As we go from one wave to another, it is my hope that Covid-19 has made it obvious to the general public – as well as to those working in education – just how important pastoral leadership and pastoral care are for young people.
After some challenging times for our pastoral teams, not least when it comes to safeguarding disclosures, we are wishing for some normality and stability (while still of course planning for uncertainty).
Proactive pastoral care
“Proactive pastoral care is based on the old adage that prevention is better than cure.’’ (Collins & McNiff, 1999).
In my book – Proactive Pastoral Care: Nurturing happy, healthy and successful learners (2020) – I define proactive pastoral care thus: ‘‘Proactive pastoral care is the essential element of pastoral structures that focuses on creating, embedding and nurturing a community’s wellbeing culture.
“Proactive pastoral care is preventative in its nature and has many long-term benefits: strengthening community values, promoting character education (formally and informally), and embedding successful pastoral curriculum just to name a few.’’
How can we be proactive during these uncertain times? First of all, we need to establish how members of our communities have been/are being affected by Covid.
For this purpose, we can turn to the data that has been collected so far: communication with parents, pupils, staff, outside agencies, disclosures, etc. We can also run short qualitative questionnaires to gain an understanding of the challenges that families may have encountered over the course of the last few months (and any positive developments too).
Although some of the information cannot be shared with a wider audience, the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) can still give a simplified overview of the results to raise awareness among staff.
This overview could also enable the head of PSHE to plan a relevant pastoral curriculum that reflects the needs of the pupils, including the most vulnerable.
Monitoring is an important job of a pastoral leader. How often and how do you monitor your “at-risk’ pupils? How effective is your monitoring? How do you know?
The job of a DSL is a challenging one and is too often reduced to “fire-fighting” due to its reactive nature, especially when you get a disclosure five minutes before the end of the day on a Friday – or worse on the last day of term.
Slotting in monitoring sessions for my “high-risk” and “medium-risk” pupils enabled me to be more proactive. Frequency and length of sessions remained fluid and depended on the particular needs of pupils.
Relationships are important now more than ever: knowing pupils well enough to be able to notice changes enables us to take timely actions before situations escalate.
There are many guidelines to tell us what signs we should be looking for, however the one over-riding consideration is being mindful and aware of changes.
As individuals, we are complex and process traumatic events and adverse experiences in different ways – a change in behaviour, even a slightest one, could be an alarm bell for us as pastoral leaders.
Editor’s note: Dr Pooky Knightsmith has written on many of these issues for SecEd, including articles on “when to worry” about a pupil (SecEd, 2016) and child-centred planning for your vulnerable learners (SecEd, 2021).
Redefining vulnerability
How does your school community define vulnerability? Is there a shared understanding of what vulnerability is? The Oxford English Dictionary provides us with the following:
- ‘‘The quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.”
- “In need of special care, support, or protection because of age, disability, or risk of abuse or neglect.’’
During lockdowns, vulnerable children who were permitted still to attend school included those with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and those in social care and care-leavers.
But Covid made us define and redefine what vulnerability means to us. Some pupils who have not historically been in the vulnerable category, became vulnerable, and we need to be proactive in establishing who they are and empowering staff with knowledge.
Pastoral care is complex: every child is unique, and their response to trauma will be unique. Effects of trauma might not be visible straight away, and we could witness delayed reaction to adversity. The way we process and manage emotions differ, so recovery and healing processes are unique to the individual.
It would be beneficial for everybody to include modules on emotional wellbeing in the pastoral curriculum in order to equip our young people with valuable tools to increase their self-awareness and enhance their resilience.
Our job as pastoral leaders is not necessarily to fix things, but to empower young children to fix things themselves. However, this would not be possible unless we create and nurture the culture of true inclusion and belonging where young people, especially our vulnerable pupils, feel safe, accepted, and empowered.
Diversity and inclusion
The meaning of inclusion has changed over the years. We are not just talking about pupils with special needs or differentiation. Inclusion is not restricted to one particular area: it is in staffrooms, classrooms, corridors, dining areas, playgrounds, policies, etc.
How inclusive is your school? Does your curriculum reflect the diversity of the student body? Does teaching content avoid stereotypes? Does teaching content rely on culturally specific background knowledge?
Do we use a variety of communication, teaching and assessment strategies? Is there a vision of shared ownership where all students are considered “our students”? Do teachers have an opportunity to plan together and reflect on their own biases?
Is our pastoral curriculum inclusive? Do we have capacity to cater for pupils with different emotional and mental health needs? Can all staff identify children who may benefit from early help? Do pupils feel that they belong?
Diversity and inclusion have become buzz-words which means there is a danger that they can lose their true meaning as everything is turned into a tick-box exercise.
One question I find particularly thought-provoking is: How do you manage diversity and lead inclusion? Asking myself this question led me to reflect more about these two concepts, our understanding of what they are, and how they underpin proactive pastoral care.
What are diversity and inclusion? The Equality Act (2010) provides us with nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, race, religion/belief, sex, sexual orientation. I would define diversity as a mix of visible and invisible characteristics that make us unique.
For example, race, ethnicity, and age are visible characteristics, while religious, cultural, and cognitive characteristics could be invisible. Being diverse means that we as communities recognise our diverse make-up.
Inclusion is much more than that; it is about integration and belonging. Being inclusive means that all the unique members of our communities have an opportunity to be involved, contribute, and thrive in our communities.
Authors Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy put it eloquently: "Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard." (2019).
And as the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education reminds us, inclusion is not an event, it is a journey. It is a journey of proactively “taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes” (DfE, 2021).
- Maria O'Neill is an experienced pastoral leader, researcher and advanced skills teacher. She is the founder and director of Pastoral Support in Education (@PastoralOrg). Her book Proactive Pastoral Care: Nurturing happy, healthy, and successful learners is out now. Follow Maria on Twitter @Maria0Neill
Further information & resources
- Collins & McNiff: Rethinking Pastoral Care, Routledge, 1999.
- Fosslien & Duffy: No Hard Feelings: The secret power of embracing emotions at work, Portfolio, 2019.
- DfE: Keeping Children Safe in Education, last updated January 2021: http://bit.ly/2bI2Zsm
- O’Neill: Proactive Pastoral Care: Nurturing happy, healthy and successful learners. Bloomsbury, 2020: https://bit.ly/3j7bSjO