Evaluation of Aspects of Pastoral Care and Mentoring in the Educational Contest - Essay Example

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Analysis and Evaluation of Aspects of Pastoral Care and Mentoring in the Educational Context Table of Content Introduction.................................................................................................3 Pastoral Care and Mentoring in the Educational System............................3 Pastoral & Mentoring Systems and Improving Learning ….......................6 Strategies for the Attainment of Pastoral and Mentoring Needs.................9 Special Cases and Mentoring......................................................................10 Opportunity Costs V Opportunity Gains.....................................................11 Specific Pastoral Needs and Strategies.......................................................12 Conclusion …..............................................................................................14 References...................................................................................................15 Introduction This paper undertakes an in-depth enquiry into the concepts of pastoral care and mentoring in the educational context. This involves a critical analysis meant to evaluate aspects of pastoral care and mentoring. In attaining this end, the researcher undertakes a critical evaluation of the specific pastoral needs of students and examines the strategies for the attainment of this end in educational institutions. The paper examines how pastoral care and mentoring supports in effective learning. This is done through an examination of the needs of people in the educational system. It also analyses the various strategies in the attainment of these ends. There will be an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of each of the strategies. The analysis will conclude on the ends that each strategy meets in terms of specific pastoral care. The following objectives are examined: 1. A critical analysis of pastoral care and mentoring in the educational system. 2. Assessment of the link between pastoral needs and improving learning 3. An examination of the strategies for the attainment of pastoral needs. 4. Critical examination of the pastoral needs that each strategy meets. Pastoral Care and Mentoring in the Educational System Pastoral care is concerned with the evolution of education from a purely academic system to one that includes important social concerns. Best states that “pastoral care marks an evolution of education from a purely academic system to one which incorporates social and family oriented lessons” (2000 p3). This means that Pastoral care seeks to integrate the important aspects of life that were primarily taught by parents and the society to children in the society before the coming of the Industrial Revolution. In other words, the social system of Britain was quite distinct in about five hundred years ago. However, in modern times, changes in the socio-economic system of Britain and other nations has caused the focus of society to shift from social values to one where efficiency, economic gains and independence are emphasized. As such, pastoral care attempts to recreate and inculcate the social value systems and structures that were taught informally before fundamental changes to the society occurred. The system through which most schools do this is through pastoral care, affective education, guidance and counselling and personal/social education (Best, 2000). This is strongly steeped in Christian traditions and systems of trying to get people to be morally and socially upright right from an early stage. The world Pastoral care has a Latin root, pascere which means to feed. Best traces it to the early Anglican systems of Britain where Pastors were required to 'feed' their 'flocks' through care and other forms of mentoring and supervision systems which ensured that the members of the Church carried out what was taught in the Church and also raise their children in accordance with acceptable standards and traditions (Best, 2000). Pastoral Care became common in Cambridge and Oxford and gradually spread to secular state educational institutions in the 1870s. This was transposed to the Royal Armed Forces in World War II and it became entrenched in the UK's educational system after the 1960s (Best, 2000). The main essence of Pastoral care is that it allows the individual to choose to live a life in sync with the social values of the community and to stay on that track. It inculcates moral and ethical attitudes and values into the education of school children and allows them to build important lifestyles that allows them to become more responsible adults who contribute positively to the development of the society. Liam quotes the Department of Education Service's definition of Pastoral care and states that it is “... concerned with promoting pupils' personal and social development and fostering positive attitudes: through the quality of teaching and learning: through the nature of relationships amongst pupils, teachers and adults other than teachers; through arrangements of monitoring pupils' overall progress, academic, personal and social...” (2003). Pastoral care is therefore a structured system through which school children are taught how to become responsible persons through the incorporation of some social elements in the school's educational systems. This ensures that the individuals builds ethical tendencies and becomes more responsible on the social and ethical fronts. This is done by a conscious effort of integrating these value systems in the training and education of these young people in schools. Pastoral care involves a conscious effort and it