Pastoral Care

At its simplest, pastoral care is the provision a school makes to ensure the physical and emotional welfare of pupils. It is the essential foundation upon which learning can take place. The pastoral care of every student is important to all staff at Thorpe, although we are a big school, we aim for all students to feel welcomed and an important part of our inclusive school community.

To achieve this, every student is placed in a form group with other students of the same age.  As much as possible, each student stays with the same ​Personal Development Tutor until the end of Year 10 allowing a good supportive relationship to flourish.  In Year 11, a specialist group of ​Personal Development Tutor works with students to help them through their final GCSE year.  Students meet their ​Personal Development Tutor every morning and they will engage with the pastoral curriculum during their ​ Personal Development Time.

A students Personal Development Tutor is there to build a relationship with the student and parent throughout the year and act as the first point of contact. This is known as Personal Development Tutor First. Introductions are made early in the Autumn term, followed by Meet the Personal Development Tutor evenings.
This relationship between student, Personal Development Tutor and parents is also built through the Thorpe Personal Development Diploma.

In order to deliver an age appropriate pastoral curriculum and meet the personal development needs of our students each year group has its own dedicated pastoral team. Each pastoral team is led by a Head of Year who are specialists in the needs of that year group.  Every year group school also has a dedicated Assistant Principal from the school Senior Leadership Team who is known as Head of School. Click School Matters below to see the Pastoral team structure, or visit the year group specific page, which also contains links for support.

Our Pastoral Teams for 2024-2025

Year 7

Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
Year 11

The year group pastoral team is further supported by non-teaching staff consisting of two members of the Behaviour for Education Support Team (BEST) (a ‘Lead’ and an ‘Assistant’), and an administrative Operations Assistant.  As these members of the team are not teachers they are readily available and will often be your first point of contact for any issues.  Our BEST staff will often deal with issues relating to attendance and behaviour, contacting home in the instance of difficulties at school, arranging home visits, meeting parents and students and liaising with the Heads of Year with regard to individual students.

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