Pastoral Care in school
At St Anne’s, we believe in, and care for, the whole child. Our Pastoral Care encourages our pupils’ spiritual, academic, social and emotional growth throughout their education. The wellbeing of all members of our community is a top priority and we have a strong and well established pastoral system in place to support our pupils and enable them to reach their full potential and live life in all its fullness.
Our Mental Health Intent Statement sets out our vision and commitment to creating a safe, supportive and inclusive environment where every member of our community feels valued.
Mental Health Intent Statement
Tutors and Tutor Time
Your daughter’s tutor is, in most cases, the first person to communicate with and is central to our home-school partnerships being successful on a day-to-day basis.
As well as time for registers to be taken and notices to be given, each morning at St Anne’s begins with morning prayers. These prayers, and reflections, are prepared and delivered by pupils of all faiths. They are a calm, peaceful start to the day in which we join together to consider our relationship with God, and each other, and prepare ourselves to show our core values through our behaviour for the rest of the school day.
Pupils also have the opportunity to take on a pupil leadership role within their tutor group. These roles enable pupils them to support their tutor and peers whilst developing valuable life skills. Our pupil leadership structure allows girls to meet pupils in other year groups and to interact with our wonderful Sixth Form leaders. It could even be the first step your daughter takes on the journey to be Head Girl in Year 13!
As well as all this, pupils attend year group and house assemblies with their tutor group, participate in House sports events, explore PSHE topics and take part in charity events throughout the year.
Heads of Year and Pastoral Hub
Each year group at St Anne’s is supported by a dedicated Head of Year. They are located within the central Pastoral Hub, along with other members of the Pastoral Team, including our Pastoral Support Workers and Senior Pastoral Manager. This means that pupils have one clear place from which to seek out support and allows our team to work closely together to benefit all members of the Years 7 – 11 community. There is a separate Pastoral system for our Sixth Form students, which you can find out more about on the Sixth Form page on the website.
We recognise the importance of a successful transition from primary school and our Head of Year 7, who is also part of our transitions team, gives continuity to our pupils’ transition and, just as importantly, provides a friendly face to greet your daughter with when she arrives in September!
We recognise that good mental health and wellbeing is fundamental. When pupils have good mental health and wellbeing, they are more able to engage at school and succeed. As a result, we are proud to provide access to the confidential services of specially trained school counsellors and our own mental health nurse for our pupils. In addition, our pastoral team are trained in mental health first aid and we work with a variety of charitable organisations who provide help and support for young people who may need it. You can find out more about this on the ‘Pastoral Care for families’ section of this website.
All members of our Pastoral Team are able to provide, or direct students to the most suitable levels of support for any of their concerns. If there is a problem, whether it’s a hole in their shoe or a lost timetable, our students have access to the Pastoral Hub at any time to quickly find the right solutions or next step.
Chaplaincy Team
Our Chaplaincy team work tirelessly to provide additional spiritual nourishment for all pupils through supporting extra curricular and charity events. The opportunities which arise from this work are impressive and far reaching and help develop our pupils’ understanding and awareness of issues which others, both in and outside of our community can face.
PSHE
Form tutors, Heads of Year and a specialised team of teachers from the RE department deliver our PSHE (personal, social and health education) curriculum. This enables us to provide a high quality curriculum with the very best input for these key areas of the pupil’s growth and development. You can find out more about our PSHE curriculum on the Curriculum page of our website, under the Applied Religious Education Curriculum Road Map.
SEND
We are a school committed to providing high quality mainstream inclusion. This means that we work tirelessly to ensure that all pupils, regardless of need, will have an equitable experience within their education to their peers. To do this, we also use specialised support for pupils with special educational needs. Our SENDCOs lead a team of teaching assistants to provide in class support, 1:1 key worker mentoring and support, ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistance) and a range of individual and group interventions to cater for the needs of our SEND pupils.
Sometimes, pupils need a little bit extra to support them in achieving a specific outcome, navigating a specific personal challenge or to get back on track towards successful engagement in school. St Anne’s currently works with a range of organisations to do this.
Our pupils have the opportunity to work with Southampton City Farm, Saints Foundation, and Southampton City Art Gallery to support students with social, emotional or mental health needs which, otherwise, could hinder their ability to thrive here at school. These sorts of interventions are short term and are used to complement what is already on offer in school to support our pupils.
Other targeted interventions also focus on support in the classroom. Our Literacy, Numeracy and English as an Additional Language (EAL) intervention team, as well as our academic mentors, provide specialist individual and group support for pupils who may need a little extra help.
Attendance Support
We work closely with our linked Education Support Officer (ESO) to help students who are facing barriers to attending school. Working with Heads of Year, our ESO, can attend meetings, help address issues facing families which might be holding pupils back from attending school and support our students by being an additional link between home and St Anne’s. If you feel that you are worried about your daughter’s engagement with school or her attendance, please contact her tutor and Head of Year in the first instance.
Careers
School is one chapter in what, we hope, is a lifelong journey of learning for your daughter. The world beyond St Anne’s is broad, diverse and exciting; filled with opportunities that may not even existed when we were at school. Our dedicated Careers Adviser meets with all pupils, during Year 10, to discuss their aims and aspirations for the next stage of their journey. This, along with the strong partnership we have with Southampton Solent University’s Schools and Colleges liaison, provides an extensive, in depth careers provision to help pupils find the best routes into an education and/or career pathway which will excite, enthuse and motivate them.
