The Thrive Approach: Supporting Emotional Development in Schools

What Is the Thrive Approach?

The Thrive Approach is a developmental framework that supports children's social and emotional wellbeing in schools. Grounded in neuroscience and attachment theory, it provides educators with practical tools to identify emotional needs and deliver targeted interventions.

The model operates on a core principle: emotional security enables learning. When children experience unmet developmental needs, whether through early adversity or disrupted attachments, their capacity for academic progress diminishes. Thrive creates the conditions for self-regulation and readiness to learn.

Schools implementing Thrive use an online assessment platform called Thrive-Online to screen pupils and identify gaps in social-emotional development. The system generates action plans with age-appropriate activities for whole-class, small-group, or one-to-one delivery.

How Does Thrive Assessment Work?

The Thrive-Online platform allows staff to profile individual children or entire classes against developmental expectations. Teachers complete observational assessments that map pupils across six developmental stages, from birth to adulthood.

Once profiled, the system produces individualised action plans spanning weeks, terms, or academic years. These plans include specific activities drawn from creative play, sensory approaches, and relational strategies. Staff receive guidance on environmental adjustments and curriculum modifications to support each child.

The assessment process helps practitioners move beyond surface behaviours to understand underlying needs. A child presenting as disruptive might be signalling unmet attachment needs rather than making a deliberate choice to misbehave.

What Does Thrive Training Involve?

Becoming a Licensed Thrive Practitioner requires completing a structured training programme. The course runs over several months and combines face-to-face sessions with online learning and workplace practice.

Training costs for 2025:

• Licensed Practitioner course: £1,720 plus VAT
• Early Years Practitioner course: £1,297 plus VAT
• School subscription package (includes training): from £2,450 per year
• Whole-staff CPD sessions: from £520 plus VAT
• Thrive-Online annual licence: approximately £1 per pupil per month

Many schools fund Thrive through pupil premium allocations. For a school with 200 pupils, the annual software cost equates to roughly half the value of a single pupil premium grant.

What Happens in a Thrive Session?

Thrive sessions address common challenges including difficulty settling, peer relationship problems, emotional dysregulation, and playground conflicts. Activities are playful and relational rather than instructional.

A typical session might involve sensory play, creative arts, or structured games designed to build specific developmental capacities. The practitioner follows the child's lead while gently introducing experiences that address identified gaps.

Sessions help children become more emotionally resilient by providing repeated experiences of co-regulation with a trusted adult. Over time, children internalise these regulatory capacities and become better equipped to manage their own emotional states.

How Does Thrive Support Whole-School Practice?

Thrive positions itself as a whole-school approach rather than a specialist intervention for identified pupils. The framework influences classroom practice, behaviour policies, and staff interactions across the school community.

Trained practitioners share their understanding with colleagues through whole-staff training sessions. This creates a common language for discussing social, emotional, and mental health needs and consistent approaches to supporting vulnerable learners.

The model aligns with current Department for Education expectations around mental health provision in schools. Thrive is a DfE quality-assured provider of Senior Mental Health Lead training, connecting to the funded training programme introduced in 2021.

What Does the Research Say About Thrive?

The evidence base for Thrive continues to develop, with several studies examining its implementation and outcomes.

Gibby-Leversuch (2020) reviewed the theoretical foundations and concluded that while the approach draws appropriately on attachment theory and neuroscience, more rigorous outcome evaluation is needed. Bonitto (2019) found that practitioners valued the framework for developing emotional literacy, though measurable impact data remained limited.

Davis and colleagues (2014) reported that Thrive training increased educator awareness of emotional wellbeing factors affecting learning. O'Donald et al. (2024) found improvements in emotion regulation among children receiving trauma-informed interventions with similar theoretical foundations.

Schools considering Thrive should weigh this emerging evidence alongside practical factors including cost, staff capacity, and alignment with existing provision mapping.

How Does Thrive Compare to Other Approaches?

Several frameworks address similar territory to Thrive. The Boxall Profile provides another assessment tool for identifying developmental gaps, often used alongside nurture group provision. Zones of Regulation offers a complementary curriculum for teaching self-regulation skills.

Thrive differs in its emphasis on adult-child relational repair rather than direct skills teaching. The model assumes that children develop regulatory capacity through repeated experiences of co-regulation, not through instruction alone.

Some schools combine Thrive assessment with other intervention programmes, using the profiling data to inform decisions about which approaches suit individual children.

Practical Considerations for Implementation

Schools adopting Thrive should plan for ongoing costs beyond initial training. The annual Thrive-Online subscription, refresher training, and staff time for assessments and interventions require sustained budget allocation.

Successful implementation typically requires senior leadership commitment and protected time for trained practitioners. Schools report better outcomes when Thrive is embedded within broader safeguarding and pastoral structures rather than operating as a standalone programme.

Staff turnover presents a challenge, as trained practitioners leaving takes expertise with them. Building a team of practitioners rather than relying on a single person provides resilience.

Key Outcomes Reported by Schools

Schools using Thrive report various benefits across staff and pupils. Teachers describe gaining frameworks for understanding challenging behaviour and feeling more confident supporting vulnerable learners.

Documented pupil outcomes include improved engagement, reduced exclusions, and fewer disruptive incidents. Some schools report improvements in academic attainment, though attributing this directly to Thrive involvement requires careful consideration of other factors.

Wider benefits may include improved staff morale, calmer classroom environments, and stronger relationships with parents. Ofsted inspectors have noted Thrive as supporting individualised approaches to behaviour management.

References

• Bonitto, S. (2019). Thrive and attachment-based interventions in educational settings.
• Davis, J. et al. (2014). Emotional wellbeing training for educators: Implementation study.
• Gibby-Leversuch, R. (2020). Attachment-based approaches in schools: A critical review.
• Gläser-Zikuda, M. et al. (2005). Emotionally intelligent teaching and learning outcomes.
• O'Donald, C. et al. (2024). Trauma-informed approaches in primary education.