Thrive

We have fully embraced Thrive at Old Sodbury School.

At Old Sodbury Primary School, we understand that the emotional and social-well-being is important for children to learn and flourish. As a school we always hold the emotional needs of our children at the heart of everything we do. To support our children even further we follow the Thrive Approach across the school and also have The Hive Room for children to use.

The Thrive Approach

Thrive is a specific way of working with all children that helps to develop their social and emotional well-being. It supports them in becoming more self-assured, capable and adaptable. Thrive can also help address any difficult and troubling behaviour and building a firm foundation for academic success.

At the heart of Thrive are the building of positive relationships and then using these relationships, along with play and creative activities, to give children key experience at each different stage of their development. These activities are then repeated to support their development, this then helps the children to:

feel good about themselves and know that they matter
increase their sense of security and trust
increase their emotional well-being
improve their capacity to be creative and curious
increase their self-esteem and confidence to learn
learn to recognise and regulate their feelings
learn to think before behaving in a certain way
the activities help the children top better understand their feelings and the feelings of others

How does Thrive work?

The Thrive Approach draws on the latest research into brain science, child development and attachment theory. It helps us to understand how children's brains develop, and how parents, teachers and teaching assistants can support this development by providing the best experiences for the children at each stage. Thrive helps us to better understand the children's needs being signalled by their behaviour.

Which children may benefit from Thrive sessions?

Thrive can support children who have encountered difficulties including:

friendships difficulties
the loss of a loved one
family separation
find managing their strong feelings hard
not knowing who to turn to when feelings are too big for them to cope with on their own

Not knowing how to deal with these situations can lead to sadness, anger, fear, frustration, loneliness etc. Children may also present with more challenging or disruptive behaviour. Although these feelings are normal in all children, the Thrive sessions help children to manage their feelings and help them back on track by providing strategies to help them feel more emotionally secure, which in turn leads to building their confidence in learning at school.

How will your child be involved in Thrive?

Thrive is a systematic approach using an online assessment tool which builds planned practical strategies, techniques and activities. The tool enables staff to assess children and check they are working appropriately for their age and ensure they are supported fully both emotionally and socially. As a school, we can then establish which children need further support with their emotional development both as a class, small group or individual.

What happens in a Thrive session?

Thrive sessions may be run on a one to one basis or small groups. Activities may include:

arts and crafts
sensory play
role play
games
puppet work

These planned activities will be designed to meet the children's needs and whilst building positive and trusting relationships can help children to talk about their feelings and open up discussions.