Designated Safeguarding Lead – Mr Daniel Macafee, Assistant Headteacher

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead – Mrs Linda Gardiner, Associate Pastoral Director

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead – Miss Laura Browne, Pastoral Lead

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead – Mrs Leah Austin, Pastoral Lead

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead – Mr Frazer Heath, Transition Lead

Please contact the School Reception on 0161 921 2300 to speak to a member of our Safeguarding team.

Pastoral Care

Before pupils even arrive to St. Patrick’s in Year 7, there is an extensive transition program which ensures we have all the relevant information to support and best place your son/daughter.

All pupils are allocated a Form Tutor. This is a member of staff they will see each and every day for 30 minutes and is seen as ‘the parent in school’. As well as delivering essential parts of the curriculum – such as PSHE – the role of the form tutor is to work with parents and school staff to ensure pupils’ experience is as positive as possible. The form tutor also has a key role in keeping standards high and working with parents to ensure attendance is strong and behaviour is positive. If there are ever any issues, the form tutor is the first point of contact. For continuity and maintaining strong relationships, we endeavour to keep form tutors with their form classes wherever possible.

Each year group also has a Head of Year. The Head of Year has responsibility for the whole year group and ensures all pupils in their year group are supported, attend school well and behaviour in a positive manner. If there are significant issues, or issues pupils/parents feel a form tutor cannot address, the Head of Year would be the next point of contact. To further support each year group, every year team has an SLT link – a senior member of staff who has an oversight of each year group and can support when/if needed.

We also have a variety of non-teaching pastoral support staff to further ensure our pupils have a truly supportive environment. In addition to those previously outlined, at St. Patrick’s we have:

  • Attendance manager – a dedicated member of staff to ensure that pupils are coming into school as much as possible and are supported in doing so
  • Pastoral leads – staff who are highly trained to deliver pastoral interventions, work with pupils who need a variety of different support and liaise with staff, parents and stakeholders to ensure pupils are being supported appropriately
  • Physical and Mental Health First Aiders – we believe that maintaining a positive mental wellbeing is just as important as our physical health and so we have staff who are expertly trained to intervene with both aspects for our pupils
  • Pupil Services team – within this team, we have members of staff who ensure that all students are accounted for within school, support with any issues which may arise during the school day and work with parents when pupils need to contact home or vice versa
  • External support – we also work closely with external agencies from a variety of backgrounds to ensure pupils are supported by the right professionals. For example:
    • CARITAS counselling
    • I-reach CAMHs 
    • 42nd Street
    • Educational Psychology Service
    • Salford Foundation
    • Youth Service
    • Greater Manchester Police (we have a police link for any intervention and support should this be needed)

Peer Mentoring

Another strategy we use to ensure a supportive environment at St. Patrick’s is peer mentoring. We recognise that sometimes young people would prefer to speak with their peers than adults and this programme is where fully trained and responsible Y10 and Y11 mentor younger pupils for a variety of reasons, and support them with the transition into secondary school or any issues that may arise whilst they are in. As with any safeguarding disclosures, if anything is disclosed which puts the pupil or anybody else at risk, it will be reported and followed up by an appropriate member of staff.

Child on Child incidents

To keep all pupils safe and happy in school, we now log and record every single unkind child on child incident in school – whether this is witnessed, investigated and confirmed, or alleged. This allows us to track and monitor pupil interactions, identify patterns and ensure the relevant intervention is put into place – for both victim and perpetrator. We take a zero tolerance on bullying at St. Patrick’s, and pupils are regularly reminded of this. Having this information ensures that pupils receive a graduate response to these behaviours and they are eradicated as quickly as possible. Victims of repeat incidents receive a variety of support suitable to them, and if pupils are persistently unkind, despite intervention, sanctions increase proportionately, with the ultimate sanction being permanent exclusion.

Working with parents

We fully appreciate that moving into secondary school can often be an anxious time for pupils and their parents and will always work with parents to support this transition, or issues that arise whilst here, to ensure pupils are supported – without compromising on our standards or expectations. If there are any strategies outlined that you would like to hear more about, or think would benefit your son/daughter, please do get in touch with their form tutor who will liaise with the relevant staff members.