Written by Paul Walton, Principal, Nadeen School, Bahrain, a COBIS Accredited (BSO) Member school.

On Wednesday 2^nd November, Nadeen School received an Education Innovation and Excellence Award for its Pastoral Care and ‘Unique Child’ program.

This program is an extension of the Pastoral Care and is one of many initiatives that help welcome students, feel valued and settle them into the school when joining, offering ongoing personalized support and is flexible to accommodate the needs of all students. This is viewed as a long term, ongoing process with many experiences planned, through patience, commitment, and flexibility.

Following on from a previous BISA (British International School Award) for Pastoral Care, the ongoing commitment, and efforts to delivering high-quality student support from staff and a comprehensive provision for all individuals both in and beyond the classroom remains a key priority of the school.

It is an exciting time for the community with a development of a new campus and a strong focus on ensuring that this thoughtful and caring approach is carried forward when it relocates to its new home in Dilmunia, Bahrain. This move is both a huge privilege for the school and a responsibility to maintain our steadfast focus for an inclusive environment. The first stage of this is to define and understand the essential role of pastoral care in the school, then to ensure that this approach, with all components are successfully embedded in the new environment.

One of these aspects of our Pastoral Care is the ‘Unique Child’ program.  With the school following a holistic education philosophy and proud of the social, emotional development opportunities provided by teachers, another strand of this was added to boost further exciting specific activities and closer focus on these areas.

It started in 2017 with five students, developed further each year and now has over thirty students successfully participating in this initiative. The students are identified through many careful processes which include the need for social and emotional support. The next stage is focused on ‘getting to know the students’, their interest and passions are at the heart of what this program can offer. This phase of engaging the students is key, an inspirational opportunity, project over time or a hands-on activity is the aim to better understand everyone.

The students then have an individual plan which can include music/sports/drama therapy, steam/construction projects, activities with the school farm and many others to foster a healthy development. The purpose of the plan is to help the students to work with others, build confidence and self-esteem, to make them feel good about themselves and those around them by bridging this gap. To be happy about themselves, at school and learning. This plan is monitored by teachers through lessons, break times, extra-curricular clubs, and other areas. Regular meetings are in place to monitor the progress of the students and their improvement is tracked and shared across the teams. This data is collected from every level of the school both quantitative and qualitative informing staff along the way.

During the program, there have been challenges. One of the obstacles that was faced included online learning as this removed many face to face interactions which are an essential ingredient to building their communication skills, how they perceive themselves and developing an understanding of processing their actions. The ongoing transient nature of an international school has also been a hurdle when students join, make outstanding progress, and then leaving which brings its own and opportunities for teachers and our families to reflect and often celebrate how far the child has grown and succeeded.

To gauge the success of the Unique Child program, we look at how happy and confident the students are as the first measure. We have received positive feedback from students, staff, and parents throughout via structured surveys, meetings and ongoing through observations and tracking. It was also mentioned in the BSO Penta International Inspection Report 2022 ‘very high standards of pastoral care’, the highest rating for pastoral care in our BQA report and the BISA award for Pastoral care mentioned earlier.

Similar to many international schools, we place a strong importance of many other areas of Pastoral care such as tutor time, buddy classes, mentoring, PSHE, break time events, friendship activities. We also have a SENCO, dedicated learning support and experienced inclusion team. A DSL with two deputies offering ongoing training and termly specific CPD for all staff. Finally, we promote open and frequent communication across the staff team to assist with inventions, celebration, or developments with our students. This in turn, maintains the excellent quality of what we offer, how we care and what we provide for all students.

The school models a thoughtful and caring ethos of ‘small school, big family’. This kind and considerate style dovetails in perfectly with our Pastoral Care at Nadeen School. I feel a huge pride to work with such a compassionate, generous, and professional body of staff each day and look forward to seeing our students flourish in this environment.

A special thank you to all staff at school for their ongoing hard work and dedication. For more information about our Pastoral Care provision, you are welcome to send an email to p.walton@nadeenschool.com.