The Early Intervention Service

What are the underlying principles and ethos of The Acorns?

Child-centred therapeutic educational settings where 'every day is a new day'

'The Acorns Centres' have a positive, 'Nurturing' ethos, incorporating Nurture Group principles and drawing on Attachment Theory and Systemic thinking.

The Centres have been specially adapted to provide small, secure but homely school environments where each child's emotional, social and curriculum needs can be addressed at their different developmental levels.

Pupils can follow their Individual Education Plan and are given 1-to-1 support as needed, and take part in small and larger group work as appropriate, within the framework of an adapted Early Years / Key Stage 1 curriculum.

Also, in recognition that complex emotional / social / behavioural difficulties are frequently accompanied by developmental issues, opportunities are provided for pupils to catch up on, and weave back in early experiences they may have missed for various reasons.

Provision of a garden, cooking, creative activities and a covered play area facilitates some of this work.

Thinking about what might have contributed to each pupil's difficulties

The 5 and 6 year olds referred by schools usually have great difficulty making and/or sustaining relationships with other children and adults, are underachieving and unable to manage school life in a large mainstream class. They frequently have great difficulty managing their strong feelings.

Their behaviour, for example, may range from extremely aggressive and disruptive to highly anxious and withdrawn: they may lack the ability to attend and concentrate or be unwilling to comply. They may display one or many of these behaviours at home and school and contributory factors can be wide ranging.

They may include early hearing loss, language delay, medical conditions, family relationships and break-up, parental illness, bereavement or neglect, poor attendance and undetected disorders and/or specific learning difficulties.

It is also necessary to bear in mind school factors such as staff turnover and class composition, and the possibility that extremes of behaviour may be associated with undetected child protection issues.

Developing the capacity to predict, attend, listen and stay on task

Within the Centres the high staff ratio enables pupils who have been identified as unable to learn appropriately within the large class setting to be offered a highly structured and language-enriched daily routine.

This incorporates elements of normal classroom requirements but also allows time to promote conversation, introduce the language of feelings, and to address the emotional/social needs of each child, together with their behaviour that interferes with the constructive learning process.

Developing trusting relationships and the ability to relate to adults and peers

Over time, the experience of adaptation to the individual child's varying needs enables them to develop attachments and trusting relationships with the staff, to develop their basic literacy and numeracy skills and to verbalise rather than act out their strong feelings.

Strategies for managing anger, solving problems and getting along better with others at home and in school are taught. In particular, emphasis is placed upon developing each pupil's social understanding and collaborative skills, and structured use of play and playground games are daily experiences provided to consolidate this learning.

Searching for the meaning of troubling behaviour, breaking the pattern of learning to fail and building self esteem and resilience

Through a team approach of encouraging and rewarding curriculum achievements and appropriate positive behaviour, combined with a commitment to try to understand and address the meaning of any child's misbehaviour, pupils are helped to develop a sense of self worth and self control.

As they begin to learn without fear of failure, experience success and gain confidence, and predict how their behaviour will be dealt with (through the use of clear rules and consequences consistently and persistently applied by all), they slowly develop a sense of control over their environment and develop new ways of relating.

This enables them to go on and internalise positive ways of relating and give up inappropriate or unacceptable ways of behaving. However, the pace at which this all happens varies greatly.

Thus, a possible outcome of the ongoing assessment during placement at 'The Acorns' may be identification of the need for a statutory assessment, or the involvement of other agencies.