Lytchett Matravers Primary School, Dorset
Our Hamish & Milo Story
Lytchett Matravers is a relatively large primary school whose ethos centres around children being valued, happy and confident. The school vision is to enable children to:
“Strive to achieve, learn to dream, shape tomorrow.”
The Headteacher Simon France sets the ethos and culture of the school in his welcome statement.
“We are a school where there are expectations of excellence, where individuals are valued, achievements are celebrated and where children are happy, confident and secure.”
There is a culture of wellbeing, with a team of pastoral staff led by Heather Helm, SEND & Inclusion Lead, who provide a range of interventions including Hamish & Milo, ELSA support and Forest Schools. The ethos centres around “caring relationships where children and adults are valued as individuals, diversity is celebrated and respected” and where values of “fairness, honesty and integrity” are seen as important aspects of school life.
There is further recognition of this in the 2015 Ofsted report which states: “Staff demonstrate outstanding relationships with children.”
“They feel very safe and are exceptionally well cared for.”
It was a pleasure to visit Lytchett Matravers Primary School and to see Hamish & Milo in action. On my arrival, I was met by Heather and taken to join a Hamish & Milo intervention group run by two of the schools ELSAs, Hazel Talbot and Karen Farwell.
The children were involved in the New Beginnings and Me intervention programme, and as I entered the room, they all had their sock puppets with them and were engaged in an activity. The session was ‘Circles of support’ where the children were thinking about people who are special to them and who they could talk to within their family and wider networks. It was so lovely to hear the children sharing their ideas and creating their own interlinking circles of support, which are then joined together with split pins and would become part of a display in the Rainbow intervention room.
The children were keen to share their special people and one child was bursting to share how his sock puppet pet was special to him! “My sock puppet is who helps me.”
I was later to hear about another year 6 child who is new to the school. The ELSAs described how he has a difficult home life and keeps his sock puppet under his pillow at night after completing the Amazing me – self-esteem intervention.
“His sock puppet pet helps him feel not so alone and scared at night. He keeps his whole pack under his pillow and every night takes his puppet out to talk to. It has become his friend.”
Karen and Hazel continued to share how they were surprised about the impact of the puppets. “We didn’t know it would work, but the children love them. Every one is so different and individual.” Hazel explained. Karen added how “even the parents were excited by the puppets… one parent even made a sock puppet pet with their child at home.”
It was so lovely to hear the depth of impact the programme is making for so many children.
Circles of support activity
Both Karen and Hazel enjoy running the groups together. They feel running the groups between them helps them to think about the children, notice changes in them that they can talk about and they feel that sharing the experience by co-delivering, helps make a greater impact. It is also building their confidence in delivering the sessions. “It also means we can help each other when sad stuff comes out.” Hazel said.
“I didn’t realise quite the level of impact but now thinking about all we have done and the impact on all the children, I’m really thinking we are making such a difference.” Hazel said smiling with the realisation.
The wellbeing profile shown here showns the difference between pre and post intervention of a child in year 6. One of the most stark contrasts is the descriptor; ‘Lacks positive friendships, may seek friends but struggles to be included or often involved in fall outs.’ This moved from ‘sometimes’ to ‘never’.
The same child also experienced a big shift in descriptor ‘Can appear dismissive or defensive to any perceived negative feedback’ from ‘Often’ to ‘Rarely’ after the intervention.
“The children never want the sessions to end and if they miss one they always want to do it another time to catch up. I never expected them to love it as much as they do!” Karen added. “The children are able to make friends with other children like them, who have shared experiences and suddenly they feel they have others who are like them and new friends. It is lovely to see.”
Heather highlighted too how the children “are verbalising things they wouldn’t have verbalised before.”
Some of the highlights for specific children included a girl who didn’t want to come. “We couldn’t force her but we encouraged her to come just once to try it, but it turned out to be amazing for her and she came every week after that and her confidence really grew.” Karen described. Another girl was able to share things about her homelife. “She felt safe enough to talk in the group about things she had never spoken about before.” Hazel said.
“There was another girl with no confidence at all who took part in Amazing me. She wasn’t mixing with any friends and we were worried she wouldn’t come again but she began to talk and talk. She first talked about her gerbils and by the end she was really involved and part of the group. Now you see her out with a group of friends and we’ve had no tears either now!” Karen described.
“One of our boys in the self-esteem group was so quiet too. he would sit with his hood up and wouldn’t speak at first, but slowly and surely, he began to get involved. The puppets were a hit for him and he wanted to take his puppet out to play!”
As part of the strategic approach, Hamish & Milo is being delivered now as a core intervention for the ELSAs and protected time has been important to prioritise the approach. Staff have been made aware and the school has included information in the newsletters out to parents and on the website.
Laura Dominey, the Deputy Head, recognises how:
“It has really empowered our ELSAs, just giving them another level to enhance the great work they already do. It is the structure and the content that makes the difference and they can then use their own experience to develop it for our children.”
It was such a lovely experience to visit Lytchett Matravers and to see the intervention in action. The children were so keen to share their ideas and it gave me a real insight into how the intervention is being used across the school. There are plans now to develop the approach and to involve another ELSA, Andy Spence, to deliver further groups. There are plans to run another Amazing me programme as well as My Friends and me and Memories and me.
I am very much looking forward to hearing more about how Hamish & Milo is to be embedded across the school and to hear the ongoing highlights from the staff and children at Lytchett Matravers Primary School.
