IT doesn't exactly look like the frontline of the war on crime.But as DAVID LEASK discovered tackling crime takes place in unusal places, including they city's primary schools.

THE Rainbow Room in Wellshot Primary – with its sofas, sandpit and kitchen with warm toast – represents a teaching ethos that senior policing officers believe has helped to cut offending.

This is the home of one of Glasgow's groundbreaking nurture classes, tiny groups of kids who, for whatever reason, need that little bit more love and care than most.

Such classes – and the wider "nurturing school" culture that came with them – were launched in Glasgow 11 years ago.

City children who were five when they began are now 16, at the peak age of offending.

And this new nurtured generation is causing significantly less trouble than any other for years.

So could nurture classes be part of the reason for falling crime – and a clue to how to make even bigger improvements?

Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, co-director of the Scotland-wide Violence Reduction Unit thinks so.

"Early years' education and parenting support is key to reducing violence in the long term," the veteran detective said.

"People often ask how a group of children from the same block of flats can turn out so differently.

"Why does one person become a teacher, yet their neighbour grows up to be a violent offender?

"It's what happens behind the front door, the way a child is brought up, the way it is spoken to, the behaviour it observes that shapes the adult it becomes.

"Only parents have the access to children in those vital early years, not teachers and certainly not police.

"To reduce the number of people reaching the crisis point where the police need to become involved, we need to start early and reduce the potential risk by supporting parents to bring up their children to be the best that they can be through things like nurture classes."

Of course, this is the detective who when asked about plans for 1000 extra officers suggested he would rather have 1000 extra health visitors.

That is how seriously the VRU takes early intervention. One or two primaries in Glasgow were once jokingly referred to as "Barlinnie feeders". Now they are key allies in cutting offending.Once this would have been regarded as wishy-washy rubbish by the boys and girls in blue.

Now it is seen as core business: making sure that they have links with partners such as educators and social workers to identify kids from vulnerable families.

When nurture classes first started in 2001 there was much talk of just how underprivileged some of the children were in the groups.

Youngsters were said never to have brushed their teeth –or have seen a pear. But nurture classes take all sorts, although no more than 10 individuals.

Usually children pop by in the morning for some extra support – and the lovely warming toast – before popping back in to mainstream classes.

There is no stigma, since children at schools like Wellshot frequently come and go from their main classroom teacher for a variety of activities.

And the Rainbow Room – which is like a cross between a classroom and a family home – is a resource widely shared within the school.

Nobody is saying the tots playing in the Rainbow Room at Wellshot or any other Glasgow primary are the hardened criminals of the future – or even the possible future victims of violent crime.

And head teacher Jennifer McCluskey – a veteran of the nurture movement in Glasgow – isn't completely sold on nurture classes on their own being able to cut crime.

But she does believe that the wider culture of care they represent is producing young people better equipped to take on the world.

She said: "It used to be that teachers just taught. Now we look at the whole child and want to make sure we understand their lives and we can help them to thrive."

Glasgow has had to fight for nurture. The Scottish Government has focused more on reducing class sizes across the board. But the city has held out and now spends some £4.1m on 68 classes across Glasgow.

The council is now trying to start the nurture ethos in nursery schools too, introducing 20 nurture corners a couple of years ago at a cost of £340,000.

Academic research suggests nurture groups and the nurture ethos is making an impact on attainment further up the school.

But Mrs McCluskey believes the caring ethos should extend way beyond the Rainbow Room.

"Nurture," she said, "is embedded in the walls of this school".

YOUTH CRIME FALLS BY 38%

The Evening Times yesterday revealed that the number of children reported to the children's hearing system has fallen by three-quarters in the last six years.

So has the number of complaints from the public about "youths" in the street.

Overall youth crime is down 38% – and violent youth crime by 48%.