encompasses the entire livelihood of these school children. This is because it aims at providing the children with an education that will make them responsible and ethical in everything they do. As such, it has to be ubiquitous and involve the creation of a conducive atmosphere for the positive development of these school children. Liam goes further to describe the system through which Pastoral care is integrated into the formal educational systems and structures of schools. He identifies that in the traditional sense, there are often three deputy headteachers who support the headteacher. The Deputies would often include one each for Administration/Staff, Communication and Pastoral Care. The deputy headteacher for Pastoral Care would head a unit that involves a Year Coordinator and a Deputy Year Coordinator who would be responsible for managing form tutors and enhancing personal tutor-tutee relationships between teachers and students. Pastoral & Mentoring Systems and Improving Learning Currently, the major blueprint for education at the secondary school and primary level is the Every Child Matters policy which seeks to provide a broad spectrum of educational opportunities and guidelines for children throughout Britain. Every Child Matters seeks to provide the best of everything to children and also protect their best interest in every situation they find themselves in. Every Child Matters attempts to ensure a number of important things: 1. Coordination of activities by different stakeholders involved in the child development and child protection industry. 2. Elimination of factors that lead to long-standing child neglect which leads to the detriment of children in their development and integration into the wider society. 3. Shift the emphasis on child development from just academic and school-oriented activities that are meant to provide just a limited training for children. 4. To provide child protection services that will holistically improve children and enable them to grow to become responsible and useful persons in the society. 5. Identify and reduce risks that will affect children's development throughout the UK. 6. Integrate juvenile reformation and the prevention of offending through the educational and nurturing system rather than through the correctional services. 7. Reduce truancy and help to nurture children from all backgrounds in the right direction to ensure that the society's development is even and well structured. 8. Promote an increased livelihood for all peoples of all backgrounds in Britain and ensure that the gap between the rich and the poor is minimised through the programme. 9. Ensure that every child fulfils his or her highest potentials through a well structured framework of guaranteeing the best of education and social development. 10. Provide a positive vision that would enable the UK government to keep the children on the right track for development and improvement (UK Government, 2003 p5 - 7) The five main outcomes of the Every Child Matters programme include providing the best of everything for children in Britain so that they: 1. Remain Healthy 2. Remain Safe 3. Enjoy life and achieve their best results 4. Make positive contributions to the society and 5. Achieve economic wellbeing (Barker, 2009). Clearly, every child matters is a blend of the social development of children in the bid to attain the best of results for children throughout Britain. In this quest, there is the need for the use of strategies and tools to blend the important elements of children's development with the integration of these social oriented quests and objectives. The attainment of these requirements include the integration of elements of pastoral care and nurture groups in the schools throughout Britain to ensure that children become more responsible in the social sense and prepare themselves for a productive adulthood and good citizenship. According to Best (2000) the process of integrating pastoral care and nurture social attributes amongst children is done through a framework of six factors. These factors come together to create the scene for the education and development of children in a social manner. They include. 1. Formation of bureaucratic structures that define status, position and role of persons in the pastoral care system. In other words, this entails an attempt to entrench pastoral care by integrating them into the formal system of a school. This can be done by the formal recognition of players in the pastoral care system and identification of their roles and activities through a clearly defined system of heirarchy. 2. Once the structures are in place, the key players in the pastoral care system of the school need to get to work. They will need to do what is required of them and attain important targets that are identified for them in the school's structures. 3. As the pastoral care and social development unit operates, there will be the need for the identification of rules and regulations that will be carved out to provide guidelines and sanctions for students. This will keep them in check and ensure that they abide by the objectives of the pastoral care system. Through this, there is a strong hope that the students will become compliant and cooperate in the activities of the care. 4. The pastoral care system can work best if it focuses on improving relationships amongst members of the school's communities. As such, the rules, objectives and sanctions should be aimed at getting children to behave according to a set of attitudes and values which will nurture them positively in their integration into the society. This will invariably lead to a system where they children will be shaped by the existing surrounding and pick up good habits and tendencies. 