Connecting every aspect of pastoral support.
There are many obstacles blocking your students’ path to success.
They may not have eaten since yesterday’s free school meal. Or slept all night. They may not be safe at home. They could be the only one responsible for getting their siblings to school. The trouble they get into when they act out stops them from learning. They might have special educational needs or mental health issues complicating things further.
Triangulating and pooling all this information is vital.
This week’s highlights will help your whole team - both teaching and non teaching - work together to solve the most complex pastoral challenges you’re facing.
Have a great half term.
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we pool our work to benefit everyone).
This week
🎥 Connecting every aspect of pastoral support.
🛡️ 10 areas of pastoral learning from 100+ schools.
💼 Jobs with We Are In Beta community members.
🎥 Connecting every aspect of pastoral support: how to ensure no child slips through the net.
You can put all manner of interventions in place: one off support for bullying, behaviour mentoring, SEND interventions like EHCPs, counselling, therapy, school nurse, attendance sanctions… The list goes on.
But if each area of pastoral support doesn’t talk to each other, there is every chance your students will start slipping through the net.
So how do you join up every aspect of your pastoral team - at every stage of your work - diagnosis, intervention, tracking and evaluation - to ensure that no child does?
Join us to learn how Blaise High School have improved attendance, reduced suspensions and improved the accuracy and impact of pastoral interventions through their "Mountain Rescue" approach.
📅Tuesday 20th February
🕕 6pm
🛡️ 10 areas of pastoral learning from 100+ schools
What areas of pastoral practice would you like to see other schools share?
This was one of two questions I asked pastoral leaders across the community via email recently.
The responses I received spoke volumes about them; their openness to learning and sharing ideas was humbling.
Here are the 10 buckets their requests fell under:
Attendance
Behaviour
Suspensions and exclusions
Personal development
Inclusion
Safeguarding
Parents
Teaching staff development
Non-teaching pastoral staff development
Pastoral strategy
Within these buckets colleagues requested a further 100 areas of pastoral practice.
Curious what they are? Wondering which schools shared their areas for development?
What was the other question I asked?
Are there senior/middle pastoral leaders you work with doing amazing things who others would benefit from learning from and would benefit from taking part?
Yes?
Great! We’d love to help them share their work at our first “Pastoral Champions” Conference the week beginning 18th March.
Why are we doing it?
There is incredible pastoral work happening across the system. It’s time we pooled it for everyone’s benefit.
💼 Jobs with We Are In Beta community members.
Senior leadership
🏫 Deputy Headteacher - Orchard Park High School (Croydon)
Middle leadership
📖 Director of English -Greensward Academy (Essex).
🇫🇷 Head of MFL - Blaise high School (Bristol)
🇫🇷 Head of MFL - The Dorcan Academy (Swindon)
Teaching
🧬 Science - Fulston Manor School (Kent).
🧬 Science - The Dorcan Academy (Swindon).
🧬 Science - Cumberland Community School (Newham, London).
🧬 Science (2 posts available) - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
🧠 Social Sciences - Fulston Manor School (Kent).
🕌 Religious Studies and Citizenship - Fulston Manor School (Kent).
🕌 Religious Studies (2 posts available) - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
🕌 RE - Fulston Manor School (Kent).
🧠 Psychology and Sociology - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
🏑 PE - Five Acres High School (Bristol).
🏑 PE - Cumberland Community School (Newham, London).
🇫🇷 MFL - Fulston Manor School (Kent).
🇫🇷 Modern Foreign Languages (2 posts available)- John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
📊 Maths - Blaise high School (Bristol).
📊 Maths - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
📊 Maths - Ormiston SWB Academy (Wolverhampton).
⚖️ Law and Politics - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
🏰 History - Ormiston SWB Academy (Wolverhampton).
🛠️ D&T - Cumberland Community School (Newham, London)
On a personal note…
Something I’ve been guilty of which has held back the teams I’ve led…
Being so focused on achieving my own objectives that I’ve forgotten to create systems that share process and intel.
As a teacher, I logged student feedback in a paper note book.
As a middle leader, I had my own data tracker saved in my documents.
As a community builder, I’ve gathered insight about what our community members are working on.
In every example the process and the intel have been locked up. Siloed. Inaccessible to anyone else but me.
Not shared with those who really need it - my students, my team, our community members.
Taking inspiration from my team, and members like Nat Nabarro and Zoe Giblin, we’ve been working hard to:
document every process
digitise every case study
create a public view of every data set
All with the goal of making our work more efficient, impactful and scalable for you.
So I have two (rather selfish) questions for you (because I am always learning too):
What breakthroughs have you made with pooling and sharing your work with all stakeholders?
What can the We Are In Beta team do better to help you even more?
Would love to hear from you. Just hit reply to this email.
Thanks for reading.
@Niall Alcock and the We Are In Beta team
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