Oxgang Primary School is situated in Kirkintilloch in East Dunbartonshire. The school roll is 243 children organised across ten classes. One third of the children live in Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) deciles one and two. The remainder of children live in deciles nine and ten, with a very small percentage living in deciles five to eight.

The improvement issue

Senior leaders and staff identified that a minority of children, including children with caring responsibilities, required support to manage their own wellbeing. A minority of children were demonstrating anxious and dis-regulated behaviours. These behaviours often led to conflict with peers, refusal to participate in learning and withdrawal from class and school activities.

What Oxgang Primary school did

Staff developed a range of approaches to address the wellbeing needs of children and their families.

The headteacher is using Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) to fund additional staff to implement a range of nurture interventions. Two nurture groups provide support for identified individuals across the school:

• Older children attend a nurture group in the morning to participate in a small group learning setting. They learn in their mainstream class in the afternoon.
• Younger children attend a nurture group in the afternoon where they follow an adapted curriculum, which learning often takes place through play.

Staff deliver a range of bespoke interventions to meet the wellbeing needs of individual children. These include access to a young carers group, a loss and change group and the local authority counselling service.

Staff support children’s wellbeing and engagement daily by providing emotional check-ins, calm social spaces and sensory breaks.

PEF is also used to fund a breakfast club to support children who find coming into school challenging. Staff in the breakfast club support children with transitions, arriving late to school and their attendance.

Staff identified children across a few year groups who were finding it difficult to manage relationships with their peers. To improve this, staff prioritise quality play opportunities. They provide regular child-led play and enquiry-based learning for these year groups. During these play opportunities, children develop their social skills, co-operation and their resilience.

All classes are provided with a range of engaging, active and challenging wellbeing activities to use outdoors. This includes scooting lessons and local rides, loose parts play, wild challenges and taster sessions from a range of local sports clubs.

Staff empower and support parents and carers to develop strategies to manage their own and their child’s wellbeing. For example, staff created a group for those parents of children who need additional support. This helped parents to understand specific barriers to learning. This group is now run by parents, and they successfully organise alternative activities for children who find whole-school events challenging. For example, the parents organised a crafting afternoon within our school nurture room, for children who would find the whole school disco overwhelming.

Senior leaders have developed robust approaches to assessing and monitoring children’s wellbeing. For example, observations, wellbeing and engagement assessments, and the views of children and parents are gathered and analysed on an ongoing basis. Senior leaders meet termly with staff to review assessment data and discuss children’s Health and Wellbeing (HWB) progress. They create individual plans for children who require bespoke support with their wellbeing. They analyse the data from before and after targeted interventions to measure children’s progress.

What the sustained impact has been

Targeted children, including those who present with barriers to learning, now have a better/improved understanding of their strengths and how to manage their own wellbeing. Children are now more confident in asking for help. They can articulate their needs well and regulate their emotions better using the inclusive strategies they have developed.

Evidence gathered shows a positive impact for over 90% of children who attend the breakfast club. Individual children’s attendance and lateness have improved. The breakfast club has also had a positive impact in supporting children transition from home into school.

An increase of opportunities to play has supported improvements in children’s social skills, co-operation and resilience when working with peers. Evidence gathered from pre, and post emotional wellbeing observations, highlighted that almost all children’s engagement and involvement during play opportunities had increased.

Staff report that almost all children across the school are regularly engaging with HWB programme resources. These support children to discuss and describe their feelings, especially after a transition or at a point of conflict with others. Staff report that almost all children have increased their use and range of emotional vocabulary.

Parents appreciate the ongoing support from school staff. The work of the parent group has been very successful. Parents are more empowered to lead, support each other and further develop the parent's group independently.