Support Model

Our students’ safety and wellbeing is our priority. It is only with that secure that we can enable each child to flourish in our school.

Student Support

Students will have daily contact with their form tutor, who they’ll see each morning, and is the normal first point of contact for students and parents with a routine query or problem.

Further support is organised through our House system, which is the bedrock of the school’s ethos and organisation.

Each House has a dedicated Student Support Officer although, to ensure best possible impact, they also work as a team. Their role is wide-ranging. It could be a lost bag or an urgent message to home; it could be mentoring or attendance support; it could be dealing with social workers or the emergency services.

The Student Support Team are highly trained, come from a wide range of professional backgrounds, and deploy specific and validated provision to ensure best possible impact.

With well over a thousand students, there is never a dull or quiet moment in Student Support role or the House Offices, and the whole team are tireless in their commitment to our children.

House Support

Our House system is the first area of support for every student. Those needing more intensive support go onto our HAS (House Around the Student) scheme.

Of course, every student has their form tutor who they see each morning and can approach with any problems or concerns. Beyond this, each of the four Houses has a Head of House who co-ordinates the fun and support that our House system embodies.

Nonetheless, these individuals team up where required to plans out the support for every student going slightly off-track. Usually, this steers them back onto the right course. There is always home contact on this scheme as improvement cannot be engineered by school alone – every child’s family has a crucial responsibility to support.

Beyond this, we make it clear that any student can approach any member of staff whom they feel comfortable with – though we naturally emphasise that we cannot keep secrets, and have to work with colleagues to protect and support their welfare.

School Support

Our wider pastoral team offers an even more in-depth range of support under the umbrella of our TAS (Team Around the Student) scheme which sees our senior pastoral leaders, safeguarding and SEND leads combine to provide a wraparound package for any student who is really struggling.

Alongside the integral role of each student’s family, this tier of support typically involves external agencies. This is because some complex issues facing young people today only benefits from specialist interventions. The needs we help support are wide ranging and evolving, stretching from Educational Neglect to Domestic Violence, Drug and Alcohol Use to County Lines, Physical and Sexual Abuse to Bullying, and Online Safety to Bereavement.

Whilst the skill-set of our staff is extensive, in order to maximise the impact of our support model we work with a wide range of external agencies to provide the best possible interventions. These include:

For more information about our Student Support Model, please contact Michelle Simpson, Assistant Headteacher, via office@friaryschool.co.uk.