Children, families and staff at a South Ayrshire school are celebrating after being recognised with a national award for its nurturing culture. Dalmilling Primary has been awarded The National Nurturing School Award, the first in Scotland to do so.
The National Nurturing Schools Programme allows staff to develop and embed a nurturing culture throughout their schools. They do this by enhancing teaching and learning, promoting healthy outcomes for children and focusing on emotional needs and development as well as learning.
Assessors from NurtureUK were impressed by the quality of evidence produced through the audit along with comments from children, parents' staff and community partners.
The Award was presented by Kevin Kibble CEO of NurtureUK at a school assembly which included invited guests from the local community, parents and all children and staff.
Councillor William Grant, South Ayrshire Council's Portfolio Holder for Lifelong Learning said the award was well deserved, "To have become the first School in Scotland to be recognised with this award is a fantastic achievement of which everyone at the school should be rightly proud.
"We're committed to support learning and development opportunities for children and families and the work we're seeing at Dalmilling is a shining example of a school that is helping to deliver a rounded experience for children and their families.
"I'd like to congratulate all those who put so much hard work and effort into creating a caring and nurturing environment, with the results leaving a positive legacy for the community."
Gaenor Hardy, Headteacher at Dalmilling said the award was the result of a team effort, "We're proud of our achievement that every member of the school community has contributed to and the impact is children who are motivated, engaged and enthusiastic to participate and reach their potential.
"We have a strong focus on being safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, and included and this permeates through everything that we do.
"The purpose for us is having a whole school nurturing ethos because we passionately believe that the principles of nurture are not something to be applied to small groups of children but a non-negotiable right for every child."
The Nurture programme provided training for two staff from Dalmilling. There was then a rigorous audit and assessment process. The programme taught the school to identify where nurture already existed and ways in which they could improve.