Polden Bower

the NEST Team

Nurture • Engagement • Safety • Trust

At the Bower Learning Partnership, we are proud to introduce the NEST Team – a specialist intervention model that reflects our unwavering commitment to empowering children and young people, nurturing aspiration, and fostering a genuine sense of belonging.
We believe that the right support, at the right time, delivered in the right way, can change life trajectories. The NEST Team has been created to ensure children are met where they are – emotionally, socially, and developmentally – and are supported with care, compassion, and purpose.

What is the NEST Team?

The NEST Team is a partnership‑wide specialist intervention model, working across all schools and provisions within the Bower Learning Partnership. Support is flexible and responsive, and where appropriate, can be delivered through outreach into schools, alternative provisions, or community settings, ensuring children receive help in the environments where they feel safest and most able to engage.
The model is built on four core pillars of:
  • Nurture – creating emotionally safe, caring environments
  • Engagement – helping children reconnect with learning and relationships
  • Safety – building predictability, trust, and regulation
  • Trust – strengthening relationships so children feel heard and valued
Interventions are delivered through a trauma‑informed, person‑centred approach, supporting children and young people at key transition points or moments of increased need. The NEST Team is not a single location or base, but a way of working across the partnership – intentionally relational, inclusive, and responsive.

Why We Created the NEST Team

Recent UK research highlights a growing challenge across the education system. Understanding Student Disengagement (2025) found that one in four pupils disengage during the transition to secondary school, with particularly significant impacts on girls and pupils eligible for free school meals. Key declines were seen in feelings of safety, trust, enjoyment, and belonging.
These findings reinforce what we see every day in practice: when emotional and social needs go unmet, learning becomes inaccessible. The NEST Team is our response – designed to address the foundations of engagement before difficulties escalate.
By intervening early and relationally, and by offering outreach support across settings where needed, we aim to reduce barriers, rebuild connection, and support children to re‑engage with learning and wider school life.

A Child‑Centred, Co‑Designed Approach

At the heart of the NEST Team is a commitment to listening to children and young people. Interventions are not done to children, but co‑designed with them, recognising that each learner’s story, strengths, and needs are unique.
Research from organisations such as the Back Up Trust shows that when children – particularly those with additional needs – are actively involved in decisions about their support, outcomes improve not only academically, but emotionally and socially.
Our approach ensures children feel:
  • Safe enough to speak
  • Valued enough to be heard
  • Supported enough to thrive

Specialist Expertise Across the Partnership

The NEST Team draws on the collective strength and expertise of professionals working across the Bower Learning Partnership, enabling consistent, high‑quality support regardless of school or setting. This includes:
  • Clinical and therapeutic practitioners
  • Mental health and wellbeing specialists
  • Therapeutic youth workers
  • Family and outreach support staff
  • Specialist education professionals and key adults
This multidisciplinary model allows the NEST Team to provide targeted, evidence‑informed interventions, either within school settings or through outreach support, tailored to individual need and responsive to change over time.

Centralised Referral and Triage

To ensure equitable access and consistency of support across the partnership, the NEST Team operates through a centralised referral and triage process.
This system is designed not just to gather information, but to truly listen. It values the insight of referrers, schools, families, and professionals, while placing the voice of the child at the centre of every decision.
By understanding need holistically, we can coordinate the right level of support – whether delivered within school or through outreach across the partnership – at the right time.

Our Shared Commitment

Through the NEST Team, and by harnessing the expertise that exists across our partnership schools and services, we are building a future where:
  • Children experience a strong sense of belonging, wherever they are educated
  • Early intervention and outreach prevent escalation
  • Relationships are the foundation of success
This is more than a model of intervention. It is an intentional commitment to empowerment, aspiration, and belonging – ensuring every child has the opportunity to rediscover their potential and find their place in the world.
Because when children feel safe, seen, and supported – they can grow, connect, and thrive.