What is pastoral care?
Introduction of Pastoral care in Lancers School
Boarding schools are represented negatively in the Indian media. Terrifying masters and strict caretakers are often the norms in such a portrait.
Nowadays that absolutely doesn’t hold true in a pastoral care environment. It aims to create a caring environment for students. It supports and nurtures them through life.
Matrons are warm, polite and approachable, encouraging children to come to them whenever they have a problem. A sense of holistic development spreads through pastoral care boarding schools. Rather than looking at grades and extra-curricular, it looks at the personal growth and emotional development.
What Makes Good Care?
School in Gurgaon
Excellent pastoral care is one of those desirable things you can’t disagree with. It is surprising how often we consider at face value and not really question. So
- What does great pastoral care actually mean?
- How do good schools achieve it?
- What should parents be looking for in a boarding school or daycare boarding school?
LIS pastoral care
At Lancers International School, pastoral care and emotional well-being are at the heart of everything we do, supporting our core value of togetherness. First of all, our goal is for students to take ownership of their actions. We also aim that the student begins to understand the link between their behavior and its effects on others. Student behavior expectations are working together with students and teachers and are in line with our core values.
What do we do at Lancers International School?
In LIS, primary school students are held to behavior agreements based on the IB learner profile, hoping to become learners who are inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective. We believe that there is value to students being able to independently honor such agreements, creating accountability as well as better understanding their purpose.
Later Grade School students also participate in behavior agreements. They are more of a working together process between students and teachers, communicated at the start of class and adapted to each subject or class.
Excellent pastoral care is much more than just being nice to people: it’s putting a child’s needs at the center of a school’s operation.
Child Safety
We are there to protect the well-being of children. We act as a safety net to pick them up from the changes of life. Hence our 24-hour medical center also does a good work; all staff, especially our house staff and matrons, has a brief to get to know their duties. As a result, we ask these mentors to be available to them at, in a boarding school, any time. We are specifically trained in many of the issues related to teenagers today. Whether it is anorexia or cyber-bullying, attachment disorders or depression, we take care of all of them.
Communication is the key
Our systems for communicating pastoral concerns instantly through sophisticated software are robust. The anti-bullying measures ensure that everyone knows what is acceptable and what is not. Students know whom he or she can turn to if needed.
Teach by Example
We as trainers, teachers, and pastoral staff need to have the expertise to teach and to demonstrate by example what is healthy or what is not.
Creating opportunities
The international schools and boarding schools make sure that the subjects we teach are those which a student will actually need – in our case ensuring a breadth of IGCSE and the IB. At LIS daycare boarding school, pastoral care also involves a clear intent to provide activities, opportunities, and situations which develop the problem-solving ability. Above all, the values and moral dimension will sustain an individual’s well-being throughout their life.
Lancers International School at its best
In these unique, tailored ways, LIS’s pastoral care helps every individual student become the best they can be, through proper behavior. This is rather a targeted, tailored approach that takes into account every student’s personality and individual needs. In turn, our teachers and staff act as role models for good behavior, and are trained to promote relationship-building, inclusiveness, and reflection.
One important part of the environment that LIS provides for its students is one where mistakes are considered a learning opportunity. Lancers International School, one of the top schools in Gurgaon, believes that problem-solving and analytical thinking skills are nurtured by looking at one’s mistakes. We promote the value of learning from them rather than thinking of them as something bad.
LIS holds itself to the highest standards of pastoral care, which is available to the schools at the boarding school. Staff responds to every student need, whether it’s counseling or medical aid. They even get help with homework as needed.
Eventually, the true mark of our pastoral care is that our students have inculcated the instinct to care for themselves and for others in later life. A very high proportion of our alumni go into caring professions: medicine, social work, teaching; and we are exceptionally proud of that.
