Welcome to this Special Issue of Pastoral Care in Education in which we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the journal’s membership association, the National Association for Pastoral Care in Education (NAPCE). NAPCE was founded in October 1982 to establish links between education professionals and allied agencies who have an interest in pastoral care, personal and social education and the welfare of students of all ages in schools. Over 300 teachers attended the inaugural conference in Dudley, England, at which the founding chair Michael Marland, spoke of the challenges faced by many thousands of teachers with responsibility for pastoral care despite very little training or support at local or national level and with limited focus during Initial Teacher Training.
The first issue of NAPCE’s journal Pastoral Care in Education was subsequently published in February 1983 and in the editorial, Peter Ribbins, Maura Healy and Peter Lang warned that in these ‘hard times for education … we shall probably have to be vigilant and fight hard if pastoral provision is not to be reduced to a rump’ (Ribbins et al., Citation1983, p. 1). The first issue comprised eight articles which focused on a range of themes including ‘Rethinking the Pastoral-Academic Split’ (Ron Best and Peter Ribbins), ‘The Pastoral Head’ (Keith Blackburn), ‘Preparing for Promotion in Pastoral Care’ (Michael Marland) and ‘Teacher-Based Research and Pastoral Care’ (Bob Burgess).
Self-evidently the educational policy context was very different 40 years ago. The year 1982 marked the halfway point between Prime Minister James Callaghan’s influential Ruskin College speech in 1976 (which launched what would be known as the ‘great debate’ about the nature and purpose of education in the UK) and the introduction in 1988 of Kenneth Baker’s Education Reform Act and the first statutory National Curriculum in England and Wales.
Fast forward 40 years and it seems that our world has changed immeasurably: globally we continue to emerge from the greatest pandemic in a century (Covid-19) which is reported to have caused 6 million deaths worldwide; we face enormous challenges to address climate change which is fuelling weather extremes, natural disasters and environmental degradation; and in recent months we have witnessed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leading to the largest refugee crisis since World War II with almost 9 million Ukrainians fleeing their home country and a third of the population displaced. Educationally too, much has been written about the increased accountability imposed on our school systems, ostensibly aiming to raise standards and generate improved outcomes, but arguably resulting in increased managerialism, an unhealthy focus on ‘teaching to the test’ and a lack of trust in school leaders and the teaching profession more generally. In their wide-ranging review of educational developments over the past half-century, Brighouse and Waters (Citation2022) compare the current inspection regime in the UK to the circular panopticon prison model (developed by Bentham and analysed by Foucault), where inmates were controlled by the fear of constant surveillance. Under such oppressive surveillance and pressure to achieve and raise standards, it could be argued that the very notion of pastoral care is under threat as never before.
It is within this very challenging socio-political and educational context that we set out to assemble a collection of shorter, stimulating thought pieces for this special anniversary issue of Pastoral Care in Education. As guest editors, we approached eleven individuals and asked them to respond to one or both of the following questions:
What is the biggest challenge facing pastoral care in education today and how can this challenge be effectively addressed?
How would you like to see pastoral care in education develop over the next 40 years?
In selecting potential contributors, we deliberately targeted a diverse range of authors, including a former editor of Pastoral Care in Education, members of its editorial board, international associate editors, current students (including a student teacher), and the national chair of NAPCE.
While we could not have predicted the themes chosen by our guest contributors, we were surprised neither by the wide range of challenges identified nor by the diversity of strategies proposed to address them.
In the opening article in this special issue, Colleen McLaughlin, former editor of Pastoral Care in Education, recalls attending the inaugural NAPCE conference in 1982 chaired by Michael Marland, and warns that we need to re-engage with the debate about the values and purposes of education, restoring a central focus on pastoral care and responding to what she describes as ‘a tidal wave of voices and evidence for change’. In the second article by Max Biddulph, former chair of the editorial board of Pastoral Care in Education, a ‘wish list’ of educator competences and strategies is proposed to develop good practice in pastoral care over the next 40 years. Such good practice is rooted in a whole-school approach centred on relationships on an interpersonal and a community level within and without a truly inclusive school context.
