Pastoral Care

Nurturing happy, confident children

We take the responsibility of caring for all our children extremely seriously. We work to ensure there is a nurturing atmosphere in which each child feels cared for and important. This is achieved both formally through our Pastoral system and informally through the positive relationships the children are encouraged to build with each other and all the adults at the school.

Our Wellbeing Vision

Our wellbeing is fundamental to being well. It is a shared responsibility to look after each other, to offer support and to speak out. We see wellbeing as integral to the culture we promote; a constant thread and not an add-on.

Everyone deserves to feel safe, to be happy and to be as successful as they can be in all that they do. Looking after ourselves and being encouraged to do so proactively, will help us look after each other.  With the support of friends, colleagues, home, and the whole pastoral care team everyone should know they are valued and celebrated for who they are. Mental health affects everyone in the same way as our physical health.

Our core values, our seaside location, our breadth of curriculum, our spiritual provision and our drive to raise awareness of challenges we might face will help make our community stronger and healthier.

Nursery

The St Andrew’s Prep Nursery boasts a team of qualified and experienced Nursery staff who are passionate and hold the strong belief that each child is unique and capable of great achievements. We have a holistic approach and provide enriching activities for all age groups allowing every child to be curious, explore, discover and take risks in a safe environment. We work to ensure that there is a nurturing atmosphere in which each child feels safe,  cared for and important. This is achieved through our Pastoral Care and the positive relationships the children are helped to build with each other and all the adults at the school.

Every child within the Nursery is allocated a Key Person. The Key Person Approach promotes a reciprocal relationship between the member of staff, the child and their family. This provides the child with a sense of security so that they feel confident to explore their world and form further relationships. The role of the Key Person is to know a child and to support their sense of identity and individuality. They need to be aware of their individual child’s and family’s needs, preferences and development. Key Persons are also responsible for the planning and assessment of their children. During weekly staff meetings, any pastoral matters that may arise concerning children are shared between staff, ensuring the individual children’s needs are met. This information is shared with parents on a regular basis.

Staff believe that each child should have a ‘voice’. The children are encouraged and given opportunities to express themselves with confidence individually, as well as in a group.

Pre-Prep

We strive to ensure that children are happy, supported in their learning and sufficiently challenged by their work. Children are encouraged and helped to give of their best within a structured framework of friendly discipline. The focal person for each child and parent is the Class Teacher who teaches the children most subjects and also takes the leading pastoral role. Class Teachers work closely with the Head of Department to ensure children’s wellbeing is monitored.

The St Andrew’s key core values are followed in the Pre-Prep, as they are in the rest of the school. To positively encourage the keeping of the three core values, kindness, honesty and excellence, the Pre-Prep department awards patches during the weekly Celebration Assembly. The children are given these in the colour of their House set, to engender a sense of being part of a team and they are added to the display board situated in the Close Hall. We use Privilege Time to support our rewards and sanctions strategy.

Within the timetable there is time allocated for ‘Circle Time’ where the children engage in whole class discussion about positive and negative feelings and how the actions of others affect their own emotions. We also follow the Jigsaw programme of study to further develop an understanding of themselves and their relationships with others, during the PSHE lessons.

Prep

Pastoral Care at St Andrew’s is pro-active rather than reactionary and every child is cared for. The Head of Pastoral Care oversees the school’s Pastoral Leadership and Welfare Management Teams, which prioritises the wellbeing of every child.

The Pastoral Leadership Team includes the Deputy Head; Heads of Pre Prep, Juniors, Middles and Seniors; Head of Boarding; Head of Wellbeing; Head of Learning Support; School Counsellor and School Nurse who look strategically at Pastoral Care across the whole school, as well as meeting to discuss pupils. 

Children in Years 3 and 4, who make up the Junior Department, continue to have a Class Teacher in a similar fashion to the Pre-Prep and that Class Teacher, with the support of the Head of Juniors, will take principal responsibility for the pastoral care of their children. From Year 5, children are looked after by their Form Tutor. The tutor system forms a vital link between the family and the school. The role of the Form Tutor is to encourage their tutees in academic and pastoral matters, so parents can be confident that there is a dedicated adult who takes a personal interest in their child’s wellbeing. Form Teachers and Tutors are readily available to talk to you about any aspects of school life.

Years 5 and 6 are called the Middles and Years 7 and 8 are called the Seniors.  Each area is looked after by a Head of Section who champions pastoral care in those year groups. Assemblies are held for each area of the school as well as for the whole school to celebrate success, address pastoral issues and also to remind pupils of the school’s values.

Heads of Department coordinate their teams of tutors and feed in to the Head of Pastoral Care who oversees the school’s tutoring provision. This process is augmented through a comprehensive PSHE scheme of work and our very own Mind Matters programme. With growing social pressures on young people, we re-launched the SAPCA programme as a way of educating the children how to form opinions properly, how to substantiate ideas, how to self-reflect without over-analysing, how to listen and value other opinions, how to think critically and how to be aware of the wider community. In other words, we want to expand the minds of every pupil so that they become more resilient, more compassionate and better listeners.

Ultimately, the happiness of every child is crucial to the success of the pastoral care at St Andrew’s.

Since covid a new wellbeing hub has been opened called The Snug.  This is a place where a child can come and be accepted just as they are at that moment, how they are feeling can be explored through play, talk or pictures and art.

The school listening service involves various members of staff who have all trained together in listening skills, offering appointments to children to come and talk in the Snug about absolutely anything. This has offered choice to the children (they can choose the teacher they would feel most comfortable to talk to), promoted staff development and also created a listening culture across the school. This has in turn promoted safeguarding and aided wellbeing for children and teachers too.

The culture of listening has really grown at St Andrews. Children will never be told to stop telling tales. Instead they are encouraged to speak with a teacher about anything on their minds. They will be listened to and helped to find solutions themselves, supported by the staff member. The Snug always has a sense of peace and calm about it and has been welcomed by staff and children alike.

St Andrew’s has built a Memory Garden for the purpose of encouraging children to remember people who they have loved and have died. Each year we hold a service specially to remember those people in the school community who have died. This has become an important part of the year and has provided comfort and support for some of our bereaved children and their families. This year we will be making time and space during the service to recognise the loss and grief that has been a reality for many in our society during the pandemic.

Other wellbeing highlights at St Andrew’s include Beach School and Woodland Classroom which enable our children to really make the most of the benefits of the outdoors. With the beach just moments away the Juniors have weekly planned sessions down on the beach and they could be doing anything from building imaginary creatures with the treasures that the latest tide has left behind and creating stories about them to investigating and identifying different types of seaweed.  Whatever the activity it is always finished off with a cup of hot chocolate and a biscuit as we think about and admire each other’s creations and achievements. Teachers have undergone specialist training in Beach and Woodland Classroom. Both these can really benefit children’s wellbeing as they encourage enjoyment of being together, collaboration skills and an appreciation of natural beauty and the powerful forces of nature. Children who find it difficult to maintain focus in the classroom are often the ones who shine during outdoors education, revealing for example, great leadership qualities in a collaborative task or amazing imaginative writing skills when using the outdoors and nature as an inspiration for poetry writing.

Mindfulness is practised in the classroom as part of PSHE lessons and a mindfulness club is now available during lunchbreak for children and adults to stop together and pause in the middle of their busy days.