The Three R's of Pastoral Care: Relationships, Respect and Responsibility

The author argues that over the last twenty years we have witnessed an evolution in pastoral care that is unparalleled in any other field of education. There has been controversy over the definition and these different views are discussed. The paucity of research and literature in the field and particularly in relation to the pastoral needs of teachers andstaff is emphasized.
In this paper it is suggested that the needs of school staff in respect of pastoral care are relatively neglected in the literature. Using the three R's of pastoral care – relationships, respect and responsibility – this paper focuses attention on teachers and their needs in the workplace. It is argued that attention to relationships, respect and responsibility enablesa proactive collaborative approach in which all members of the school community play a crucial role in the pastoral care of students.     

Teachers’ Attitudes towards Disruptive Behaviour and their Use of Internal Referral

This study offers a very neat demonstration of something which conventional wisdom holds: that our actions reflect our beliefs. But the topic under investigation is a challenging one – teachers’ uses of ‘referral systems’ in school. The evidence suggests that referrals reflect teachers’ beliefs – not, therefore, the pupils’ behaviour. We do not know of a study of this sort anywhere in the literature on school behaviour, yet these findings have major implications for those pastoral systems which have become distorted into discipline systems. Michael examines these with care, taking pains not to be simply ‘pointing the finger’.

Michael Evans has been teaching physical education and mathematics in London for seven years. Currently in his second secondary post as Head of Year, Michael is working to complete his MA at the University of London Institute of Education. In his spare time he heads for the hills, wind and rain of Scotland.     

Facilitating student well-being: relationships do matter

Background: Alongside academic and vocational goals, schools are increasingly being called upon to address student well-being. Existing evidence suggests that strong relationships and a sense of connectedness in school communities are important for fostering subjective well-being. However, identifying the specific nature of such relational dynamics, and accommodating the ‘personal’ within school cultures increasingly dominated by ‘performance’ narratives, remains a problematic task.

Purpose: This paper draws on Honneth’s recognition theory to offer fresh insight into how relationships act to facilitate and limit the experience of well-being at school. We suggest that such an approach holds considerable potential for developing teachers’ understanding of the tacit and explicit ways they and their students experience being cared for, respected and valued and the ways in which such actions impact on well-being.

Design and methods: The paper reports the qualitative findings from a large mixed-method study, involving students and staff across primary and secondary schools in three regions of Australia. The qualitative phase involved focus groups with 606 primary and secondary students and individual interviews with 89 teachers and principals.

Results: Across the focus groups and interviews, students and teachers placed substantial emphasis on the importance of relationships, while reporting differences in their views about which relationships support well-being. Alongside this, there were differences in the importance teachers and students placed on each of the three strands of Honneth’s recognition theory (translated for this study as being cared for, respected and valued) for influencing student well-being.

Conclusions: The findings affirm the critical role that relationships play in promoting well-being in the context of schools. Using recognition theory to analyse students’ and teachers’ views and experiences of well-being provides much greater insight into how these relationships are enacted – this being through the mutual experience of being cared for, respected and valued – within the context of schools.     

Supporting the Vulnerable Child: Engaging Fathers in the Home–School Dimension of Pastoral Care

Abstract

Drawing on findings from a recent study of pastoral care within a primary school, this article highlights the role of fathers as a key factor in a range of successful interventions. While gains can be made in work with vulnerable children, the home–school dimension of pastoral care deserves far greater attention by schools, educationalists and researchers than it has so far received. The English government has a strategy to promote a closer relationship between parents and primary schools: much depends upon the resources available to schools and the commitment of staff.     

KAIZEN: school‐wide quality improvement

Abstract

It is evident that secondary schools organise themselves in different ways for the purposes of pastoral organisation. In general these can be characterised as either horizontal or vertical structures, depending on whether a Year or House system has been adopted. From a survey of secondary schools in one particular local education authority, it appears that the most common and popular approach for secondary schools to organise pastoral care is based on a Year (horizontal) system in which Heads of Year have overall responsibility for pupils in one age‐group. However, one potential problem is that such an arrangement may give rise to an artificial separation of pastoral and academic concerns. In comparing and contrasting the respective advantages of Year and House systems of pastoral organisation and management, David Fincham examines a model in which a school sets out to combine pastoral and academic concerns by establishing a vertical (House) system. Whilst acknowledging that pastoral care implies something more than the setting up of a formal organisation for management purposes, he proposes that academic and pastoral concerns can in fact be integrated effectively through a vertical system.     

