How we care

Students are recognised and celebrated for their achievements both in and out of school. We do this through a variety of ‘Rewards System’ forums, including assemblies and external communications.

Because we have high expectations of our students, we also support them in taking responsibility for themselves and their actions.

Young people spend a lot of their waking hours in school, making it a major part of their life. So please let your child know that when they are struggling, a good first step is to talk to someone.

They may feel able to talk to a member of staff they trust. We can be surprisingly flexible in helping to manage situations, providing support with how your child feels, and easing any pressure they may be under.

We have dedicated staff members responsible for pastoral care. Otherwise, you or your child can talk to:

• One of your child’s two Form Tutors
• The Deputy Head Pastoral
• The Assistant Head Pastoral
• Any member of our Pastoral Team

When your child comes into our Senior School in Lower 4 (Year 7), they will be assigned an ‘amiga’.

Your child’s amiga will be a student in the year above, but in the same house. Amigas have recently been through the same experience as them and can help to support your child as they to settle into life at Habs.

• Your child will meet their amiga on their ‘Welcome to Habs’ day
• They will also receive a postcard from their amiga over the summer holidays
• We organise an amiga social activity each half-term. Recently, these have included cookie-decorating, origami, outdoor games and board games

On top of this, each Lower 4 form is allocated a Sixth Form prefect, who will support the form in their first year at Senior School.

We do our very best to make sure every student enjoys personal and academic success. This means working closely with parents and guardians to provide the support which each young person needs. As such, all our staff are expected to familiarise themselves with each student’s needs, on a need-to-know basis.

Support can occur at various levels in school life. This might be through your child’s form tutor, their Head of Year, a subject teacher, study support sessions or learning skills programmes.

Students with known medical conditions are on a special medical register and the school nurse holds individual medical plans.

To best help your child, please let us know if any specific learning needs have been identified, whether they be sensory or physical; related to cognition, learning, social, emotional or mental health or communication and interaction needs.

If your child has an assessment report, it is really helpful if you can share this with our Individual Needs team. This means we can put any recommendations in place and provide the most appropriate support for your child.

Individual needs policy

Spirituality is important in many families. Habs Girls has a Christian ethos but welcomes a rich diversity of faiths within its community.

We are fortunate that our pupils come from a diverse range of faith backgrounds and students have the opportunity to learn about other faiths through our student-run Faith Assemblies. This enables us to celebrate our diversity and enriches our students’ understanding of the wider world.

We make special provision for children who need to fast, or be absent from school for religious reasons. We also have a multi-faith room which all our children can use.

It can take a lot of courage for a young person to reach out and talk to somebody about their concerns.

Keeping our students safe is our most important priority. All of our staff undergo regular safeguarding training to ensure they have the knowledge and expertise to respond appropriately to any concerns in line with our safeguarding policy.

You can find out more about our safeguarding policy here.

Please make sure your child knows that if something is bothering them, they can talk to us. No one wants them to struggle in silence.

All students engage in a PSHE curriculum that is both pro-active and reactive and is constantly evolving to cover relevant issues within the school community and more broadly in society.

We work with external speakers and host workshops to support the teaching and explore more challenging topics, including drugs, relationships and sex education and gender equality. Some of these sessions are hosted jointly with Habs Boys to promote healthy discussions and a better understanding of different viewpoints.

We care deeply about educating our pupils to understand and respect the fundamental British values and protected characteristics that are integral to our community. Our form tutors deliver the Jigsaw Secondary online resource to teach the weekly PSHE lessons across Years 7 to Year 11. In the Sixth Form we use a selection of lessons from ‘Your Journey of Life’. Schemes of work are available to view in our PSHE Policy.