Pastoral Care
The School Community – working in partnership
Pastoral Care
The School Community – working in partnership
St. Mary’s prides itself on providing high quality pastoral care to all our pupils. Our core values of Equality, Respect and Trust underpin our daily work and interactions with pupils, parents and our community.
Mrs Amanda Barr is our Pastoral Vice-principal and oversees pastoral provision across the school.
Heads of School
Heads of School are Senior Teachers with responsibility for a specific Key Stage. They work collaboratively and in partnership with the Pastoral Vice -Principal and support Year Heads in monitoring the academic progress of pupils, in reviewing and responding to behavioural records. They promote and signpost pupils to relevant supports which address the emotional health and wellbeing needs of our pupils. They will respond to issues which are serious and/or persistent in nature.
Head of Key Stage 3 (Years 8-10): Mrs M Lewis
Head of Key Stage 4 (Years 11 and 12): Mr R Herron
Head of Senior School (Years 13 and 14): Miss O Convery
Year Heads
Year Heads have responsibility for maintaining standards, monitoring pupil progress, addressing behaviour, leading weekly assemblies and liaising with external agencies to support the delivery of our preventative curriculum, ensuring the needs of their year groups are met. They will support form teachers on a daily basis and will escalate matters to Head of School when required.
Year Heads 2024-2025
Year 8: Miss J Mervyn
Year 9: Mr M Smith
Year 10: Mr C McEvoy
Year 11: Mr A Austin
Year 12: Miss D Murphy
Year 13: Mr S Moyes
Year 14: Dr K Robinson
Form Classes
All pupils are placed in form classes.
The form teacher:
• Meets with the form class each morning
• Monitors the well-being of each pupil in the form class
• Supports and encourages each pupil to achieve his academic potential
• Monitors behaviour and attendance
• Delivers the school’s pastoral programme during the weekly form period on a Wednesday morning.
Each Year Group has an assembly once per week which is led by the Year Head. In KS3, Celebration Assemblies are held at the end of each half-term to celebrate the successes and achievements of pupils across various academic, sporting, artistic, charitable and musical endeavours.
Safeguarding
Mrs Barr is Pastoral Vice-Principal and is also the Designated Teacher for Child Safeguarding. She is supported by the Safeguarding team:
Mrs M Lewis (Senior Teacher/ Head of School KS3)
Mr P Linden (Senior Teacher/ Learning Support Co-ordinator/SENCO)
Mr B McComb (Principal)
Mrs E Donnelly (Board of Governor with responsibility for Child Safeguarding)
All teachers are responsible for the pastoral and academic growth of the pupils and Child Safeguarding is a key priority for all staff.
Our school policy on Child Safeguarding can be viewed here: Safeguarding and Child Protection
School Counselling
School counselling is available for pupils every Tuesday and Friday mornings. Mr P Linden oversees the management of the in-school counselling service. Mrs Louise Doran is our school counsellor.
Pupils can speak to any member of staff to request access to the counselling service. Drop in facilities are available and pupils can request a drop-in from their form teacher, from Mr Linden or by notifying the school office. The school counselling service is a confidential service and information will only be shared where there is a safeguarding concern.
Pupil Wellbeing
The emotional health and wellbeing of our pupils is a priority for all staff in St Mary’s. Mrs J carron is our Wellbeing Ambassador who champions the importance of self-care. She can also signpost pupils and parents to external supports as required. We encourage all members of our school community to engage with our school Wellbeing account on Instagram.
Home/School Agreement
The Home/School Agreement codifies the partnership between school and home. It outlines the standards and expectations of St Mary’s and recognises the importance of transparent communication and strong parental support to ensuring a positive school experience for our pupils.
Ambassador Awards
St Mary’s pupils are talented pupils, and their successes and achievements extend beyond the classroom. Our Ambassador Awards recognise pupils who display exceptional talent, skill and/or commitment through their sporting endeavours, through artistic accomplishments, through voluntary, charitable and/or advocacy undertakings. We encourage pupils and parents to share the successes and achievements of our young people with school staff so they may gain the recognition they rightly deserve. Mr C McEvoy has responsibility for the awarding of Ambassador Awards.
Detention
On occasions, it is necessary to place pupils on detention. Detention is held on:
Tuesday 3.15 – 4.30pm
Friday 3.15 – 4.00pm
Friday 3.15 – 5.00pm (Extended Detention)
Pupils and Parents should refer to our Home/School Agreement for further details about detention and for arrangements following a missed detention.
Punctuality
It is important that pupils arrive on time for school. Our Punctuality Improvement Team have responsibility for monitoring and addressing issues regarding punctuality. They conduct weekly reports and will engage with pupils and parents as required.
Persistent failure to arrive to school on time, will initiate a response:
| 3 lates | Parent/Guardian is notified of concerns regarding punctuality |
| 6 lates | Friday detention until 4.00pm |
| 9 lates | Tuesday detention until 4.30pm |
| 12 lates | Form teacher intervention with parent(s) to discuss punctuality |
| 15 lates | Head of Year intervention with parents and pupil is placed on Saturday detention |
| 18 lates | Head of School Intervention |
| 21 lates | Pastoral Vice-Principal Intervention |
The count will be accumulative and not reset to zero at the beginning of each calendar month.
Breakfast Club
we have our breakfast club on offer each morning in school. This is available between the times of 8.10am and 8.45am. The school offer a very affordable breakfast menu, and pupils are supervised by staff.
Extra-curricular
At St Mary’s we have a proud tradition of successful participation in a range of extra-curricular activities and encouraging the students to become rounded individuals.
From Year 8 pupils are encouraged to get involved in all aspects of school life, and we have a wide range of activities available for all interests.
There are many other activities throughout the school year which encourage the involvement of the school community, such as Trócaire collections and the Catholic Caring project at Christmas time.
There are a number of subject specific trips undertaken throughout the Key Stages to help make learning fun. Extended school trips are very popular with pupils.
There are Ski trips, Art Trips, French, Spanish and History trips. Every summer the Irish department organises trips to the Gaeltacht for many of our pupils.
Home Liaison
As a school, we recognise the importance of developing strong partnerships with the parents/guardians of our pupils as we work together to support pupils’ learning and involvement in school life. We aim to engage parents through:
• Annual Parent-Teacher meetings;
• Induction meetings at key transition points in your son’s school journey (Years 8, 11,12, 13);
• Year 10 Options meeting for parents;
• Year 12 Options meeting for parents;
• Year 14 UCAS meeting for parents;
• Year 8 Family BBQ;
• Study skills meetings for parents;
• Home/School Agreement;
• The use of the text message system;
• Year 8 Graduation;
• School website, Facebook page and Twitter.
Downloads/PDFs
Related News
19th September 2024
Youth Justice Presentation
All Year 12 students attended a presentation by representatives of the Youth Justice Agency, @Y_J_Agency The presentation looked at the[…]
Read More
16th September 2024
Social Media and mobile Phone Safety
Please find attached some useful information to support you in keeping your son safe whilst using mobile phones and engaging[…]
Read More
9th January 2024
Independent Counselling Service for Schools Survey
On behalf of the Education Authority, the Independent Counselling Service for Schools (ICSS) team would like to gather the views of[…]
Read More
13th October 2023
NICHS Vaping Information Session
This week N.I Chest Heart and Stroke launched their anti-vaping campaign targeted towards young people. You may have seen Mary[…]
Read More