Bellemoor School | Southampton
Prospectus 2006-7
LINKS BETWEEN HOME AND SCHOOL
We welcome all forms of parental contact with the school since a three way partnership between students, school and parents is essential to fulfil the potential of all our students. Student Services are keen to support parents in a range of activities to develop our boys and will see parents on an appointment basis. Appointments to see teachers must be made in advance as they have classroom commitments and cannot be available immediately. Visitors should report to the school reception on arrival.
PASTORAL CARE – A NEW HOUSE SYSTEM
We pride ourselves on dealing with students as individuals. This is organised through the Pastoral System, which is designed to support them individually and to aid them in achieving their full potential.
House Organisation
From September 2005 pastoral care was organised through a new House system, supported by the school’s Student Support Services. There are four school houses: Mariners, Aviators, Venturers and Engineers. On entry to the school each student is placed in a tutor group, which is attached to one of the school’s four Houses. Every tutor group consists of students from each academic year with a variety of abilities and backgrounds; these are known as vertical tutor groups or family groups. It is expected that the older boys will support the younger ones in relation to issues such as bullying, mentoring and coaching. The students will not be taught their academic studies in their tutor groups; these are for pastoral support only. We are hoping that the houses will continue to develop links with specific businesses both in regards to sponsorship and work experience for the boys.
Student House Responsibilities
Each house has a number of senior students, or House Prefects, and a House Captain and Sports Captain. This is to enable the boys to take on responsibilities in the school, for themselves and others. Bellemoor has a history of extremely able prefects .The sports captains organise competitions between houses and competitions with other schools. There is a well established school council and each tutor group elects representatives to the council. The tradition of Head Boy and Deputy Head Boy continues, along with the post of School Sports Captain. These posts are decided by interview.
House Staffing
Each house is led by an experienced Head of House who takes overall responsibility for the academic progress of each individual student for the five years that the boys are with us. This ensures consistency over the years as each boy will stay in the same house. In addition the Head of House works in partnership with Student Services to monitor social and pastoral progress, including issues such as attendance and punctuality, rewards and sanctions. We take particular care to ensure a smooth transition of children from junior school to Bellemoor.. All members of the school staff, with the exception of the Headteacher are attached to a house..
Bullying Matters!
We recognise that it is fundamentally important for everyone to feel safe and secure at school. To this end, we give a high priority to the issue of bullying. The bullying policy very clearly articulates the school’s position on bullying. and we continue to train peer counsellors in the support of younger students. We have also developed a number of multi agency approaches to bullying and are happy to call in the support of outside ‘experts’ should the need arise. Any student who feels bullied or intimidated should see a student mentor or an adult in school immediately. We cannot help if we do not know that there is a problem. Often if the issue is tackled in the beginning it is resolved quickly. In addition we have a wide network of CCTV which has obliterated all those ‘no go areas’ that might otherwise have existed.
Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development
The development of a student’s SMSC development is through a whole range of school experiences both within the curriculum and through extra curricular opportunities. The individual child is supported by a tutor and Head of House and ideally both should stay with the student throughout their time in Bellemoor. Tutor time and assemblies support individual developments in this area by helping the young man develop identity as an individual, as part of a group and as a member of a community. Both tutor time and assemblies consider a range of issues that confront all aspects of SMSC. Within the curriculum in addition to subjects such as RE other subjects look at developing the inner person – subjects such as art or English, History or Modern languages, science and music all lend themselves to raising spiritual and moral awareness. The House system helps develop individual students in taking on responsibilities for others in a range of activities from informal homework support to being a House Captain, a Sports Captain or being a member of the school council.