5. The end of such quest for social development must be to ensure that children adopt the right attitudes and values which they will be willing to apply for the rest of their lives. This will provide an important and practical system through which children will grow up and become more responsive to the values of the society and remain ethical and more inclined towards a high degree of morality. 6. There should also be a system of evaluating the level of ethos that have been achieved in the school through a pastoral care programme. This means that there should be measurable targets set right from point 1 when the whole idea is formalised and integrated and supervised and measured from time to time. This should give an understanding of the level of achievement over a definite period of time. Strategies for the Attainment of Pastoral and Mentoring Needs The core principles of pastoral care include four main steps (David, 1996). These four steps provides the strategic framework for the attainment of the core elements of pastoral care which is fundamentally steeped in the creation of a socially responsible student base. 1. Consider future needs of children: The head of the pastoral care unit will need to ascertain the collective needs of the children in social terms. This will involve relevant sociological requirements which will draw on the values and norms that define social responsibility. This will provide the basis for the formulation of targets and objectives for the teaching of the pastoral care programme and formation of the important structures and systems to carry out the processes and expectations. According to Beere and Gilbert (2007), there is the need for this phase to include the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL). This can be done through the identification of the national agenda on the identification of social and emotional targets of the society. This should be incorporated into the pastoral care and mentoring system that would be drawn up for the school or for selected individuals affected by particular activities. 2. Formulation of Learning Process: Once the objectives and targets of a possible pastoral care system is defined, it is imperative for the Pastoral Care unit of the school to formulate a learning process that will define the best ways and systems of teaching children. This should be formulated in order to meet the targets defined by the unit in step 1 above. 3. Planning and Implementation of Pastoral Programme: When the learning process is defined on paper, there should be realistic evaluations and considerations that should be made. After this is done and all important stakeholders are consulted, the pastoral care unit can take steps to implement the programme. This will be done through the support of the authorities of the institution and carried out in a structured manner. 4. Coordination and Evaluation of Pastoral Care: Once a programme is underway, there should be a regular evaluation of activities and results against the targets set for the programme. This should give way for improvement and coordination of activities to ensure that the targets are being met and there is room for improvement of the systems and structures to attain better results on a year-by-year basis. Special Cases and Mentoring Some students have special cases and deserve more than just the general pastoral care programme (Bennathan and Boxall, 2000). These students need to be put in nurture groups where they will be offered short term, focussed, intervention strategies which addresses barriers to learning arising from social and emotional and/or behavioural difficulties (Nurture Group, 2012). Such a group include between six to ten children who are put on a conscious and special programme under the supervision of one or two qualified persons. Nurture groups should help children in six important areas: 1. Enables children's development to be understood developmentally as they are observed. 2. The division offers a safe base through which trust and emotional bonds can emerge. 3. Nurturing enables students to develop self esteem based on their unique features and talents. 4. Language is used as a vital means of communication and where possible, people are grouped in areas where they can get instructions in their first language or mother tongue. 5. Every behaviour is a form of communication that the supervisors need to take note of and use in the further development of group members. 6. Identify and integrate important measures to manage the transition in the lives of the children (Lucas et al, 2006). Opportunity Costs V Opportunity Gains In the planning and implementation of a pastoral care and nurturing strategy, the educational institution needs to make realistic assessments at all points in the process (Cooper and Tiknaz, 2005). This will mean that there should be a careful balance of resources and requirements in order to arrive at important ends that will enable the members of the pastoral care team to attain the results of their tasks. The main inhibitors that need to be identified in this quest include (Cooper and Tiknaz, 2005): 1. School related factors like the replacement of teachers and the quality of teachers. 2. Composition of classes and nurture groups should be done to ensure fair distribution of ages and the balance between children and their unique issues. 3. Child related factors like the quality and relevance of curriculum and their level of understanding of English should be considered. 