Pastoral, Medical and Social Support

At Vane Road Primary School, we believe it is vitally important to develop the whole child, not just their academic ability.

Pastoral Care

At Vane Road Primary School, we believe it is vitally important to develop the whole child, not just their academic ability We believe that children are entitled to:

Be involved in the planning of their own health care needs whenever possible.
Establish a routine individually related to their needs and age.

We believe that parents are entitled to:

Be consulted about their child’s personal care, to ensure that it is sensitive to the families culture and reflects their child’s needs.
The reassurance that children will, whenever possible, receive personal care from the staff that know him/her best.

To support this, we:

Offer a referral to the Mental Health Team who will work with parents on CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy).
Have trained lunchtime supervisors who know the school well and have been employed here for many years.
Ensure all of our staff and visitors are DBS checked and fully trained in all aspects of their role.
Have a well planned PSHE/RSE curriculum, which runs throughout the school and have recently been awarded Silver the Rights Respecting School Award. We also run social development programmes such as Lego Therapy for those children who require extra support.
Ensure children are provided with an Educational Support Plan where needed and we support families through our links with local community groups, organisations and services.
Our range of after school activities promote healthy and safer lifestyles.

Medical Needs

We work closely with other professionals, both in-school staff, the school nurse, outside agencies and parents/carers to support all public health and medical needs within the school.
Our Pastoral Manager, Mr Lee Grady, completes Risk Assessments, administers medicine, updates Care Plans and a host of other duties. Please do not hesitate to contact her if you have any questions.
We are able to meet with parents/carers to discuss any concerns within a confidential and supportive environment.
We ensure staff receive up to date training and we seek advice from the relevant professionals to meet a families’ needs. A number of our members of staff are fully trained paediatric first aiders.
We produce Care Plans for those children who have complex additional needs.
We support children with additional Speech and Language needs by working in small groups, on a 1:1 basis or by involving speech and language professionals who work with identified children in school.

Social and Emotional support

We place great importance on promoting and supporting a child’s positive social and emotional well-being. We are a friendly and open school. We encourage children, parents and carers to speak to key members of staff each day. We are also happy to speak over the telephone to those parents who work during the day.

We use Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) to support where necessary.

We run Social Groups and Programmes using recommended strategies and resources from the Autism and Social Communication Team.

We support the children fully when they move to secondary school. We provide staff to accompany the children on their visits and members of the transition team spend time in our school every Summer Term.

Our Pastoral Team

Mr Lee Grady

Pastoral Manager

Mr Grady is our Pastoral Manager here at Vane Road School.

His role includes working in partnership with school leaders, classroom-based staff, parents, pupils and other professionals to address barriers to learning and ensure that all pupils are able to engage with education.

He has other roles in school including attendance monitoring, behaviour support, emotional support, managing medical issues in school and some aspects of safeguarding.

He is also here to support parents and can work with parents looking at Early Help Intervention and signpost to support services available to families and to help with Early Help Referrals and assessments.

If you feel you need some extra support, please contact Mr Grady through the school office.

Mrs Sarah Natress

EWO

Sarah Nattress is the Education Welfare Officer (EWO) for Vane Road School and has a wealth of experience in this area.

She will look at weekly attendance and carefully analyse this data to target attendance improvement for those pupils or pupil cohorts who need it the most. Strong home/school links are essential to improving attendance and removing any barriers.

She may invite parents for meetings and offer support around attendance to improve this. Mrs Nattress will also liase with the Attendance Improvement team if more formal action needs to be taken.

This is to ensure the wellbeing of all students and work in line with set out guidance.

What is Pastoral Care?

Pastoral care and support is extremely important in our school environment.

It is there to support the physical and emotional welfare of our children providing information, advice and guidance to them and their carers.

Why is Pastoral Care important in school?

Not only does pastoral care support students in their natural progression but also facilitates the development of their self-esteem, social skills and ability to cope with stress.

It is important that children feel safe and valued in their school environment and pastoral care can help ensure this.

Please see this document for more details.

Young Carers

Do you help someone at home get ready for the day?

Do you help comfort and keep someone safe?

Do you cook and clean?

If you think you are a Young Carer, then speak to:

Mr. Grady
(Pastoral Manager)

Mrs. Howe
(Member of SLT Team)

Young Carers in Our School

Here at Vane Road we are committed to ensuring that all children reach their full potential! We know that for some children, however, factors outside of school can have a big impact on this, particularly if there is someone in their family or a friend who is ill, disabled, or has a mental health problem or an addiction.

Nationally, on average, in every class there could be as many as 2 pupils who are helping to support someone because of one of these factors – we call these children young carers.  

Children can be young carers for lots of different reasons: 

They might be providing physical support to a parent with a physical illness such as fibromyalgia or ME, such as cooking, fetching things or helping with things like putting shoes on or doing the shopping

They might be helping a parent with a disability who needs help with more personal tasks such as getting dressed, bathing or changing dressings

Or it could be more emotional support – like being there if their autistic sibling is upset, taking responsibility for young siblings whilst parents attend health appointments, or checking that a parent with depression/anxiety is ok.

Some young carers might be doing lots of caring, others just a small amount but are impacted by the situation at home for example by worrying about the person with the health condition, or needing to do more things for themselves compared to other children. 

There is lots of support available for young carers and their families should they ever need it – both inside and outside of school. Examples of this include: 

Allowing additional time to complete schoolwork, e.g. extended deadlines.

Catch-ups with the young carer lead where the pupil can talk about issues they are facing educationally, this may be individual meetings, or through a young carer drop-in session.

Meetings with their class teacher to discuss progress and any additional help that can be offered.

Additional support to complete work, e.g. through deployment of teaching assistants.

Providing homework clubs to give them a space to complete homework separate from the demands of their home life.

Access to extra-curricular opportunities which do not fall outside of the school day.

The school will ensure that the pupil is offered appropriate pastoral care and emotional support, e.g. through The Junction.

Additional support will be offered to parents in order to remove any communication barriers with them.

The school will continuously promote additional links with adult care agencies which may be able to support families and relieve care responsibilities.

If you think that any of the above applies to your child, and that they might possibly be a young carer please contact our Young Carer lead

Pastoral Manager Mr Grady or member SLT and Head of School Mrs Howe. Also let your class teacher know and we will be in touch.

Even if you feel your child or family are doing really well and don’t need any support, we find that it’s better for us to be aware of children as potential young carers, in case the situation suddenly changes and they (or you) do need support. It just means that you and your child don’t have to start from scratch with letting us know what is going on if things have become difficult. 

To find out about the extra support for young carers please click on the button below.

Extra support for young carers