Developing a pastoral curriculum

DARREN GOODE, ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL, THE ENGLISH MODERN SCHOOL, Doha Thirty-six years ago, Michael Marland (1985, p. 67), one of British education’s leading thinkers on pastoral care, confidently asserted that ‘the pastoral need is the central task of the school’. This philosophy undergirds this case study, as I consider how a pastoral curriculum can serve to meet the needs of a school’s students. As a senior leader responsible for pastoral care, I have recently led a team through the creation of a pastoral curriculum for the entire secondary phase. What is a pastoral curriculum? Typically, when teachers consider school curricula, the prevailing idea is that of academic disciplines: maths, English, science, etc. However, can educators argue with any real seriousness that this is the only thing that determines the making of young minds? Aren’t character, values, morals and ethics of equal importance? If so, what explicit opportunities do pupils have to cultivate these trai