Nurture

Why is the subject important?

Nurture is an intervention designed for students who cannot access the traditional curriculum in the same way it is being taught to their peers. Wherever possible, students are taught the content which they are missing in the subjects they miss in order to fit Nurture into their timetable.  However, they are taught these subjects by their Nurture teacher with a much higher level of differentiation. There is a significant focus on literacy within all Nurture lessons as students need to develop their literacy skills in order to access all other subjects. Furthermore, it is an essential skill for success in adult life, which we must ensure all students are able to cope with.

Year 7, 8 and 9 Nurture Lessons

In Year 7 Nurture, the first five terms of the year focus on securing phonics knowledge and language comprehension necessary to read, and the skills to communicate so that they build the foundations for future learning. In Year 7 term 6 and Year 8 and 9 Nurture lessons, each two weeks is based upon a different theme that allows students in Nurture to go beyond the national curriculum. We are acutely aware that students need exposure to a wide range of different topics and texts in order to close the reading gap as 90% of vocabulary is encountered during reading and not through everyday speech. Our termly themes (spanning 6-7 weeks) give students an opportunity to touch on elements of the national curriculum they cover in other subjects, as well as on topics that go beyond the national curriculum and that have been selected to broaden their cultural awareness and spark their curiosity and interest through using interesting and authentic texts to develop vocabulary and language comprehension. Each lesson has a phonics theme too. This is so that students continue to hone their phonemic awareness and manipulation of phonemes until they can automatically process it.

How can students ‘catch up’ with these subjects if they leave Nurture and rejoin mainstream lessons?

Students study Nurture instead of French or Spanish and humanities. We strongly feel that, unless our children have a secure grasp of phonics and can read a wide range of texts with confidence, they do not have the foundations to future learning and will struggle to access the full range of subjects we offer. Nurture students are assessed each week and are NEALE tested three times a year. This means that we can judge if and when our Nurture students are ready to return to mainstream lessons. They will join a French or Spanish group that has been put together specifically for students who have been in a literacy intervention group and they will be able to go straight back into a mainstream humanities lesson as they are taught humanities through Nurture each week. Students in Year 7, 8 and 9 Nurture will complete the same humanities subject at the same point of the year, to produce a feeling of continuity and to make sure that content is interleaved, giving the students the best chance of retaining it. They will complete history, geography and RS in terms 1, 2 and 3 and then will repeat the pattern in terms 4, 5 and 6.

Year 10 and 11 Nurture

We work towards all students re-entering mainstream lessons by the end of Year 9. However, in some cases, this isn’t the right pathway for our Nurture students. In 2022-23, we have a small group of students following the Nurture pathway in Year 10 and a small group of Nurture students following the pathway in Year 11.

The Year 10 Nurture curriculum equips students with the knowledge, skills and cultural capital they need to access the GCSE English Language and Literature curricula. From this Nurture curriculum, students will have 5 additional literacy lessons per week with an English teacher to focus upon:

1. The context of the KS4 English core texts (something that our weakest students find challenging)
2. SPAG, content and analysis within their examination style answers
3. The structure of an English Language exam question response
4. The difficulties that they have faced that week in their mainstream English lessons
5. Equipping students with the skills to become independent readers and writers.

Our Nurture students’ needs are unique to them. No two students are the same. This means that our curriculum map is reviewed at the end of each term, lessons learned and the curriculum map adjusted and adapted.

Which lessons do students miss in order to study Year 10 and 11 Nurture?

Students studying the Nurture curriculum in Year 10 miss humanities, RS and Option C lessons. Literacy is a skill for life and we strongly believe that students who need significant literacy support in Year 10 and 11, receive it. Poor literacy skills may adversely affect their life chances.