Therapeutic Team

Always believe in yourself!

Clapgate’s Therapeutic Approach

The Therapeutic Approach sits at the core of Clapgate Primary Schools values and ethos. By utilising restorative practices and recognising the importance of SEMH support, we can offer a range of interventions to support children individually. At Clapgate, the therapeutic approach is a way of addressing the social, emotional, and mental health needs of students within the school setting. This approach involves using various therapeutic interventions and strategies to help students develop coping skills, improve their mental health, and succeed academically.

Some of the interventions we provide are:

Drawing and Talking
1:1 Check in
Nurture
Circle Time
Sad Events

Play Therapy
Cool Connections
Circle of Friends
Time to Talk
Zones of Regulation

Who is part of our Therapeutic Team?

Miss Shires

Mrs Lawton- Leader

Mr Queeley

Find out some more about some of our interventions below:

Lego Therapy

What is Lego Therapy?

Lego therapy is an intervention that is run weekly. It is where children work together to follow instructions and construct lego together. The children take it in turns to build and supply whilst problem solving and listening to each other. The intervention is a great way to build relationships, and build social skills that sometimes children may struggle with. The children have built some amazing structures!

Zones of Regulation

What are the Zones of Regulation?

The ZONES is a concept designed by Leah Kuypers, licensed occupational therapist, to help children (and adults) gain skills in the area of self-regulation.

Self-regulation can go by many names, such as self-control, self-management, and impulse control. It is defined as the best state of alertness of both the body and emotions for the specific situation.
For example, when a child plays on the playground or in a competitive game, it is beneficial to have a higher state of alertness. However, that same state would not be appropriate in the classroom during a lesson input. The ZONES are designed to help the children recognise when they are in different zones as well as learn how to use strategies to change or stay in the zone they are in. In addition to addressing self-regulation, the children learn an increased vocabulary of emotional terms such as:

Skills in reading other people’s facial expressions
Perspective about how others see and react to their behaviour
Insight into events that trigger their behaviour
Calming and alerting strategies
Problem solving skills.

Our Nurture Group

What is Nurture?

A nurture group is a small, accepting learning environment created by a school to cater to the requirements of pupils who struggle in a standard classroom. Low student-to-teacher ratios and a focus on creating a loving environment that fosters social, emotional, and academic growth are characteristics of nurture groups. The curriculum can also be modified to fit the unique needs of the group of students. They are typically used for children who have gone through trauma, need extra help, or have social, emotional, or behavioural issues.

Our School Therapy Dog

Rufus Chester

Rufus joined the Clapgate family in 2019 and we cannot imagine life before him! He is always around to make the children happy and feel safe and calm. Rufus spends time in different classes throughout the week but also gets to spend 1:1 time with different children. He loves to go out at playtime and lunchtime with the children and run around, playing games. Rufus enjoys being brushed, stroked, playing catch and eating treats! He knows lots of tricks such as sit, lie down, and he can jump over and through our legs! Since Rufus joined us, the children have learnt how to be responsible for an animal and also how to act around pets such as not making loud noises or being rough. We absolutely love our school therapy dog and are so lucky that we get to spend every day with him!

Therapeutic Team

Clapgate’s Therapeutic Approach

Who is part of our Therapeutic Team?