Page 9 -

TE KUAKA ISSUE 1 2014 9
Rebecca Dow
Rebecca taught at the Northland school for three years, and
during that time became increasingly aware of the challenges and
complexities surrounding pastoral care systems and roles.
She says the students’ issues were multifaceted and complex,
and so were the systems and roles designed to manage the issues.
Rebecca then went to a co-educational private school on
the Sunshine Coast in Queensland where she saw the same
complexities in the students, and built up similar frustrations toward
the pastoral care.
Being a teacher with a degree in social work allowed Rebecca
to bring a different, and valuable, lens to the two schools she
taught in. But, she says, it didn’t help settle the frustrations
bubbling inside her. She could not only see the complexities the
students brought to school, but also understand them, which
heightened her frustrations.
Rebecca was particularly concerned with the number of
pastoral care roles and the different views, aims and objectives that
each role brought to a situation.
Typically, a secondary school has a pastoral care team that
consists of:
• Senior leader
• Dean
• Teacher
• Guidance counsellor
• Behaviour support coordinator
“The problem is that each of these people have different
perspectives of a student, how they should be viewed, and how to
best care for them, which leads to a lot of frustrations.
“Each role also has different restrictions. Guidance counsellors
are bound by confidentiality but teachers are frowned upon if
they hold confidential information, so trying to balance roles and
expectations is complex.”
For example, she says, a child who is already a Child, Youth
and Families case will have a counsellor and will be working with
several agencies. Then they walk into school and they will have
teachers, deans, guidance counsellors and a behavioural support
person involved.
“All that for one student. Without them working together it
will send different messages to the student. Poor communication
between the various pastoral roles leads to poor care and
increasingly frustrated staff.”
Uniquely, Rebecca’s thesis investigated the complexities of
each role working together in one team and, as a result, produced
recommendations on how pastoral care teams can work more
collaboratively to achieve better outcomes for students.
“I specifically looked at the place of each role within the team.
I went into my thesis with a strong opinion that the schools needed
stronger leadership in order to deal with these complexities,” she
says.
“But by the end, I realised senior leaders are only one part. The
teams are actually a jigsaw puzzle, they are all different pieces that
need to come together and the senior leader is just one piece, not
the grand piece.”
Rebecca interviewed the pastoral care teams from an Auckland
and Waikato school about their perspectives of the different
pastoral care roles.
“I had to understand the theory they were operating through
to understand their views, which was social constructionism, where
people develop their theory through conversations and interactions
with others.”
Rebecca analysed the data and identified three evident themes:
complexities, collaboration and clarification of the different roles.
In her findings, Rebecca revealed a higher level of collaboration
was needed at an individual, group and team level.
“We need to acknowledge and understand each lens the
different roles bring to the team, and how each person views the
student. It’s a good thing there are different lenses and not only
one way to do deal with things.”
She says the leaders also need to provide time and physical
space to allow the recommended collaboration to happen.
Rebecca’s thesis has helped her secure a position at one of
New Zealand’s first charter schools, which has a large focus on
Christian principles and pastoral care.
The school does not have a dedicated pastoral care team as
it only has 8 teachers and 120 students but, in addition to her
teaching role, Rebecca has been given a time allowance to look
after student welfare and is looking forward to drawing on her
research to collaborate with the other teachers.
“Only having 15 kids per class means the teachers are required
to have a more holistic approach and should be really in tune with
the kids. But there are always those who need special care and
that’s where I come in.”