Pastoral Care in Schools:

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Pastoral Care in Schools

• The roles and responsibilities of a tutor

Carol Gair, Assistant Headteacher Zoe Bell, Head
of House Backwell School, Bristol
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By the end of the session you will have

• A clearer understanding of the role of the tutor
• Developed skills, knowledge and understanding of
  ways of working with individuals and groups
• Greater understanding of the scope and range of
  pastoral responsibilities

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What do we mean by pastoral care?

• managing their personal and academic
  development
• Griffiths and Sherman (1991)
• So caring becomes support for learning arguably
  a schools central task, both by improving
  pupils ability to learn and by monitoring and
  supporting learning for tutoring.
• OSullivan (1995)

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Kottler and Kottler (1993) argue that teachers
have a duty of care to

• Respond to childrens emotional needs
• Resolve interpersonal conflicts
• Identify children suffering from abuse, neglect,
  emotional problems and make appropriate referrals
  as necessary
• Function as a problem solver for those pupils in
  the throes of crisis.

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• What is the purpose of the pastoral system?

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The Pastoral CurriculumAre we producing the
kind of people we want to live next door to when
we are old?!What makes up the pastoral
curriculum?

• Provision
• Student welfare
• Opportunities for life-long/life- wide learning
• School ethos spiritual, moral, social, cultural
• Tutorial time/circle time

• Outcomes
• Behaviour
• Attitudes to learning
• Relationships
• Personal development
• Motivation
• Interdependence
• Skills for learning

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It allows tutors to

• Get to know individuals in the widest context
• Monitor their self esteem
• Monitor individual progress
• Support individual needs
• Create a place of safety
• Promote a group identity
• Promote the group to the school
• Explore the group identity
• Provide a positive role model
• Provide information at key stages
• Catch problems early
• Behave with consistency and continuity

• Teach social skills
• Teach study skills
• Optimise opportunities for students
• Mediate between the student and the school
• Mediate between the school and home
• Develop the students personality
• Notice change
• Validate experiences
• Scaffold ambitions
• Tackle issues relating to the group

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What makes a good tutor?
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Whats a tutor for?

• someone who tells kids off and gives them
  stuff
• someone who helps them learn
• The two most significant aspects of the role are
• The relationship you build with the group and
  individuals
• The focus on students learning

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Being a tutor

• You support pupils in their learning and model
  behaviour
• You help to make them feel special / individual
  and safe
• You mediate between your tutees the school and
  often parents
• You are the point of contact for parents, who
  will expect you to know their child and their
  place in the school
• You will have the big picture of the tutees
  involvement in school and out of school, you keep
  records
• You provide opportunities to open up and reveal
  what matters most, sometimes in private,
  sometimes with the group
• You have a programme of activities to organise
  and facilitate

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Tutoring is not something done only by tutors
it is an interaction between teacher and pupils
aimed at helping young people take responsibility
for themselves.
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Examples of some Tutoring situations.Presenting
problem Actual problem

• Student is frequently late, not arriving until
  just before of just after the bell.
• Student frequently not feeling well stomach
  pains and headaches. Needs to see the nurse often

• Students parents are splitting up. Dad is about
  to leave home. Mum in a state. Rows every morning
  and evening.
• Student worried about work. Falling behind. Not
  understanding tasks, not able to ask for help.
  Feels lost and over stretched. Little support at
  home.

How do you deal with this? What skills are
required?
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Useful Skills!..
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The use of Questions

• Helpful questioning
• Open questions
• Elaboration Questions
• Specification Questions
• Questions which focus on the feelings generated
  by the issue
• Exploring questions

• Unhelpful questioning
• Closed questions
• Leading questions
• Why? questions
• Too probing questions

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Listening Skills

• Attention giving give them your full attention
• Active listening a good listener
• Looks at you without staring
• Doesnt interrupt
• Doesnt fidget
• Gives you time to say what you want to say
• Is comfortable with silence and emotion
• Is aware that you may need somewhere private to
  talk.
• Reflecting this is a simple way of showing you
  have been listening.
• Paraphrasing this is reflecting the feelings
  and the content together.
• Summarising this is the skill of drawing the
  threads together.

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Some tips
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Make Tutor Time

• Safe
• Sane
• Secure
• Dr.W.A Rogers
• Behaviour Conference (2004)

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Rights

• The right to safety
• The right to teach and learn
• The right to be treated with dignity
• The right to be heard

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Responsibilities

• Responsibilities are linked to rights
• Students learn that actions lead to consequences
  and that they have choices about how they behave
• Students cannot be absolved of their
  responsibilities. They need to understand the
  reward and sanction system that you operate how
  they are supported and challenged.

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Routines

• Establish a workable entry and exit procedure
• Positively greet the group each registration and
  end on a positive note
• Establish a seating plan
• In the first minute establish the tutor groups
  attention
• Avoid talking over significant noise
• Deal with early disruptions during instructional
  time
• Have a consequences framework
• Dr W.A Rogers (2004) Education Consultant

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Rules

• Keep rules simple, few in number with a
  positive/negative balance
• When establishing rules make sure there is ample
  discussion
• Try using inclusive language
• - to learn well in tutor time we
• - to show respect in tutor time we
• - to feel safe in tutor time we
• Always encourage and enforce rules from day one
• Dr.W.A.Rogers (2004)

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Assertiveness

• Take a deep breath
• Think first for a fraction of a second
• Speak in the I as this demands ownership
• Keep tone of voice calm, clear and certain
• Reframe statements

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An effective tutor will really get to know their
tutees. This is important because all pupils need
to feel that they are of worth, of value.
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Just a thoughtAs a tutor you are probably the
one person that will see the students twice a day
for 5 years.
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Being an effective form tutor can be one of the
most rewarding aspects of being a teacher. At the
same time however, this area of our work can be
problematic, demanding and exhausting. Sometimes
teachers do not know where to start and indeed
where to finish!
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All meaningful relationships are built on trust
and respect

• K.D.Gardner

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5 Ps of Pastoral work

• Personal Responsibility
• Passing it on
• Policy
• People
• Place

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Questions!