Secondaries with great pastoral care

[DoraDunebug]

Is there a secondary school that you know of that has really good pastoral care and if so, where is it? Wanting to relocate for a fresh start and this is very high priority.

The school DS attends has brilliant pastoral care.
It is an all boys grammar (N.Yorkshire- easy to guess which one).

It is teachers and support staff that give great pastoral care, not "schools". It's an important distinction, because staff can move on in a heartbeat. My children's school (in greater London) has excellent pastoral care, but I'm not going to tell you where it is, because the pastoral team are already overloaded. The school, like every other school in England, needs to save money, so departing staff are not all being replaced, and the workload of the remaining staff is increasing. Meanwhile, the school is attracting an increasing inflow of kids with high pastoral needs due to its great reputation. The pastoral team has been fantastic because the team leader is fantastic and attracts good staff who she trains well. But she is overworked, and, if she leaves, others will follow her. She will be difficult to replace. So, the last thing she needs is for the school to be name checked on Mumsnet, sorry.

We've had experience of poor pastoral care (private SE) and I can suggest talking to other parents with kids at the school before believing the school's patter. Check how many counsellors are employed (ours only had 1 part time and a long waiting list which wasn't mentioned), if they try to "outsource" care with an app, ask how they resolve bullying and threatening behaviour specifically - ours decided to shy away from confronting the children involved directly and moving the children affected about to avoid "drama" rather than nipping it in the bud. Result is certain kids ruling the roost and continuing bullying, blissfully unaware of how their behaviour negatively affects others. As a result I would now directly check that they do exclude and suspend children and be very wary of any school boasting that it does not.

Quite simply all schools will be challenged on this. Pupils need more and more support and help. Far more than anyone ever envisaged 30 years ago. Pastoral support has mushroomed.

However schools need teachers and the budget usually has to support this activity. Pastoral support staff cost a lot less but in a crisis, they do get reduced. I prefer a model where SLT work with parents on expectations and SEN is dealt with effectively. SEN Dc can be disruptive. It’s vital to maintain a friendly but respectful discipline within schools and this comes from the top. The ethos matters and I would want to see high behaviour expectations as the norm.

Schools where parents always want something different for Dc do not appeal. I would look for a cohesive school that’s well managed. I would not move for a specific school as they can change so quickly! You can look for exam results, more high achievers and value added. These tend to indicate a good school and parental support for Dc to do well in a calm atmosphere.

Schools are now learning not to advertise "great pastoral care" even if they have it, because they want a balanced intake, not an intake skewed towards students needing a lot of pastoral care. As I said in my pp, pastoral teams can soon become swamped.

In my personal experience, if the school has a very high 'value added' sector they might be keen to take kids with SEN/sports scholars who would be otherwise 'low achievers' and then spend the whole talk at open days on how they are great for 'value added' - as said here often leaving pastoral care swamped and promises to SEN pupils undelivered, yet gaining glowing charts showing a lot of pupils few 7's rather than all 5/6's at GCSE. Value added in poorer areas is great but in private it often can hide poor ability to keep average or above average students. That ties in with the 'happy kids learn better' and a lack of pastoral care.