challenging experiences.  All behaviours are communicating something to us and through the Thrive approach we try to understand what they are trying to tell us.

Our goal is self-regulation for all but this starts with co-regulation supported by staff.  We do not use vocabulary such as 'punishment' or 'consequences' and focus on 'personal responsibility'.  All of our Thrive approaches are trauma informed and link closely with The Zones of Regulation.

Below is an outline of the activities we do at the start and end of each day.  The links are included if you wish to use the videos at home.

Day	Morning session	Afternoon Session
Monday	Body Scanner	Mindful Colouring
Tuesday	Belly Breathing	5-Sense Treasure Hunt
Wednesday	5 Minute Meditation	Line Drawing
Thursday	Thought Bubbles	Sweet and Sour
Friday	Bubble Bounce	Real Bubbles