'Very distressing' to suspend emotional support classes - principal

A school principal has said it has been "very distressing" to suspend small, social‑and‑emotional support classes for children due to a lack of funding.

Julie Thomas, from Clandeboye Primary in Bangor, said their budget was reduced the day after their "nurture" unit opened, causing the school to subsidise costs and ultimately leaving governors with "tough decisions".

The classes can improve pupils' wellbeing and grades later in life, a new report commissioned by the Department of Education (DE) has found.

There are more than 60 DE-funded nurture classes in Northern Ireland primary schools, but funding for them has been cut by 20% in recent years.

This means the vast majority of schools cannot afford to run them.

Some schools have had to cancel or suspend the classes.

However, the new report has said the benefits outweigh the costs.

The just-published report said that for every pound spent on nurture classes there was a longer-term saving of between £2 and £4 to the economy.

This is due to the schools having to spend less on Special Educational Needs (SEN) later in life and pupils were more likely to contribute more to the economy in their future.

"The day after our unit opened, the funding was reduced," Thomas told BBC News NI.

"We were subsidising it increasingly."

She said that had led to "tough decisions" for the school's governors.

"Whenever we saw how much we were going to have to subsidise the room by, which was around £38,000, the decision was made that we just couldn't afford to do that moving forward.

"So within Clandeboye Primary School at the moment the unit is suspended.

"If it is fully funded at some stage in the future we may be able to re-enact our nurture provision."

BBC News NI has contacted the DE for comment.

Nurture units are special small classes in primary schools which provide extra help for young pupils in P1-P3.

They normally have around eight to 10 pupils, and the children do things like eat breakfast and play together as well as lessons.

The pupils receive specialist teaching and support and the classes aim to improve attendance, tackle educational disadvantage and help pupils with learning.

At Clandeboye Primary, Thomas said the unit was a "small group support", where the children were supported by an assistant and a teacher.

"It's very much set up almost like a little studio flat, like a home environment, and part of their day is the children coming together and having a meal together."

The DE research found that more than eight out of 10 schools said they did not have enough funding to run the classes and were having to raise money from their school budget to run them.

In 2024/25 schools were having to pay almost £28,000 on average from their own budgets to keep the classes going.

The report said that although nurture units cost around £9,978 a year per pupil they led to schools facing lower costs later in a pupil's school career.

According to the DE report, school principals found that pupils in nurture units "had better emotional resilience and were using coping strategies that substantially reduced challenging behaviour".

Parents of pupils in nurture units were also "less worried about their child at school and found home life easier".

That was because their child's emotional self-regulation and social development improved in the nurture unit.

Longer term, the report found that being in a nurture class also improved a pupil's GCSE grades later in their school career.

Thomas said that, due to the classes at Clandeboye Primary, the children learned how to interact, have conversations and care for each other.

"You also involve parents, so parents are invited in to do stay-and-play sessions," Thomas said.

"We've actually found with some of our children as a result of that, their entire family's experience has improved.

"It really has a ripple effect."

The research into nurture groups was carried out by RSM Consulting for DE.

It was completed in July 2025 but not published until January 2026.

A previous study by experts from Queen's University of Belfast had also found that there were many benefits for pupils taught in nurture units.