Pastoral Care

Pastoral Care at Hurstmere

We take great pride in our pastoral care at Hurstmere. We understand that every pupil is an individual and we work together to ensure that they can reach their full potential. We, as a pastoral team, aim to ensure that all pupils can learn to ‘Believe and Achieve’, breaking barriers to learning and progression and developing our pupils to become responsible global citizenships, ready to make a valued contribution to the community.

Our success is attributed to the positive communication we have with parents, staff and outside agencies to ensure that our pupils receive the best care and support. As Ofsted 2022 commented, ‘pupils appreciate the positive working relationships that they have with adults in this school. This helps them to feel secure’.

 

Three Pillars to Pastoral Care at Hurstmere School

Teaching pupils – academic and personal development

 

Form Tutors /Teachers

Raising Standards Leaders/Curriculum Leaders

Assistant Principals

Vice Principal

Senior Vice Principal

Principal

 

Supporting pupils throughout their learning journey

 

Inclusion

SEND

Teachers

Parents/Carers

Friends

Safeguarding, Mental Health and Wellbeing

 

Place2Be

Horizons Outreach and Refocus Programmes

Early Intervention Teams - Bexley

Charlton Athletic Mentoring and Motivational Programmes

Recharge – Positive Engagement Programmes

 

At Hurstmere School we operate a year system, which enables us to closely monitor pupils’ academic development alongside their behaviour, attendance and personal development. Each year group is overseen by a Raising Standards Leader who is tasked with ensuring that pupils within their care, maximise their potential.

Each year group is made up of either 7 or 8 form groups, and each form group belongs to one of the following houses: Caxton, Chaucer, Cobham and Sidney. Each form group nominates a School Captain, and each house nominates a House captain. This gives the pupils the opportunity to represent themselves with pupils voice, and the opportunity to belong to a positive community for academic and sporting events.

As you can see, an Assistant Principal is assigned to a specific year group to support the year and represent them at Senior Leadership discussions.

 

Year Group Leadership 2023-2024

Raising Standards Leader

Senior Leadership Team Link

Year 7 Mr Monksfield

Ms Gallagher

Year 8 Mr Dye

Mrs Bayar

Year 9 Mr McDonald

Mrs Bayar

Year 10 Mr Davies

Mr Smith

Year 11 Mr Maher

Mr Smith

 

Pupils spend time with their form tutors for 20 minutes. They follow a carefully constructed personal development curriculum that reinforces their academic learning in lessons. See below:

 

Tutor time programme 2023-2024 Organisation

Character Education Programme

Each week the pupils are given the opportunity to explore in depth one of our seven RTRAILS of

They break each one down, exploring what it means, how it is displayed, critically evaluating their own contribution to demonstrating that trait. They then move on to how that trait is important within the workplace. Crucially, we want our pupils to understand why our RTRAILS are important values to have within the workplace.

A future on Thursday (or Friday)

Pupils will get an opportunity to focus on specific careers advice and guidance. In some slots, they will use their Uniform logins to access materials, whilst in others they may be asked to present different careers research to their form.

DEAL – Drop Everything and Listen

Pupils get a weekly opportunity to listen to either the teacher or another pupil read aloud to the group. The aim is to encourage dialogue and curiosity about the passage/extract and leading to a deeper understanding.

Assembly

All pupils receive one assembly each week, facilitated by the year groups Raising Standards Leader or a member of SLT or different external guests or staff based on specific events.

Organisation

Pupils (on a Monday for all pupils for all pupils except year 11), will have their planners checked, pastoral monitoring logs reviewed all whilst completing a numeracy specific challenge.

 

Personal Social Health Education Lessons

All pupils receive one lesson every Wednesday lesson 2 which focuses on statutory Relationship and Sex Education and PSHE topics including citizenship and some aspects of Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG). This is delivered by either the pupils form tutor, their Raising Standards Leader or on occasions they experience outside workshops or productions.  Pupils have a very positive relationship with their form tutors and this creates an atmosphere of trust and open discussion when dealing with sensitive topics that RSE can tackle. Link to PSHE Policy.

We encourage a positive dialogue between form tutors and their pupil’s parents/carers as the primary mechanisms for reporting concerns /queries should they arise.