Emotional labour,teaching and burnout: Investigating complex relationships

ABSTRACT

Background: In common with other service-oriented occupations, teaching is a profession that requires employees to engage in emotional labour. In order to perform their day-to-day roles effectively, teachers are expected to manage and utilise their emotions in nuanced ways, with a high degree of control. As research suggests a complex relationship between emotional labour and occupational burnout, it is essential to examine this further in the context of teaching, so as to better understand the issues associated with teacher burnout.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the literature on emotional labour and burnout, using the lens of sociological research to examine how multiple contexts shape people’s experiences in occupations. We present a theoretical discussion on how expectations for emotion displays and management, alongside structural factors, may shape the experiences of teachers.

Sources of evidence: We reviewed literature on emotional labour and burnout to examine this relationship within the context of contemporary constraints, including educational policies, accountability and emergent interpersonal dynamics in the everyday lives of school teachers. We focussed mainly on the United States public school system and used search terms including emotional labour, emotion work, emotion management and feeling rules. An inductive analytic strategy was used to identify common themes in the literature.

Findings and Conclusion: The thematic analysis of literature suggested that the intertwining of structural- and interactional-level expectations for emotional labour fosters close yet complicated relationships with teacher burnout. In bringing attention to these relationships, we offer suggestions as to the directions education researchers and administrators might take to better comprehend and address teacher burnout.     

School Autonomy: A Comparison between China and the United States

Abstract

This study examined and compared school autonomy in China and the United States. Based on the international PISA 2012 school data, the authors examined three aspects of school autonomy. We found that in comparison with the United States, (1) principals from China were less likely to have responsibility over eleven school decisions (hiring teachers, firing teachers, salary increase, budget formulation, budget allocation, disciplinary policies, assessment policies, student admittance, textbook selection, course content, and courses offered) and were similar in having responsibility over teacher start salaries, and (2) teachers from China were less likely to have responsibility over six school decisions (hiring teachers, budget formulation, disciplinary policies, textbook selection, course content, and courses offered), were more likely to have responsibility over two decisions (firing teachers, student admittance), and were similar in having responsibility over four decisions (teacher start salaries, salary increase, budget allocation, and assessment policies). We also found that schools in China had (1) lower responsibility for curriculum/assessment and lower responsibility for resource allocation and (2) a lower level of teacher participation/autonomy. The findings have implications for educational policy in China and the United States.     

Student teachers’ opinion of the pastoral role module in a Postgraduate Certificate in Education programme

Abstract

The Norms and Standards for Educators (2000) recognises a well-defined community, citizenship and pastoral role as one of seven roles of a competent and qualified educator. In 2005 a module dealing with the pastoral role was introduced as part of the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE – Senior Phase and FET) programme in the institution under study. The aim of this article is to report the outcomes of an empirical study of student teachers’ opinion on the module. A group-administered questionnaire was used to determine student teachers’ opinion regarding the extent and the adequacy of the module to prepare them for their future pastoral role. The student teachers have an overall positive opinion of the module. Grove's pastoral community model is put forward to enhance the quality of the pastoral role training provided in the programme.     

Pastoral Care for Children of Cancer Patients

This paper reports the findings of new research on the school as a source of psychosocial support for primary‐ and secondary‐stage children of cancer patients. It begins with a restatement of the importance of pastoral care in schools and of teachers listening to children. Academic success is an important factor in maintaining positive self‐esteem and psychological functioning. The authors show how parents’ cancer affected their children at schoool; how children do not disclose important personal and familial information; and that this can mean that problems in school are not fully understood nor supported. Peers had an important role to play in adjustment.     

Guidance in Secondary Education: The Flemish Experience

This paper outlines the characteristics of peer mediation in schools and its potential, evident in the literature, for reducing pupil–pupil conflicts referred to teachers. Then, drawing on personal experience, research and a review of literature, the author argues that for peer mediation projects to be effective they need to be in synergy with the culture of the school, including its approach and vision to the management of conflict. Making this argument requires a means of modelling school culture, which will be outlined. Finally, the author argues that attention also needs to be given to how the service will be sustained.     

