It is all about evidence these days. The Covid-19 pandemic has seen significant arguments about what “the science” is really telling us and how we should respond in policy and practice. We’ve seen government ministers presenting us with graphs and our news has been full of numbers and statistics.
None of this is new. In education, we have seen increasing calls for teachers and school leaders to embrace research-informed practice. But there is something missing. Most of the discussions, and the books published over recent years, have focused on methods of teaching and subject-specific curriculum development. As a pastoral leader, I have become increasingly aware of a lack of focus on pastoral matters in debate about research-based and evidence-informed teaching.
In his groundbreaking book Pastoral Care, published in 1974, Michael Marland encouraged us to see the work of the school as “essentially pastoral”. Yet this urgent focus seems to have slipped us by. Schools may well have members of senior leadership tasked with overseeing pastoral care and teachers may well have pastoral duties. But take a look at the average teaching job description or vacancy advert and you’ll see the pastoral element is usually represented by just one or two bullet points. Schools are inevitably driven by exam results and pastoral care is often seen as serving academic goals. This is reflected in the research and discussion about approaches to teaching and school leadership. I would argue the core purpose of schooling should be pastoral with the academic elements in a supporting role. This is all the more important now given the impact of the pandemic on the wellbeing and mental health of so many children and young people.
1. Never lose sight of the importance of pastoral care. We want children to grow into confident adults, capable of claiming their place in the world and living happy and successful lives. We want them to enjoy economic, social, and personal wellbeing. These are pastoral concerns. School leaders – and professionals and services that support schools – need to remember this in all leadership discussions and decisions.
2. Get up to speed with the latest research evidence. Every senior leadership team should have at least one research champion – a person who is engaged with research and can report back to the rest of the team. There are many excellent sources of support including the Chartered College of Teachers, which offers members access to research papers as well as its in-house journal Impact. I am a keen advocate of ResearchED – a series of conferences that bring teachers, academics, and researchers together to share ideas and experiences. There is a growing network of research schools supported by The Research Schools Network, while the Education Endowment Foundation provides a range of resources, evaluations, and summaries of research projects. For pastoral matters, the journal of the National Association of Pastoral Care in Education is a must have.
3. Use the evidence to establish conditions conducive to learning. Often pastoral aspects of schooling can be reactive and ad hoc, responding to complex issues as and when they arise. How much better would it be to have evidence-based policies that could offer effective tools for providing support to our students?
Children must feel safe in school. This has implications for behaviour management policies and practice and approaches to establishing routines in the classroom and around school. The importance of safeguarding cannot be overstated and all who work in schools are obliged to be familiar with statutory requirements. But what are the best approaches to establishing the kind of atmosphere we want in schools? This is why school leaders need to engage with research and debate about behaviour management, bullying, wellbeing and mental health.
4. Be clear about the importance of the pastoral curriculum. We should consider the pastoral curriculum to be at least as important as its academic counterparts. As school leaders we need to be explicit about the key messages we wish our students to learn. Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) lessons are all very well and good. But what other opportunities do we provide for delivering rigorous pastoral messages? How do we construct our assemblies? What language do we use when speaking to – and about – pupils and their families? How do we approach character education? How seriously do we take spiritual, moral, social and cultural development?
5. Establish strong pastoral roles. School leaders should think carefully about the pastoral roles in their schools and how these are supported. Have we appointed a designated mental health lead? Who oversees our pastoral curriculum? Who can pupils speak to about personal issues? Who can staff speak to? How are we supporting the wellbeing of our teachers? Who is the first port of call for parents? How are we supporting these pastoral roles – what do they need? Establishing strong pastoral roles with clear responsibilities is a crucial first step to good pastoral care.
- Stephen Lane’s book Beyond Wiping Noses – building an informed approach to pastoral leadership in schools, was published by Crown House in September 2020
