Dear Parent/Carer,
I am writing to inform you of some changes to the pastoral support team in place from September 2024.
Historically we have supported students by providing them with a Head of Year and an Inclusion Officer whose roles were to support the students’ academic and pastoral needs for their particular year group.
That model has worked well but, as the level and nature of need has changed, we have recognised that we need a different, more flexible model to enable us to continue to provide the support our students need.
Moving forward, each year group will still have a Head of Year whose role is to ensure students within their year group are supported academically. The Head of Year team are listed below, and they are excited to be working with your child next year.
Year 7 – Mrs T Bennett
Year 8 – Ms L Warner
Year 9 – Mrs H Hunt
Year 10 – Mr J Tooke
Year 11 – Mr E Pickerin
We are also now creating a new Student Services team who will be responsible for providing pastoral and wellbeing support across the whole school. That means that the same inclusion officer can work with children in the same family but different year groups. It means that inclusion officers can pool their talents and work together as a team rather than separately as year teams. It gives us capacity to develop specialisms; we might have one IO trained in bereavement counselling, for instance, and another in supporting children who have experienced trauma.
Some students who we feel need a little more support than others will be allocated a key worker who will be in contact in due course to introduce themselves.
All students are welcome to attend the Student Services if they need to talk to someone about any concerns or worries that they have. Parents can contact the student services by emailing/phoning either Ms S Cripps (Student Services Manager – scrippps@samuelward.co.uk), or their allocated key worker.
Attached to this letter you will find some more detailed clarification of who best to contact if you require any information or support.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best Wishes,
Andy Hunter
Executive Headteacher