Working towards better education for children in care: longitudinal analysis of the educational outcomes of a cohort of children in care in Australia

ABSTRACT

Internationally, reviews of educational outcomes of children in care reveal consistent findings highlighting the need for considerable policy attention to be paid to their education to ensure they achieve optimal economic and psychosocial life outcomes. Important to enhancing the educational achievement of children in care are support, stability of environment, teaching resources and the recognition by all stakeholders – birth parents, foster carers, social workers and statutory authorities — that education is paramount to a child’s future well-being. This paper highlights the perspectives of carers, teachers and children on the fostering experience with particular focus on educational outcomes drawing on a prospective longitudinal study of children in long-term care. Using a multimethod, repeated measures multi-informant design, children were assessed by carers and teachers using the Achenbach Child Behaviour Checklist and its companion, the Teacher Report. The findings indicate demonstrated gains in terms of improved scores and adaptive functioning at subsequent assessments following two years of stable care. Discussion of the findings and implications for practice will focus on the need for a coordinated strategy to improve placement continuity and focused professional and organisational support with respect to the emotional and educational needs of children in care.     

Exploring Specialized Schools for the Gifted and Talented

Consultation is a collaborative problem‐solving process with the ultimate goal of providing better services to students. Collaboration between specialists in gifted education and general education school personnel is a way to assist teachers meet the special needs of gifted students in the classroom and improve the general education program. A model for consultation to better serve students in gifted education is presented that encourages shared responsibility among school personnel. Implementation of the model is discussed including implications for training of administrators, specialists in gifted education, and general educators.     

Achievement Curves and their Trend through the Year

Abstract

A quasi-experimental design appropriate for use in field settings such as schools, cross-lagged panel correlation analysis, is illustrated. A sample of 51 fourth graders’ perceptions of the quality of their school life, including satisfaction with school, commitment to their classwork, and attitudes toward teachers, was assessed at the beginning and end of the school year, as were beliefs concerning responsibility for successful, unsuccessful, and overall academic achievements. Results of the Fisher combined test of the consistency of the effects of these exploratory analyses provide tentative support for the view that perceptions of these aspects of quality of school life temporally preceded perceptions of academic responsibility. It is suggested that the more favorably these classroom factors are perceived, the more likely students are to accept responsibility for their school successes and failures.     

‘Say NO to Bullying!’: A Message from Your Peers

The study reported in this paper was undertaken to discover the extent of pastoral care training carried out during secondary initial teacher education. Questionnaires were sent to heads of initial teacher education institutions in England and Wales. It was found that institutions were likely to provide some form of training in pastoral care but the extent and method of training varied greatly between institutions. However, training in actual practical skills such as basic counselling skills was much less likely to be available. The authors conclude that there is still some considerable way to go before newly qualified teachers are likely to feel adequately prepared for their pastoral roles.     

From the Editor: Challenges to Guiding the Teacher of Guided Play

ABSTRACT

New education reforms in Australia, and elsewhere in the world, are calling for degree-qualified early childhood teachers to work in prior to school contexts, including child care. Yet, emerging research indicates that the majority of early childhood graduates are averse to work in child care, with a career desire to work in other contexts – primary, kindergarten, preschool. This paper reports on a pilot study that focused on early childhood teacher preparation, with attention to child care professional experience. Interviews with early childhood teacher educators, including program coordinators, focused on the decision making processes about the child care professional experience. Discourse analysis located some of the competing and complex discursive considerations, illuminating the contingencies and tensions that face early childhood teacher educators. The imperatives on reflective thinking and decision making in complex early childhood teacher education landscapes are illuminated. These contingencies and tensions have implications for the workforce they are charged to prepare, as policy imperatives call for teachers prepared and willing to work in child care.     

Preparing to transition to secondary education: perceptions of Dutch pupils with migrant backgrounds

Background: The transition from primary school to secondary school is a crucial period of time for children and this may be especially the case for pupils with migrant backgrounds. While there has been considerable research on the transition from primary to secondary school, more needs to be known specifically about the experiences of this group of pupils during their final year of primary school, as they prepare for their transition to secondary school.

Purpose: The study investigated how Dutch children with migrant backgrounds in their final year of primary school perceive the preparatory process for the transition to secondary school. In particular, we were interested in who the children felt were the important ‘actors’ (e.g. pupils, parents, teachers and others) in the preparatory process.

Sample: We collected data from 76 primary school pupils from three schools in an urban city in the Netherlands. The sample included pupils who, according to the Dutch system, were preparing to follow an academic pathway (i.e. the tracks known in this system as ‘HAVO’ or ‘VWO’) and those who were preparing to follow a vocational pathway (i.e. the track known as ‘VMBO’) in secondary education.

Design and methods: We used photo elicitation (N = 76) and also conducted semi-structured interviews with a subsample of the pupils (N = 25) to examine the roles of the important actors in the preparatory process. Data were analysed qualitatively; responses were coded and underwent pattern analysis in order to identify and describe repeating structures in the data. Data were grouped according to whether the pupils received school recommendations for an academic track or a vocational track.

