Career change? Pastoral care in education... Where to start?

[theobstacleisthwonlyway]

Having worked in a university as an admin assistant for 10 years, I will finally be able to change circumstances in about a year (dc end of primary school) and I will be able to concentrate on myself and my career.

I would like to get into pastoral care in education, preferably secondary school. But I don't know where to start.

What courses should I be looking to do to get started? I've looked on line and it seems its all aimed at teachers. Can you do pastoral care without being a teacher?

My place of work are happy to get me on any courses because pastoral care is relevant to my current role (I deal with students on a daily basis)

Any pointers would be really helpful.

TIA

Bump!

Anyone??

Many schools use their teachers for pastoral care - heads of year/assistant heads of year/senior teacher or deputy head in charge of pastoral/safeguarding.
They will do this because the teacher has a track record/has been a form tutor/they only need to pay a point or three points on the pay spine for added responsibility.
Ten years ago however I began to see some academies (run as a trust wirth CEOs rather than just a head) start taking on separate pastoral leaders as a job in its own right which would have included admin/raising attendance and punctuality stats/being the home-school liasion ringing all the absentees that day/contacting ewo etc
That would have included experience like yours but with current knowledge of safeguarding/equal opps/bullying policy/sen policy/recording of incidents etc
I have been out of the sector for some time now so do not know whether the offloading of pastoral became a model for many or just a few schools - would suggest you post in The Staffroom section on here and look at all the pastoral jobs on TES including independent although some of those may be live-in heads of houses.
I had heard that many primaries were cutting down on teaching assistants so no idea if they would be taking on home-school liaison or not (one secondary I worked in took on a parent for that role who then went on to become an education welfare officer. Other parents were taken on as learning mentors. But with all the changes/budget cuts/academy status, I am not sure that happens so much now).
Good luck.

www.tes.com/jobs/search?area=&sort=&keywords=pastoral

35 jobs uk wide - not all of them aimed at teachers

Oh and I forgot but you will obviously need an enhanced police check to work with children.

Most insets are aimed at newly qualified teachers or continued professional development of teachers - does your university not have a list of insets for its own staff's continued professional development? Any courses to do with equal opps/safeguarding/promoting positive relationships/improving mental health...all those could be used in a letter of application (although emphasis will probably be on improving attendance).

Thank you Rage. A lot to digest.

The school where my partner works is looking to develop a pastoral care team in the next 1 to 2 years (sorry I should have mentioned this in the OP). I was hoping to get some qualifications under my belt in the next 2 years which would improve my chances of being a successful applicant.

perhaps I could do some mentoring at my place of work to kick start things...

Any courses to do with equal opps/safeguarding/promoting positive relationships/improving mental health

Very useful thank you

You're welcome
If your partner is in education, he will know what they are looking for but just looking at the job descriptions on some of those 35 positions gives you a good idea of what to address on paper/in an interview.
When I used to do a head of year job, focus was on contact with parents on a daily basis wrt absences, dealing with day to day incidents (bullying, fights, incidents with teachers, racism etc) - We had a tripartite logging system: my copy, copy for curriculum head, copy for tutor), assemblies, pastoral team leading (meeting with the tutors).
Also forgot to say - record-keeping and confidentiality very important (but also knowing when you cannot promise confidentially if children disclose for example) I also had a safe space for kids and I did some counselling 1-1 having done a counselling course.
Also positive reinforcement like 100% 95% attendance and punctuality certificates, class graphs, fundraising iniatives, maintenance of pastoral boards around school...
That was on top of a teaching timetable. If pastoral leaders are the norm now without teaching responsibility you are going to be expected to really push the stats, take some of the pressure off staff wrt home contact and improve results (or be able to say how your improvements go to improving results even if you are not involved in the teaching side). Children on staged procedures (being on report with smart targets) will also go through you - 1. tutor report 2. you 3. senior, as an example. So..you will need to have a strong sense of how you will organise that/not have too many kids moving up green/amber/red too quickly as the trust will be wanting to avoid fixed term exclusions stats).

I would also think your team will be doing the detentions for lates/uniform/ 2 poor behaviour comments in logbooks and recording all the kids coming through that.
It is a rewarding job doing pastoral care - but it might feel more and more like social work/statistical hoop-jumping/ofsted pleasing than what you are used to. Creating meaningful materials for effective tutor time can be creative though.

This is very helpful, Rage.

It sounds like something I would really like to get in to and something I would be good at.

It is helpful if that is how it still works obs - much of what I've said is based on systems of old, how things used to work a decade ago...whilst I am of the school of thought that if it ain't broke....I am sure every school has its own new and improved buzzwords, reinventing the wheel, own bugbear emphasis be it homework or uniform or positive residuals. Do pop on over to The Staffroom for current thinking/trends...they might have an idea on how to access insets too.

Thank you, I've gone over to the staff room board

I'd like to look into possibly doing a child psychology course... I mean that would be a total overhaul and a big commitment...

I know I would like to work with children / and young adults, to help them in some way... I just don't know in what capacity