The Boxall Profile: Assessing Social and Emotional Development
Complete 2025 Boxall Profile guide with pricing from £30. SEMH assessment tool for identifying developmental needs in UK schools.
What Is the Boxall Profile?
The Boxall Profile is an assessment tool that maps children's social, emotional, and behavioural development. Developed by educational psychologist Marjorie Boxall, the profile helps teachers identify developmental gaps that may be affecting a child's ability to engage with learning.
Schools use the Boxall Profile primarily within nurture provision, though it applies more broadly to any child presenting with social, emotional, and mental health needs. The assessment generates individualised target areas and suggested strategies for support.
The profile is now available through Boxall Profile Online, a digital platform that simplifies administration and provides automated analysis of results against age-related expectations.
How Does the Assessment Work?
The Boxall Profile consists of a structured checklist completed by adults who know the child well, typically class teachers or teaching assistants. Observers rate the child across a series of statements describing developmental behaviours.
The assessment divides into two main sections:
Section I: Developmental Strands measures progress across cognitive, social, and emotional development. This section identifies which developmental stages the child has securely established and where gaps remain.
Section II: Diagnostic Profile identifies behaviours that inhibit school participation. These self-limiting features often result from disrupted early experiences or unmet attachment needs.
The system compares results against age-appropriate benchmarks, highlighting areas where a child falls below expected levels for their developmental stage.
What Does the Boxall Profile Cost?
Boxall Profile Online offers flexible pricing options for UK schools.
2025 pricing:
- Pay-as-you-go: from £30 per profile
- Annual subscription: £325 per year
- PRO subscription: Includes training access and additional features
- Small school discount: Available on request
- 30-day free trial: Available for new registrations
The PRO subscription includes access to the Introduction to the Boxall Profile course and one place on the Theory and Practice training day (worth £225). This represents good value for schools new to the assessment.
The Boxall Profile Handbook costs approximately £40 from Nurtureuk and provides detailed guidance on interpretation and intervention planning.
Who Uses the Boxall Profile?
SENCOs often lead Boxall Profile implementation within schools. The assessment informs provision mapping and helps prioritise which children need targeted support.
Nurture group leaders use the profile to assess children on entry and track progress over time. The developmental focus aligns naturally with nurture group philosophy and practice.
Class teachers complete the assessments, drawing on their daily observations of children in learning and social situations. Training helps staff make consistent and accurate judgements across the profile statements.
What Does the Profile Reveal About Children?
The Boxall Profile moves beyond surface behaviours to identify underlying developmental needs. A child presenting as disruptive may be signalling unmet needs around organisation of experience or internalisation of controls.
The developmental strands track foundational capacities including:
- Organisation of experience: Making sense of the environment
- Internalisation of controls: Managing impulses and emotions
- Connectedness: Forming relationships with adults and peers
- Self-limiting behaviours: Patterns that restrict participation
Understanding which strands are underdeveloped guides intervention. A child lacking secure attachment foundations needs different support than one struggling with self-organisation.
How Does the Profile Support Intervention Planning?
Completed profiles generate target areas prioritised by developmental importance. The system suggests strategies matched to identified needs, providing practical starting points for intervention.
Teachers use profile data to write specific, measurable targets for individual education plans. The developmental language helps frame goals in terms of underlying needs rather than surface behaviours.
Progress reviews using repeated profiles show whether interventions are working. Measurable movement across developmental strands demonstrates impact and justifies continued provision.
How Does the Boxall Profile Relate to Other Assessments?
The Boxall Profile complements rather than replaces other assessment approaches. It provides depth of understanding about social-emotional development that academic assessments miss.
Thrive Approach offers similar developmental assessment with its own intervention framework. Some schools use both, with the Boxall Profile informing initial identification and Thrive guiding ongoing intervention.
Zones of Regulation provides a curriculum for teaching self-regulation skills that the Boxall Profile might identify as underdeveloped. Assessment and intervention tools work together within comprehensive SEMH provision.
What Training Is Available?
Nurtureuk provides training at multiple levels for Boxall Profile users.
Training options:
- Basic Online Competencies: £30 plus VAT per person
- Theory and Practice day course: £225
- PRO subscription includes training access
Training covers assessment administration, interpretation of results, and intervention planning. Schools report that training significantly improves the consistency and value of profile data.
The online platform includes guidance materials accessible to all users. However, formal training is recommended before using profile data to inform significant decisions about children's provision.
What Are Practical Considerations for Implementation?
Completing profiles takes time. Teachers need adequate observation opportunities before making confident judgements across all statements. Rushed assessments produce unreliable data.
Schools should establish clear protocols for when profiles are completed, who is responsible, and how data informs planning. Without systematic processes, the assessment becomes an administrative burden rather than a useful tool.
Profile data requires sensitive handling. Information about children's developmental vulnerabilities must be shared appropriately and stored securely in line with safeguarding requirements.
What Evidence Supports the Boxall Profile?
Research into nurture groups, where the Boxall Profile originated, shows positive outcomes for children's social-emotional development and academic engagement. The profile provides the assessment framework within these evidence-based interventions.
Nurtureuk and the Boxall Profile Online won the Wellbeing Award at the Education Resource Awards 2025, recognising the tool's contribution to school mental health provision.
Schools using the profile systematically report improved understanding of barriers to learning and more targeted intervention planning. The structured framework helps staff articulate needs that might otherwise remain vague concerns.