Harefield Primary School, Southampton
Our Hamish & Milo Story
Harefield Primary School is a “nurturing and vibrant school” in Southampton, welcoming children from Reception to Year 6.
The school’s values focus on creating a safe, inspiring, and engaging environment where children enjoy coming to school and can achieve their best.
Their three core values are to:
Harefield Primary is part of The Hamwic Education Trust within the Edwin Schools Partnership, who work closely together.
Children’s emotional wellbeing
Children’s emotional wellbeing is a high priority for the school and there is recognition of a wide range of needs that the children have and a commitment to provide a range of support and intervention for the children and their families. Claire Sambles, Assistant Head and SENCO, leads the provision mapping and SEN approach, working directly with the Pastoral Team to ensure the best provision for all. The dedicated pastoral team consists of two ELSAs, Keri and Daisy, and a Family Support Worker, Tracy, who work hard to help children and families feel safe, supported, and nurtured throughout their school journey.
There is a strong focus on care, attachment-aware, and trauma-informed practice across the school, particularly within the pastoral team. There is acknowledgement of the difficulties families and children face, they are listened to, supported, and offered a wide range of interventions, signposting, and help to access the best care and support needed to manage school life, achieve their potential, and engage in learning.
Daisy, Tracy and Keri
Harefield Primary, as part of the Hamwic Trust cohort, was included in the initial phase of the Hamish & Milo research study with the University of Bath, beginning implementation in Autumn 2022. Following leadership and SEN team changes, the focus on pastoral work has gained even greater momentum within school priorities. Keri, Daisy, and Tracy work closely to plan and implement effective interventions and support to meet children’s developing needs.
Hamish & Milo is embedded as a core and strategic approach across the school. In the Autumn term of 2024 they developed their implementation of Hamish & Milo further by introducing the Families Together Programme to enhance their work with parents and families. After a successful pilot, additional groups are now being rolled out to support even more families as part of their overarching provision.
The Hamish & Milo Programme has become a central element of SEMH intervention and social and emotional learning at Harefield Primary, with a range of groups running each week.
Keri and Daisy have facilitated a range of the emotion-themed units of the programme: Resilient me, Finding me, Calm me, Exploding me, My friends and me, Amazing me, Celebrating me, and Actions, words and me. Children are carefully selected for groups based on their needs aligned with key emotion themes and group dynamics, with referrals made by teachers. Teachers are aware of the Hamish & Milo Programme via an informative display in the staffroom along with details of how to refer children they identify as needing additional support.
They frequently use the Hamish & Milo Compass emotional literacy skills profile tool to identify individual child strengths and areas of need for social and emotional skill development and to signpost to the most appropriate emotion theme unit. The pastoral team, working closely with Assistant Head Claire Sambles, allocates children to themed groups or one-to-one sessions, carefully considering each child’s social and emotional stage to ensure they receive the support that’s right for them.
Claire Sambles, Assistant Head and SENCO, reflects:
“The biggest impact of the Hamish & Milo Programme in school is the relationship building, the relationships between the children themselves and their relationships with us.”
A large, welcoming, and colourful space has been thoughtfully created by the team to support the pastoral, ELSA, and family support work. It fosters a real sense of care, safety, and belonging. Vibrant displays showcase and celebrate the children’s work and the experiences they have shared through the activities. The Families Together programme has been warmly received by parents and children alike, and a lovely central display of photos of the activities and special moments families have enjoyed together has been created for all to enjoy.
Staff room display and referral information
“We are supporting a lot more children within a structured group, some of the groups are mixed year groups so we are able to really target it for the needs of the children.”
Claire Sambles
Family partnership and Families Together
Family partnership is a key priority at Harefield Primary. Tracy, the Family Support Worker, has become a central strand of the Pastoral Team’s commitment to supporting families. Tracey is proactive and approachable and has developed strong relationships within the school community. She responds to needs via a range of methods such as providing a safe space to talk about experiences and struggles and creating opportunities to meet with parents in workshops, coffee mornings and other activities to support ongoing parent engagement.
