Pastoral Care at St Neot’s

Through our whole community chosen School Values, our aims and our pillars; excellent pastoral care at St Neot’s is the underlying basis of all of our daily routines and provides a strong baseline for all areas across the school. We truly believe that a happy child will thrive and learn and therefore we aim to ensure every child has a positive school experience, whilst in our care. 

Every staff member is responsible for the pastoral care of every pupil, with the whole team focused on every individual child. Each child has their own unique story, character, talent and challenges and we aim to respect and enhance these; meeting each child where they are at and extending their self-belief, self worth and individual accomplishments. We aim to celebrate these with them and support them individually where needed.

The Form Teacher takes the lead responsibility for pastoral care of the pupils in their class. They support the wider staff body to be aware of the individual child and they are the main point of contact for the parents. Communication is key and we actively encourage as much communication between home and school as possible. Parents have access to Form Teachers at drop off and collection times and are also able to arrange individual conversations at suitable times throughout the school year. Form teachers are supported by their designated Head of Year, as well as the wider pastoral team. Heads of Year are available for additional support and conversations with parents, where needed.

  • The pastoral team meets weekly. This comprises the Heads’ of Year (across the school), School Nurse, SENCo, Director of Sport, Deputy Head and Headmaster. This helps to provide a holistic team approach, looking at the whole child. The team actively looks at preventative measures, to ensure that the school community engages positively, with our School Values at the core.

  • As a school, we aim to be supporting the raising of children who are as aware of their mental well-being as well as their physical well-being. The awareness and development of emotional literacy, social skills and holistic development form an integral part of our school day, both discretely and purposefully. As a school we are proud to have a growing number of trained Youth Mental Health First Aiders, who collectively help drive our awareness, responses and proactive measures to safeguard the mental health and well being of our children.

  • Our House system, from Year 3 upwards, feeds directly into our pastoral care provision, through its relationship building and positive role modelling. This is the foundation of school wide friendships and peer mentoring. Children are assigned to a House (from Year 3) and are quickly bought into the fold by the Senior Pupils. Participation in House events, regular House assemblies and peer mentoring within Houses, lends itself to a sense of belonging, purpose and pride. Houses are led by their Pupil Head of House, supported by key staff members.

  • Our school lunch times strongly support our overall well-being and sense of community. Staff join children at lunch, sharing conversation and healthy habits. Pupils in Year 3 upwards, sit on mixed age lunch tables. The Senior pupils help to facilitate discussion and hold responsibility within these forums for positive engagements and role modelling, alongside the staff body. This helps to embed relationships across the age ranges, resulting in a positive, encouraging community across the school.

  • Pupil voice feeds strongly into our pastoral care as we want the children to feel empowered, heard and supported. We hold regular questionnaires and surveys of the pupils and use platforms such as the School Council to help pupils feed into decision making; including improvements and areas of focus. The School Council supports this by holding meetings with relevant school staff, feeding back pupil voice from their forms. Leading the pupil voice are our Senior pupils, who are best placed to lead the pupils from the fore, bringing their school experience, maturity and forward thinking approaches to the wider community.

  • Pastoral care within St Neot’s is strongly bolstered by our curriculum coverage within PSHE lessons and form time. St Neot’s draws upon the Thoughtbox curriculum as well as Jigsaw, ensuring coverage that is relevant, comprehensive and supportive of the needs of the children. Thoughtbox prides itself on providing a curriculum that aims to help children think and connect more deeply with our changing world. Built alongside Jigsaw, we are able to ensure that pupils have scaffolded discussions, at age appropriate times. RSE provision forms part of this, which is mapped by our Head of PSHE. Parents are kept informed through our curriculum overviews and regular updates.

  • Pastorally, we understand that for every child, the starting of school or the change of school can be a challenging time. We aim to support every child individually and support a paced, smooth transition time as needed. Relationships grow from key participants, such as the Form Teacher, a class “buddy” and the Head of Year. During this time, we know that communication is key and welcome this as much as is needed to ensure that all parties feel included and reassured at all times. We also hold “taster days” and “moving up events”, which new children are welcome to attend. Informally, parents are connected to the current parent body to support friendships and community links.