IQM Guest Writer
Emily Ruth Greenhalgh – Director, Proprietor and Headteacher of Hopefields School, Middlesbrough
“Hopefields are disruptors. We do things differently and are unapologetic about our high aspirations and expectations for children who live in the most deprived areas in the UK. Furthermore, the school ensures that every child matters; the results are transformative, with a profound and positive impact on all. This article documents our journey to greatness in setting up our school through The Nurtured Heart Approach.”
In March 2020, just before the pandemic, Alison and Emily decided to set up a school. Tired of the lack of aspiration for children in Teesside, but still wanting to teach, the credit card was ‘maxxed out’ within two weeks and the school began. Opening the doors to 10 students in September 2020, by January, we were full with a waiting list. This has not changed, with over 500 children now awaiting a place in a school of 40.
The current behaviour management systems in place across the UK schools today focus on Victorian theories of punishment and disconnection. Society has moved on: education has not. That does not mean we should allow children to choose their own being – far from it. Adults should be the consistent and authority figures in a child’s life that provide safety, scaffolding and support, thus enabling children to springboard into freedom of thought, with firm foundations in discipline.
Buck Branaman, horse trainer, famously quoted:
“Discipline isn’t a dirty word. Far from it. Discipline is the one thing that separates us from chaos and anarchy. Discipline implies timing. It’s the precursor to good behavior, and it never comes from bad behavior. People who associate discipline with punishment are wrong: with discipline, punishment is unnecessary.”
This is the Hopefields mantra. Discipline makes young people feel safe. It gives them confidence, resilience and is true – it does not give false egotistic feelings or patronises. Adults who are consistently in authority (but not authoritarian) provide this, therefore growing children’s greatness through the power of education.
During the time setting up Hopefields, we came across an approach that ‘felt right’ and opened up endless possibilities for us personally: The Nurtured Heart Approach. For a year, we worked on ourselves. The following year, we practised on our own children and partners. The one after that, we introduced it into the school as a transformative approach in connecting with children.
As an educator (and in life), the understanding of the self is most important and frequently forgotten. Teaching is being eradicated as a profession, and continues to be so whilst staff are not able to work on the self and of their practice in the classroom. The NHA aims to counteract this: at Hopefields we take time to think, which is so necessary to the age-old question: ‘What next?’. How do we get young people into school in the midst of the current attendance crisis? How do we make school a place where children want to be? How do we work with parents to get children into school, so parents fulfil their statutory and legal obligations? These are large questions that require more thinking, deep thinking, by professional people. People who can make small changes with little resources. This is us. It starts with us; the educators of today.
Our education system is relatively broken. There are some maverick approaches of people who are fighting for high expectations and who do not consider Ofsted and bow to parental / Local Authority pressure. Intense children, those with so much to give, are forgotten and deemed ‘no hope.’ Intensity became, at some point, a bad thing, a thing to be medicated or broken into submission. Children should be seen and not heard has become even more prevalent, and the onset of screens as a quietening approach has not helped.
At Hopefields, intensity is key to Nurtured Heart Approach thinking. Unfortunately, the word ‘intensity’ has negative associations in our society and teachers, parents and childcare workers can view it as the enemy. In the Nurtured Heart Approach® thinking we believe intensity is a powerful quality that, if developed correctly, can propel children onto amazing achievements. When a child learns to feel great about their intensity, the incidents of challenging behaviour dissolve.
Originally created by Howard Glasser in the USA in 1992, NHA consists of a set of strategies that assists intense children in further developing their self-regulation and has been found effective with children of all ages. It focuses on transforming the way children perceive themselves, their caregivers and the world around them.
Our upcoming webinar will explain and go into more detail around these concepts, and how you can use these stands in everyday life, taking this relationship-based approach into your school or organisation, transforming the communication you have with all stakeholders, providing clarity and improving outcomes.