THE BIG PICTURE ; ACHIEVING OUTSTANDING OUTCOMES WITH PROACTIVE PASTORAL CARE
BY : LUKE RAMSDEN & NATASHA LAWRENCE
The upheaval brought
about by Covid-19 has brought many challenges for educators , with the negative impact on mental health and wellbeing of students likely to endure over time . Identifying students who are experiencing difficulties and implementing strategies to support student wellbeing will be of critical importance as we move forward in 2021 .
Senior Deputy Head and DSL , Luke Ramsden talks to MyConcern Safeguarding Manager Natasha Lawrence about the pastoral initiatives he has implemented to improve student wellbeing . He explains how using MyConcern has helped to transform pastoral care at St Benedict ' s , enabling the school to move from reactive to proactive strategies .
Tell us about your school and your pastoral processes ?
St Benedicts is an all-through school with around 1000 students and we have all of the issues you would expect in a large school in an urban setting . We ’ ve been using MyConcern for around 4 years and since introducing the system we ’ ve seen significant improvements to our processes and our internal information sharing . Everything is very secure but at the same time it is accessible by the people that need the information ; individual tutors can have access to the data for just their group , likewise Heads of Year or school counsellors – the right people know the right things ..
How does your school spot potential issues that otherwise might have gone unnoticed ?
The phrase we use a lot in school is
‘ the little pieces of the jigsaw ’. We ask staff to record anything they want , it could be as little as “ X looked upset in my class today , they don ’ t usually look upset ”. We encourage staff to notice the little things , because its these observations that make up the full picture . We ’ ve had numerous examples over the years , where different members of staff have picked up on some small things , that tells the Head of Year that there ’ s something going on . Often , it ’ s the kind of thing that otherwise wouldn ’ t be picked up and helps us get ahead of things . We aim to pick up on small things before they become a major problem , or a crisis point has been reached .
For me , that is the best way to be effective when it comes to pastoral care , to have noted an issue , maybe before the student or even the parents have realized it ’ s a major issue , and