Principal of Camphill Primary School, Mrs Karen McMaster
Plans for a brand new Nuture Room building will help staff to continue delivering “an outstanding education” for the pupils at Camphill Primary School in Ballymena, according to Principal, Mrs Karen McMaster.
As a local school devoted to offering the best start in life to every child, Camphill strives to meet the many needs of every young pupil, including providing a dedicated safe space where they can flourish emotionally.
With a strong focus on pastoral care, the school has led the way with its Sunflower Nuture Group, where children can develop and grow. The group meets in a unique home-from-home setting, designed to be just like a normal home with living area, kitchen and dining area.
Up until now this has been accommodated within the current building, but with funding made available from the Department of Education and recent local authority planning approval, the fantastic child-centred educational approach will itself flourish with a new dedicated modular building.
Above: Elevations of the new Nurture Room building. Below: Location and floor plans
The new unit will provide the Principal and staff team with an enhanced resource to support children who may need extra help to settle, listen, concentrate, share or just make friends.
Children participating in the Sunflower Nurture Group will be shown how to understand and moderate their emotions by a specially trained teacher and classroom assistant. During the interactions in the home environment, positive relationships are also modelled by the teacher and classroom assistant, with an emphasis on developing language and communication skills.
While Camphill’s dedication to delivering education in a child-centric environment is not new in itself, the new building will boost the school’s nurture programme and ultimately bring greater benefits for the young lives who attend every day.
Principal Karen McMaster is excited to see the plans beginning to finally come to fruition. Karen said:
“We are delighted to be extending our provision in Camphill with an additional new building which will become our new Nurture Room in Autumn 2024.
“The Department of Education has funded this additional provision since Sep'23 in school and further announced earlier this school year that a new multi-purpose modular building will be added to our school grounds to facilitate the delivery of Nurture in Education.
“We are very much looking forward to having the additional facilities in the Autumn Term of 2024 as this will ensure we can continue to deliver an outstanding education to our pupils.
“Camphill PS is all about moving forward, being innovative and being inspirational and offering all of our pupils the best educational opportunities possible in life.”
Find out more about Camphill Primary School by pressing or clicking HERE.