In the third article, associate editor Caron Carter analyses the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s wellbeing and mental health, and argues that this is clearly one of the greatest challenges facing pastoral care in education today. Carter proposes that children must first be listened to and that there is an unprecedented opportunity as we emerge from the pandemic to reimagine and reposition education with wellbeing as a central focus of schooling, and with adequate time and space provided for children to interact and reconnect. In the fourth article, Barbara Spears (one of our international associate editors) and Deborah Green move beyond compulsory schooling to discuss the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on student teachers and their university tutors. With over 45 years of tertiary-level experience between them (in Australia), Spears and Green reflect that there has never before been such a need for pastoral care in university contexts (as well as in schools), and argue that graduate teachers should be encouraged to move into the profession as future ‘relationship leaders’, aware of the primacy of pastoral care as a core component of their work as educators.
Undergraduate student perspectives form an important element within this special issue, and are represented through contributions by Naomi Lloyd and Charles Walker. In the first of these, final-year trainee teacher Naomi Lloyd writes powerfully of her own experiences as a 14-year-old with an eating disorder. While she acknowledges that mental health is much less of a taboo subject today than in the past, Lloyd also questions whether all trainee teachers are being adequately prepared to deliver effective prevention and intervention programmes in relation to mental health (and eating disorders in particular) among children and young people. In the following article, fellow undergraduate student, Charles Walker, highlights the need for universities to develop more effective pastoral structures to support today’s students as they transition from the more nurturing environment of schools. Walker reports that many students are reluctant to come forward as a result of the stigma associated with the terminology of ‘mental health’, and suggests that universities adopt more positive, listening and diverse approaches (including more extensive use of online technologies) to encourage more students to access the support they need.
A third insightful article focusing on mental health, by editorial board member Helen Cowie, highlights enduring definitional challenges around mental health as well as the negative impact of socio-economic disadvantage on the mental health of children and families. Cowie proposes two approaches to addressing mental health challenges: the need to create systems and interventions that reach out to families in the community and the need to enhance and strengthen peer relationships both within and beyond the school community.
The importance of a whole-community response to pastoral challenges is also central to the next article in this special issue, led by James O’Higgins Norman, another of the journal’s international associate editors. Here, O’Higgins Norman, Berger, Yoneyama and Cross consider the continued significant global challenge of addressing bullying in schools, both face to face and online. They report on recent innovative international research carried out in conjunction with UNESCO using the eDelphi method of consultation which has proposed a move from a whole-school to a whole-education (or whole-community) approach to tackling bullying.
Two of the submissions focus primarily on the adoption of trauma-informed approaches within educational settings. In the first of these, educational practitioner and doctoral candidate, Eleanor Long, highlights the fact that almost a third of children and young people in schools in England and Wales have experienced traumatic or adverse childhood experiences such as violence, abuse or neglect, with often very negative impacts on their psychological and physiological health in later years. Long outlines the benefits of the adoption of trauma-informed approaches in schools, but notes that this requires quality training and resourcing, consistent implementation, adequate supervision and emotional support for staff. Editorial board member, Anne Emerson, takes this further and applies the principles of a trauma-informed approach to the particular behavioural needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), too many of whom are excluded from schools as a result of their failure to adhere to schools’ behaviour policies. To address this, Emerson calls for trauma-informed practices to be embedded in teacher education courses and introduced in all schools, prioritising positive relationships, and leading to a shift in culture from control and discipline to understanding and support for all children, including those with SEND.
In the final article, current NAPCE chair, Phil Jones reflects on 40 years of the National Association for Pastoral Care in Education, highlights the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s socialisation processes, and makes four concluding recommendations for the next 40 years of pastoral care: to develop and implement pastoral systems that support academic progress and personal development; to develop pastoral systems that provide the support and motivation for children to acquire the skills necessary to make a positive contribution in the workplace and society of the future; to invest in a proactive rather than purely reactive approach to pastoral care; and, to encourage a positive culture for learning allowing all children to thrive and achieve their full potential.
In conclusion, from the wide range of perspectives and approaches throughout the diverse articles in this special issue, there emerges a strong central message: that pastoral care, through which the emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people is supported, promoted and championed, belongs at the very centre of our education system today more than ever before. Furthermore, there is a strong conviction that for pastoral care to be maximally effective, it must be a policy priority and shared responsibility of the entire community.