“It is just so reassuring to hear,” said one parent to Mrs Pollock, Head of Pastoral Care, after the Learning4Life (PSHE) presentation, which discussed our individual approach to caring for children, our Learning4Life lessons, and our Safeguarding procedures and structure which enable children to feel safe and thrive.
Mrs Pollock started by sharing a story, which demonstrated how our care for each individual child works: she received an email from a concerned member of staff who reported that something wasn’t quite right with a child, even though they couldn’t put their finger on what it was. Within minutes, an email had gone out to staff and within the hour, the child had been given the opportunity to share what was wrong and was receiving the support they needed from a member of staff.
Mr Pitman, Head of Learning4Life, explained how our in-house Learning4Life lessons take children, from Year 1 all the way to Year 8, through important issues which help them to be ready for life at senior school and beyond. He took care to explain that everything is age appropriate and we take the children through these topics in baby steps so that we build trust with the children, have a good connection with them and the topics are normalised. The children and parents also have the opportunity to input into the topics that they would like covered or that are important to them. As one parent commented during the talk: “this generation is so much better served because awareness is a positive step."
Mr Allingham, Designated Safeguarding Lead, talked to the parents about safeguarding, which is the umbrella that sits above our whole pastoral care system and is essentially about giving children the best life chances. He talked about the people our children can go to for help and the systems that are in place to keep supporting the children both at home and at school.
At the end, one parent said: "It was a great opportunity to get an overview of the whole system and I'm going to be keeping up with the Learning4Life topics on Google Classroom so we can discuss key topics at home as well."
