Pastoral

 Schools are about learning, in an environment that is welcoming & safe. The term ‘Pastoral’ doesn’t really capture this, but we’re using the term until we can further update our website to reflect changes in the way we work to implement our school aims.

Primary Phase

This section of the website is being revised

Secondary

There are 360 students in each secondary-phase year group.  The Head of Learning [HOL] for each year group, or their Deputy [DHOL] is the person with the best oversight of their progress, learning, attendance, behaviour & welfare. Their responsibilities include:

  • Tracking each student’s attendance,  punctuality and behaviour; monitoring half-termly tracking of each student’s progress, so they know when any student has their targets at risk
  • Coordinating action in school to deal with concerns on any of these issues
  • Working with parents on concerns we or they have over any of the performance issues above
  • Having oversight of students’ welfare & well-being
  • Leading the team of Form Tutors

This year, we’ve made changes to the way we ‘track’ students’ progress, so each half term, we have a clear picture of which students are on the right ‘flight path’ for progress that is better than national expectations. We are also streamlining the way we monitor attendance, punctuality & behaviour, so we can give parents early warning of where their child is at risk of underachievement. We’ve already started piloting a new-format report which includes such information and makes it even more clear to parents.

A range of in-house agencies provide support for our students’ organisation, learning & welfare. We have specialists to support & challenge lower & higher attainers, those with special educational needs or disabilities, & those who on occasions behave in ways that are unhelpful to their own & others’ learning.  We’re in the middle of reviewing the ways we organise this support, & will update you on this later in the spring term.