Pastoral care of students

I have been thinking about this while writing my reports at school at the moment. Pastoral care, I am required to write a comment on the students in my form class. As I think about this I recollect a number of things that have happened with them through the years I have had the class.

• We are all in agreement that we should not participate in the rubbish pickup required at the end of each term.
• Music, if it is something that Sir doesn't like, don't play it or suffer the consequences, Bagpipe music can be heard over anything else.
  
• We try to keep ourselves off after school detention for as long as possible and when one of us gets on it, it better be for a bloody good reason, because the class won't let you forget it.
• You must help the form teacher when asked, this is due to the amount of paper that we use in the department, 5 boxes of paper every couple of months.
• Participate in the house events.
• Discussion is open on virtually any topic in form class.
• That we are never to moved off the computers or out of a computer room, this one causes great problems for some of the students every time we are moved, they are hooked on their morning fix, it is worse than coffee.
• "This is corrupt" (one of my students comments), rigging the house reading competition is not a great idea, especially of the teacher promises m&m's if the class gets the greatest number of books out of the library, this so far has happened two weeks in a row now, one more week this is going to cause some problem.
• Peer support games must be fun and involve a foam bat. Introduction to the form class at the beginning of the year must involve a foam bat, now idea why but that is the rule now.
• Giants, Wizards, Elves, this is a game like paper, rock, scissors, if this game is to be played then sounds and actions must be involved.
• Listening to other peoples views without shouting them down, some of the students I have have trouble with this one.
• Notes, always bring a note when you are away, this one causes trouble, though they are pretty good at giving me notes for there lateness.
• Homework in form class is allowed, however you must have a pretty good reason why you did not do it the night before.
• Reports, do these go home to our parents or can we keep them.
• Parent teacher evening, my parents are too busy to attend, normally equates to, there is no way my parents are coming to meet you, you will tell them the truth...
• The daily notices, listen and not talk, rather difficult when one of the notices is about an incident that happened the day before, comments are normally made and then it brings one of the above listen to other peoples view...

These are just some of the things that happen, though I have notice as the older they get the more involved they get in the school house events. Sports events are the majority of events, though we also have a reading competition that I eluded to earlier, this were where students get points for getting books out of the library and reading them, well looking at them for a day and returning them the next. They really got into it, well I forced them into it by having form class in the Library for two Fridays in a row, this is where the we cannot survive without our morning computer fix came from. Mind you one of things the Library experiment showed was that they do talk to each other and they do get on. I have enjoyed the form class this year as I have a good bunch of students, just wish some of the paperwork would disappear though, having to do an electronic register and a paper register does bite.