Pastoral Care Programs

Introduction

School as an educational institution plays a key role in promoting and supporting the full physical, social and emotional development of all learners in an inclusive learning environment. It has long being acknowledged that the health and wellbeing of students is increasingly being attributed to the school facilities and social and emotional well-being policies of the school. School-based health service including pastoral care can be considered as an effective practice integrated throughout the teaching and learning process to support the welfare, wellbeing, academic and personal needs of students. In the essay, I will be exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the pastoral care programs that my placement school is offering.

It is highly believed that students learn best when they enjoy the school and are able to develop a sense of belonging in a safe environment. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD, p.10) suggested that students are able to develop a positive attitude towards learning, build resilience and reach their full potential when their wellbeing is optimised. The National Safe Schools Framework provides schools in Australian with a guideline that assist in establishing the school policies and creating a safe learning environment where bullying, harassment, aggression and violence are not accepted. According the statistics provided by Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008,p.29), 11% Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 4–14 years reported being bullied at school, 17% said that the bullying had impacted on their progress at school. On top of that, mental health is of great importance to students’ optimal learning and development outcomes as well as their experience of schooling. Unfortunately, there are indications that a growing amount of students suffering from mental health problems, including anxiety disorders, stress response syndromes and sleep-related disorders. The data from ABS (2008,p.9) shows that 26.4% of Australians aged 16 to 24 currently have experienced a mental health disorder in the last 12

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, interpersonal relationship and feelings of belongingness ranking in the third level of human needs, which indicates that individual is constantly striving for discovering their sense of belonging through interacting with others around them. Supportive and positive student-teacher relationship fosters students’ sense of belonging at school and encourages them to have their own voice related to their feelings, which, in turn, may help to reach their full potential in achieving greater academic outcomes (Barlie et al, 2012). The impact of the relationships on student’s wellbeing has been increasingly recognised by many educators. Donna, Leanne& Amy (2014) claimed that both students and teachers will experience greater wellbeing with a positive student-teacher relationship and sense of connectedness. My placement school’s pastoral care programs such as homerooms, homework club and mental health support are designed to build up the relationships between the student and teacher. On top of that, the “Better Buddy” and online peer discussion program allow students to improve their relationships with peers, which provides opportunities for students to expand their own social circles and create networks, more importantly, understand the role they play and contribution