Deep Support for Social Justice Vol. 2 – Tackling the Issues

If we work together, we can achieve so much more.

In this pamphlet, SSAT’s Chief Executive Sue Williamson highlights the challenges that schools are facing today and suggests how these issues might be tackled.

The analysis builds on the work in the first pamphlet on deep support for social justice.

Schools are still recovering from the impact of Covid-19 and are working within the context of greater poverty. Schools have adapted to meet the differing demands of their student populations, including mental health issues. Funding is tight and there is a critical crisis with funding of special educational needs.

Here we propose that schools have to redesign their pastoral support teams and look for additional professional expertise.

We also explore Manchester Enterprise Academy’s approach to pastoral care, and how the London Borough of Haringey are tackling the delivery of alternative provision through the Haringey Learning Partnership. We then go on to examine the four vehicles of deep support:

• Mentoring and coaching
• Mental health and well-being
• Parental engagement
• Careers education, information, advice and guidance.

SSAT know that schools cannot solve all the problems listed in this pamphlet, but they must confront them and work to deal with them. For them to be able to do this effectively, we need to rethink the way schools operate, and encourage politicians to be servant-leaders. Politicians need to be role models for young people – willing to work cross-party to produce solutions for the benefit of the UK.

Throughout this pamphlet, there will be questions for school leaders and teachers to consider.