Results: Findings suggested that the pupils perceived the most important actors to be the pupil, the classroom teacher and the parents. Both teachers and parents were considered valuable resources for pupils in the preparatory process. Patterns representing the participants’ perceptions of the roles of three actors – namely, (1) the child, (2) the classroom teacher and (3) the parents, were identified. Six patterns were identified with respect to the child, four with respect to the classroom teacher and two with respect to the parents. For some patterns, it was apparent that the responses of children in the vocational group and the academic group had different emphases.

Conclusions: The study highlights the importance for teachers and parents of children in their final year of primary school to be aware of the pupils’ perceptions of and feelings about their preparation for secondary school, so as to be in the best position to support them collaboratively.     

Primary teachers’ self‐perceptions concerning implementation of the National Curriculum for science in the UK

This paper reports on selected aspects of data, with special reference to science, derived from a survey of primary school teachers as part of the Leverhulme Primary Project at the University of Exeter.

A national sample of teachers (N = 901) across 152 schools was surveyed in order to ascertain teachers’ perceptions of competence and needs with respect to the new National Curriculum in the UK. Initially, data were collected in relation to ten subject areas and generic teaching skills, with provision made for free‐form responses concerning National Curriculum implementation.

Selected aspects of these data, principally related to the National Curriculum core area of science, were subjected to detailed further analysis and are reported. Variables identified from the survey findings, and of concern to science educators, included early subject specialism, years of teaching and gender. These were probed for relationships and significance. The tension between competing National Curriculum requirements for specialist subject knowledge and generalist teaching skills was explored.

Findings have implications for innovation in approaches to staff development to cater for perceived needs, teacher educators and curriculum alignment.     

‘Pastoral Care’ as Curriculum Discourse: a study in the reformation of ‘academic’ schooling

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the significance of the recent development of pastoral care as a distinct category of secondary school provision. It argues that existing accounts of the rise of pastoral care fail to take on board the relationship between changes in the school curriculum and their wider context. It also suggests that the separation and construction of pastoral care as distinct from the ‘academic’ is only one dimension of, and can only be understood in the context of, a changing curriculum. Pastoral care is not a ‘new’ area, but results from, and was made possible by, a reformulation and fragmentation of what counts as ‘academic’. Finally, it proposes that this consolidation of social/personal concerns under the category of ‘pastoral care’ acquired particular significance in response to tensions created through the reorganization of secondary schooling. Pastoral care provided the means by which the contradictions embedded within comprehensivization could be reconciled.     

Teachers’ beliefs about literacy practices for young children in early childhood education and care settings

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of early literacy beliefs held by early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers in Japan by developing a novel scale. We believed that overviewing ECEC teachers’ beliefs about early literacy from ecological perspectives would contribute to understanding the underlying factors influencing the quality of early literacy instruction and involvement in ECEC. To this end, 349 ECEC and 45 primary school teachers were asked to complete a two-part questionnaire dealing with (1) ECEC teachers’ literacy beliefs and (2) teachers’ general pedagogical beliefs. Exploratory factor analysis extracted three sub-categories of literacy belief – Direct instruction, Natural development, and Social interaction – and two sub-categories of general pedagogical belief – Adult-centred and Child-centred – and the relations between these sub-categories and background factors were then discussed. The results implied that considering the ecological perspectives of ECEC teachers affords a better understanding of effective practices to facilitate the early literacy experiences of young children in ECEC settings beyond differences in their educational tradition concerning early literacy. These perspectives include the influence of the educational tradition in each region, how ECEC teachers differ from primary school teachers, and the values shared by a particular ECEC facility.     

Behaviour,race and inclusion

Abstract

This article argues that because of the practice in the 1960s of placing black children in so-called ‘educational subnormal’ units there is now a reluctance to look at the speci?c needs of African Caribbean children. The post-Warnock politics of integration/inclusion following this period point to the ‘institutional racism’ of schools and white teachers to explain poor exam results. This article argues that in the current political climate which prioritizes ‘inclusion’ we should not patronize the black child. There is a need to position the factors of oppression equally with other factors of underachievement; to re-employ psychological, behavioural and educational tools as well as to deconstruct school processes and teacher attitudes; and to consider psychosocial factors related to underachievement without forgetting the reality of institutional racism. The article illustrates a research project that looks at the pastoral needs of African Caribbean children. It points to these needs as the key variable in unlocking their underachievement at school.