Pastoral Care

Pastoral care is an ancient model of emotional and spiritual support found in all cultures and traditions. Whilst its deep roots lie in religion, it is a long-standing and central tenet of school life. The essence of pastoral care is the recognition that schools are places of social as well as intellectual learning, and that no child will truly be successful and happy if they are not personally supported. The Bewdley School has exceptional systems in place to ensure that students are supported, feel safe and that their personal development needs are integrated into their whole curriculum experience.

Our pastoral care is based on a traditional year team system, with every year group having an experienced and skilled Head of Year, Assistant Head of Year and team of experienced tutors. Year 7 have their own dedicated specialist Year Team which remains consistent over time. Students then have a new Head of Year, Assistant and team of tutors in year 8, who stay with them up to Year 11. It is the deep knowledge and understanding of each child in the year, built through strong and positive partnership with parents over these four years which makes this system so strong.

Students have a daily tutorial session integrated into the lunch break, which forms the basis for this relationship. The Sixth Form have a different arrangement which is explained in the Sixth Form pages of this site. Important features of the tutorial programme include traditional assemblies, Personal Education (and its many acronyms; PSE, PSHE, PSHCE …) and individual mentoring. Our tutorial programme is intimately linked with enrichment as a central pillar of the school curriculum; more is said about this in the Opportunities section.

Tutors are the first point of contact for parents. Heads of Year and their Assistant will deal with more intractable or serious issues, whilst Heads of Faculty will support with any concerns related to an individual subject. When these avenues have been exhausted, senior leaders are happy to offer additional help and support. Parents and carers are always advised to call and make an appointment in advance, as staff may be teaching or in other meetings and advance notice can mean that an issue has been researched and a potential solution identified prior to the meeting.

Our pastoral system is intimately linked with progress in learning, recognising that social and intellectual learning go hand in hand. Personal education is therefore embedded across the curriculum to ensure that its relevance is understood and the effectiveness of learning is assessed. All learning and progress is regularly reported and supported by a comprehensive programme of parent consultation events. Our purpose is to build scholarship and character through a rich and diverse range of opportunities, in close partnership with our families and community.

Our schools values are based around ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’ which links with British Values, students receive a focused daily tutor program with weekly themes to engage students in the world outside of Bewdley to prepare them for future life. Students focus on a variety of themes which they receive an assembly on, followed by tutor time activities.

What are The Bewdley Values?

Our core set of values at The Bewdley School have been defined around the key principles of being Ready, Respectful and Safe:

The Bewdley Values are a core set of principles that will aim to guide our students character regardless of race, religion, age or gender.

What do we mean by character?

There is a growing consensus in Britain that virtues and values such as honesty, self-control, fairness, gratitude and respect, which contribute to good moral character, are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing society today. Research from the Jubilee Centre for Character Education suggests that children and adults live and learn better with good moral character and that moral integrity can also have a positive impact on performance in schools, professions, and workplaces.

According to Socrates, two questions need to be answered. “Is virtue/character something that can be learnt? And second, are teachers the best people to teach it?”

Good character includes moral virtues such as honesty and kindness, civic virtues such as community service, intellectual virtues such as curiosity and creativity, and performance virtues such as diligence and perseverance. Once we understand that these virtues are the foundation of both personal achievement and interpersonal relationships, the false dichotomy between academics and character education disappears. Character education isn’t something else on educators’ plates; it is the plate.