4. Organisational factors like the length of time available for the training and the school's disciplinary systems and structure should be taken into account. Specific Pastoral Needs and Strategies In some special cases, pastoral strategies need to address specific issues and incidents. A generic term used to describe this broad classification of issues is Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD) which was coined by Cooper and Tiknaz (2007). They define SEBD to range from: “... acting out behaviours such as aggressive, non-compliant behaviour, vandalism and bullying to 'acting in' behaviours such as social withdrawal, anxiety, depression, extreme passivity and self harm” (Cooper and Tiknaz, 2007). As such, the strategies of Pastoral Care in such situations need to reduce the effects of these SEBD symptoms and replace them with a more responsible and socially accepted lifestyle that would help the student to attain a stable social development. Best (1990) states that in order to deal with such a situation, there should be the creation of an appropriate environment to support the development of people with such disorders. The environment need to include the following elements: 1. Provide the students the opportunities to engage in corporate and collective activities. 2. Provide the opportunities for the students to be taught important things that will let them feel a sense of belonging. 3. Create a framework through which roles will be assigned to these students and protect their liberty in a in excessive system. 4. Also, there should be rules and sanctions that would regulate the behaviour of these students being 'treated' by the pastoral care system to improve upon the SEBDs. Cruddas then argues that once the system and setting is appropriate, a system of mentoring can be instituted (2005). This should be done to secure the six tenets of mentoring which include: 1. Providing professional help and relationships to facilitate learning. 2. Provision of person-centred, value oriented reflective learning. 3. Problem and problem solving situations that will provide hands on experience for learning. 4. Creation of a social process for learning. 5. Empower the individual and help him or her to build some important skills 6. Demonstrate high degrees of equality, respect and democracy that mirror real-word situations. Rickson (2011) identified that in order to solve SEBD, there is the need to make a conscious effort to attain the following through a structured mentoring or pastoral care system: 1. Identify achievable targets 2. Make a conscious effort to find talents 3. Develop the members of the group socially. As these three things are in place, the professionals in charge of the system should gradually develop their objectives to the following: 1. Real life purposes. 2. Increase the degree of ownership that the participants have to the project. 3. Teach the members new knowledge and skills. 4. Maintain involvement and enhance equality and teach the participants to treasure equality and respect. 5. Try to encourage career ideas that will come up through the programme and try to guide the participants towards a given career path that fits their talents. Conclusion Pastoral care is essential in attaining the social development of children and helping them to become more responsible citizens of the society. It is the new area for the training of children to become social responsible. It is in sync with the government's policy towards social responsibility, Every Child Matters. A good strategy for pastoral care is one that aims at building a good future for the children. This includes the formulation of learning processes and implementation and monitoring of such processes. Students with special needs might best be developed through nurturing groups and mentoring arrangements. The specific of such persons with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD) must be identified and a conscious programme formulated for them. Such a programme needs to be practical and must involve social learning and the consolidation of talents. This will like the programme with real life situations and enhance the social development of such children with difficulties. References Barker, R. (2009) Making Sense of Every Child Matters: Multi-Professional Practice Guide London: Policy Press. Beere, J., Gilbert, I. (2007) The Learners Toolkit: Supporting the SEAL framework London: Crown House Bennathan, M.& Boxall M.(2000) Effective Intervention in Primary Schools London: David Fulton Best, R. (1990) “Pastoral Care in Schools: Some Implications for Teacher Training” Australia Journal of Teacher Education Vol 15 Issue 1 Best, R. (2000) Pastoral Care and Personal Social Education London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Cooper, P. and Tiknaz, Y. (2005) Progress and challenge in Nurture Groups: evidence from three case studies, British Journal of Special Education , 32 (4) 211-222. Cooper, P. and Tiknaz, Y. (2007) Nurture Groups at Home and in School: Connecting with Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties London: Jessica Kingsley. Cruddas, L. (2005) Learning Mentors in Schools: Policy and Practice Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. David, K. (1996) Pastoral Care: Matters in Primary and Middle Schools London: Routledge Liam, . (2003) Learning to Teach Citizenship to the Secondary School London: Routledge Lucas, S., Inskey, K. and Buchland, G. (2006) Nurture Group Principles and Communication Guidelines London: The Nurture Group. Nurture Groups (2012) Who We are [Online] Available at: http://www.nurturegroups.org/pages/what-are-nurture-groups.html [Accessed: 26th June, 2012] Rickson, M. (2011) “Growth through Growing: Students with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties” Growing Schools [Online] available at: http://www.growingschools.org.uk/Resources/Downloads/Growth%20through%20growing%20(BESD).pdf UK Government (2003) Every Child Counts Norwich: Crown Copyright. Read More