Towards a Whole School Approach to Pastoral Care: A Proposed Framework of Principles and Practices

Abstract

Pastoral care in schools has traditionally been associated with notions of help, advice, values development, and children's moral welfare. In the past it has been viewed predominantly as a separate set of extra-curricula activities offered to students by school staff with particular support roles, or ‘pastors’ from affiliated church or religious communities. In some Australian schools and education sectors pastoral care continues to be conceptualised in this way. However, over the past two decades interest has intensified in a ‘whole school approach’ to pastoral care that supports the holistic development of students as they learn. What has influenced this change of direction? What are some of the key challenges encountered when implementing this approach? How might we define ‘a whole school approach’ to pastoral care? What are the core principles and associated school practices of this approach to pastoral care? We attempt to address these questions in this paper. In doing so, we have drawn on the MindMatters Plus Demonstration Project and constructed a ‘whole school’ framework for pastoral care. We emphasise the importance of distributed leadership in our framework, where all staff and students alike are responsible for developing an ethos of care. This is a ‘work-in-progress’. We invite feedback on our proposal.

Towards a whole-school approach to the pastoral care module in a Postgraduate Certificate of Education programme: a South African experience

“…Over the past three decades, however, interest has intensified in a whole-school approach to pastoral care which supports the holistic development of learners (Chidester 2006;Hearn et al 2006). Research findings confirm the advantages of integrated planning to meet the personal, emotional, social and academic needs of learners through a pastoral care approach which is integrated in the academic curriculum and the structural organisation of the school (Clark 2008;De Jong and Kerr-Roubicek 2007;Department of Education 2003;Eacute and Esteve 2010;Hui 2002;Scott 2005).…”

Positive youth development in Turkey: a critical review of research on the social and emotional learning needs of Turkish adolescents, 2000–2012

“…Thirdly, some research reviewed by this study had a tendency to avoid discussing the potential role of the responsibilities of a whole school or school systems in addressing the needed changes. This is a telling feature of Turkish research, in contrast to other countries where pastoral care (de Jong and Kerr-Roubicek 2007;Dagley et al 2007), school climate (Cohen 2006) and supportive learning environments in schools (Durlak, Weissberg, and Pachan 2010;Durlak et al 2011) are a focus for research and discourse about improving schools.…”

Case management of young children with behaviour and mental health disorders in school

“…Case management encourages clearer processes of accountability; 4. Case management contributes to the successful retention of students with high support needs ( de Jong & Kerr-Roubicek, 2007).…”