Tracy already facilitated parent sessions and could see that the Families Together Programme would complement the work they already do and provide another way for families to come together, network and feel supported whilst gaining insight about what their children are learning in school and have quality time with their child during their school day, taking part in the team building family activities within the programme.
Tracy, Keri and Daisy trialled Families Together during the Autumn term of 2024, with a mixed-age range of children and their families. Despite some initial nervous anticipation, from the parents as well as the facilitators, the programme was well received and everyone was soon fully engaged. The sessions helped build connections, with participating parents developing relationships and enjoying the time spent with the children.
Team reflections
Tracy, Keri and Daisy reflected on the programme:
Parent feedback
A parent who participated in Hamish & Milo Families Together programme shared:
Impact for a specific family member
“When she first came, she was really struggling with her child. She was in tears from day one, because she just didn’t know what to do. She was at the end of her tether… then by about week five, she… She was like, I’ve got this. I can cope, I can do this! Just the empowerment she got and the confidence that she got from it. It gave you goosebumps… she was like, “and now, the time I spend with him, he’s my lovely little boy. You know, I don’t have to be telling him off all the time.”
“Mum started crying about something and he thought he’d upset Mum, but it was happy tears because he had said something really lovely about her.”
Families Together: Session two – Calm me
Being able to participate in one of the Families Together sessions during the visit to Harefield Primary was a privilege. Three parents arrived, and the session started informally with Tracy, Keri and Daisy providing an opportunity to share any thoughts from the previous weeks. The parents were open, honest and able to share their experiences and some of the challenges they faced. Everyone in the group was supportive of each other, offering ideas, support and kindness.
The session moved on to describing anxiety, how it affects us and then conversation about how the Hamish & Milo Programme helps children to recognise the sensations they are feeling and begin to put words to those feelings. Again the parents were able to share experiences with their children and even about themselves.
After the activity and discussions with the parents, the children arrived with hugs and excitement all around! The relaxation activity began with the children being given hand massages from their parents and then swopping around for the children to give their parents a reciprocated hand massage. It was a loving, calm and gentle atmosphere for the activity, which felt a bit strange at first for some of the children, however, they soon relaxed into it and enjoyed the experience of touch, calming movement and connection.
Everyone then closed their eyes for a visualisation thinking about a special place where they felt calm and relaxed.
Each session closes with time for reflection – and this time there was the added bonus of chocolate biscuits! Reflection time each week gives everyone the chance to share what they liked about the session and to talk about how it made them feel. In this instance, some participants said it felt strange at first, but once they relaxed into the session, they all enjoyed the experience.
Using Navigator to show impact
Navigator has been essential in measuring the impact of the SEMH intervention groups.
Navigator has been a significant tool to show impact, measure progress and give insight into children’s social and emotional learning.
Harefield’s dashboard shows that 121 children have taken part in 28 intervention groups, using nine out of the ten emotion theme units with Memories and me (loss, bereavement and grief) still to be used.
Amazing me, Calm me, My friends and me, Finding me and Resilient me have been used extensively and the dashboard shows significant positive impact outcomes for children which is in line with University of Bath Research Study evidenced outcomes.
Harefield Primary School Navigator Dashboard April 2025
Child voice and experience
During the visit to Harefield Primary there was an opportunity to talk with some of the children who have been apart of an intervention group.
Keri described how one child who had been reluctant initially of coming to Hamish & Milo groups was then involved in Families Together.
“On one particular day, he was really poorly but didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to miss the Hamish & Milo group later that day! He still came to school, managed all day to stay in class and cope with feeling sick… He held it together and then was actually sick in the session and had to go home early with Mum. That is how much it mattered to him to not miss his Hamish & Milo time with Mum!”
Ongoing plans
Hamish & Milo is a significant part of the wellbeing and social and emotional strategy for Harefield Primary School. The Families Together programme has been a highlight so far and is part of the ongoing development strategy to build partnership and deepen the sense of community within the school.
Harefield is a model of practice and approach and it was a real pleasure to visit the school and see Hamish & Milo in action!
