Schools need to be caring institutions and this is particularly true for schools operating in areas where there are high levels of poverty and social ills. This is because teachers may be the only significant adults in the lives of the learners who attend these schools.
For children who are struggling to make sense of their lives in challenging circumstances, a caring teacher can provide them with an alternative role model to those they experience in their homes and communities. The concern and support of a caring teacher and a basic education of reasonable quality are for many children the sole means of escape from what would otherwise be a future of grinding poverty and possibly of substance abuse and crime.
Given these kinds of realities, it is incumbent on all schools to ensure that they provide learners with some form of pastoral support. In even well-resourced schools, caring teachers are the first and most critical element in any support structure. This is because teachers, in their day-to-day dealings with learners, are best positioned to notice the telltale signs of a child in distress.
Apart from encouraging all teachers to accept that their teaching duties include a pastoral component, many schools also establish more formal systems and structures to monitor and manage the wellbeing of their learners.
One of the most effective and commonly used systems allocates the front-line task of pastoral care and basic discipline to class teachers or tutor teachers. An example of a job description for a class- or tutor-teacher is provided below.
The roles and responsibilities of a class teacher:
As class teacher you are responsible for monitoring the wellbeing and academic progress of the learners in your class group and for providing them with appropriate guidance and support as and when the need arises. Your duties and responsibilities include the following key elements:
Monitoring the wellbeing and self-discipline of learners. As class teacher you need to:
Have a good understanding of the home background of each child in your class as well as his or her outside interests;
Provide support for and guidance to learners who may be lonely, teased, harassed or bullied. These are all matters that may have serious consequences and should be referred to a senior member of staff or the school counsellor;
Ensure that the dress, appearance and behaviour of learners in your class group are consistent with the code of conduct of the school. You are responsible for ensuring that appropriate guidance or sanction is used to deal with those whose dress, appearance or behaviour is in conflict with the code;
Ensure that all members of the class group participate actively in all aspects of school life;
Follow up on absentee anomalies and patterns;
Follow up and provide appropriate support, including contacting the family, should you become aware of events, such as a family crises, serious illness or bereavement,which are having a negative effect on a learner’s behaviour or academic performance; and
Liaise with your grade head and the teacher counsellor in instances where inappropriate behaviour and/or poor academic performance persists or is sufficiently serious to warrant intervention outside the scope of your authority or competence.
Monitor the academic performance and progress of learners in your class group. While it is the responsibility of the subject teacher to monitor the subject-based performance of his or her learners, class teachers are expected to monitor the overall performance of individual learners across all subjects and to report on this performance. This involves:
Preparing a quarterly class mark schedule and using these to identify learners: who have performed well; who have not met the requirements for a pass, or whose marks in one or more subjects have improved or declined by more than 10% since the last quarter.
Reporting on the performance of the identified learners at the quarterly mark discussion meeting;
Ensuring that learners whose marks have declined are provided with support and additional help by their subject teacher; and
Preparing and writing an appropriate comment, addressed to the parents of the learner, on the learner’s quarterly report based on the school’s policy guidelines document.
Manage and monitor key data related to the wellbeing and academic progress of the learners in your class group. As class teacher it is your responsibility to ensure that the following data for the learners in your class is recorded on the school’s administrative system and is kept up to date:
Daily school attendance;
Late-coming;
Any absence from examinations, tests and other formal assessment tasks;
Address and contact details of parents/guardian;
Reasons for prolonged absence from school (such as illness); and
Incidents of serious misconduct or other factors which may affect the welfare and/or academic performance of the learner.
Provide initial basic counselling for learners whose behaviour and/or academic progress are unsatisfactory or cause for concern. As class teacher you are expected to provide basic guidance and support (or sanction) in all instances where a learner’s behaviour and/or academic performance is inappropriate or a cause for concern. Part of the counselling process should involve one or more of the following:
A one-on-one discussion with the learner concerned;
Contact with the parents (telephone call, letter or meeting); and
The referral of the learner to the grade head or the teacher counsellor.
Alan Clarke is a former principal of Westerford High School, Cape Town, and author of the Handbook of School Management and the Handbook for School Governors. See www. ednews.co.za