The accreditation is part of the Council鈥檚, 鈥極ur Children, Their Nurturing Education (OCTNE) Strategy鈥, and aims to ensure that children and young people have the emotional support they need to thrive.
The schools that have received bronze accreditation in this round are: Carradale Primary, Castlehill Primary, Drumlemble Primary, Dunoon Grammar, Glenbarr Primary, Rockfield Primary and Strone Primary.
The Council鈥檚 Educational Psychology Service, including the Principal Teacher of Nurture and two Nurture Teachers, have supported schools to create plans that will help staff to better understand pupils鈥 behaviour, and put into practice nurturing approaches to support them. It also enables pupils to learn to understand their emotions and self soothe more.
As part of the strategy, the team has developed a series of successful Nurture Podcasts to provide support around the nurture principles to practitioners across the UK and beyond.
Caroline Armour is the Head Teacher of Dalintober and Glenbarr Primary Schools.
Talking about both schools鈥 nurture journeys, she said: 鈥淓verything has been accessible, able to be delivered at our own pace and informally supportive which has been key to getting 鈥榖uy in鈥 across the board.
鈥淕lenbarr has just been inspected and it was clear that the value of nurture and relationships within school communities 鈥 and, in particular during and after the challenges of the pandemic 鈥 is going to be a current inspection focus. I would like to thank the OCTNE team for all their support.鈥
Policy Lead for Education, Councillor Yvonne McNeilly, said: 鈥淚 am delighted to see more schools in P站色情片 and Bute being accredited for their work to develop nurturing cultures.
鈥淭he positive mental health and wellbeing of our children and young people has always been a top priority, both for me personally and for the Council, and our nurture strategy is helping to ensure our schools are equipped with the knowledge required to support pupils through any difficult times.
鈥淲e have made huge progress and I look forward to seeing it continue to go from strength to strength.鈥
The Council鈥檚 nurture teachers have been involved in delivering training through P站色情片 and Bute鈥檚 probationer teacher programme and will present a session as part of the University of the Highlands and Islands PGDE programme.
Education Scotland also recently featured the strategy in its national thematic review around Health and Wellbeing, and it is set to be included in their National Improvement Framework scrutiny report to exemplify Teacher and Practitioner Professionalism.
You can view the strategy on the Council website.