Pastoral care and school choices

When parents are able to choose schools for their children, they will be probably be guided mainly by factors which directly reflect the quality of the education offered, at least in the first instance. The academic record of the schools being considered, their sporting achievements, the sort of art, music and drama they produce, should all be taken into account. Wise parents will take their analysis further and try to match the way education is offered by schools as closely as possible to their child’s particular needs and talents.

In the last 50 years or so, the educational establishment has come to realise that there has always been more to schools than just schooling. Children spend a large part of each year from five to 18 in school, especially if they board; and a happy, settled child is far more likely to be able to benefit from whatever the school offers than one who is unhappy, anxious or disturbed in some way. A good school will take account of this through the system of pastoral care which it has in place, and it is arguable that parents should look as closely at this aspect of what is offered as at examination and sporting results.

First of all, look at how children are cared for on a day-to-day basis. Both day and boarding schools will provide some sort of tutoring or form system, where a teacher takes responsibility for a group of pupils, perhaps with reference to a year head. In a boarding school, this system will probably run in parallel with a house system that provides for the child’s domestic needs. It would be worth trying to assess whether the school sees these systems as a means of promoting the children’s welfare, or more as an aid to good discipline. Probably the most important thing to establish here is that, if a child has any sort of problem, he or she knows who can be talked to and who will listen to what is being said. How a school would deal with the everyday dramas of any child’s life, the pets which die, the lost games kit, the forgotten homework, may give important clues as to how well pupils are cared for.

For most children most of the time, difficulties and problems will be short-lived and these first lines of defence in house or tutor group can be sufficient to provide solutions or support. But there are problems that require a more complex response. Most parents would probably admit to a dread that their child might be bullied, given the unhappiness that this can cause at the time and all the consequent effects on confidence and self-esteem. Any child has the potential to be a victim or, indeed, a bully and no school is immune to bullying, so how this problem is treated is crucial. There should be a whole school policy for handling bullying, which is available to all pupils and easily understood by them. Such a policy should make clear the sorts of behaviours which are seen as bullying; that these are seen as unacceptable; where children and parents can take their complaints; how these will be investigated; the consequences for bullies, especially of repeated offences; and, finally, it should be made clear how the victim will be supported by the school. How a school aims to deal with bullying, and the language it uses to talk about it, can tell parents a great deal about the social environment it provides.

Satisfactory peer group relationships are very important to children, but so are good relationships with their teachers; and, whilst friendship problems may make a child generally unhappy, the effect of a poor relationship with a teacher may have a direct effect on the quality of learning. When looking at schools, parents need to ask how the school will help them or their child deal with such problems should they arise. The school should have a complaints procedure in place to deal with more extreme or intractable cases, which should be readily available and easily understood and used. For both complaints procedures and for policies for dealing with bullying, it is important that children know that they will be listened to and can expect appropriate action.
Of course, children may become unhappy or disturbed for all sorts of reasons, many of them not related directly to their experience in school. However, teachers and others who work with children in schools are often in a good position to notice changes in behaviour, which may indicate that something is wrong. Parents choosing a school may therefore want to know how such concerns might be handled, and a crucial issue here will be the quality of the communication between members of staff, between adults and children, and between the school and the parent. One vital factor in this is confidentiality, and, especially in the case of adolescents, the school has to tread a fine line between retaining the trust of the pupils and keeping the parents informed about their welfare. This potential conflict of interest can be resolved through the existence of a school counselling service to which pupils can self-refer or be referred, and which can provide not only invaluable professional help to children, but also a sort of neutral territory which is neither school nor home.

All of the above considerations apply to both day and boarding schools, but section 87 of the 1989 Children Act laid various extra requirements on independent boarding schools that included the availability of one or more independent listeners to whom children can turn in need. Parents choosing a boarding school should review the arrangements that there are for such listeners; how the child can contact them; how they would contact the child; and how such arrangements are communicated to pupils. In addition, the independent listeners will need to know where to take a child’s concerns if further action is needed.

A good boarding school will also give pupils easy access to a counselling service, which, ideally, should have good links with the medical service offered at the school. This, in turn, should ensure that where a child’s difficulties require psychiatric intervention, this is available.

Perhaps the essential message here is that forewarned is forearmed. Many children will go through their school days largely unscathed, with only the sort of minor ups and downs that can be resolved by chatting to their friends or through the loving support of their parents. However, some will be less fortunate and, in these cases, early detection and intervention may make all the difference. If the school has an ethos which places importance on the social and emotional needs of children as well as their education, and on their need to be heard, then this will be reflected in the policies and systems which are put in place for their protection.