Joining Year 7

The transition into Senior School can be a challenge. A different environment and making new friends is daunting for some but the Year 7 team work together to make sure every pupil settles in as quickly and as seamlessly as possible. The year group is organised into five small forms, each with a specialist form tutor working under the guidance of the Head of Year and Director of Pastoral Care. As they progress through Year 7, support is on offer to help pupils develop socially, morally and academically.

The support network within the Senior School includes the services of an accredited, registered counsellor who is available to pupils two days a week. Pupils can make an appointment to see her either in person, via email or by asking a member of pastoral staff – such as their form tutor – to make an appointment for them. We also have a full-time school nurse and a school doctor, who visits once a week.

Houses

Upon entering Year 7, all pupils are assigned to one of five Houses, which they will remain in for the duration of their time at Colfe’s. The Houses are named after former Headmasters and Founders – Beardwood, Bramley, Norton, Prendergast and Glyn – and each is run by a Head of House and an Assistant Head of House. These staff become responsible for their House pupils’ pastoral welfare and academic progress during Year 8 – Year 11. Pupils are involved in all manner of exciting and challenging House activities and competitions.

Rewards and sanctions

Colfe’s provides a disciplined environment where standards of behaviour are high. We operate a framework of positive reinforcement, celebrating achievement and fair sanctions that support teaching and learning. All pupils are valued as individuals and their talents, interests and developing personalities acknowledged and appreciated.

Rewards have an important role in recognising achievement, contribution and effort. Praise is the cornerstone of our reward system and teachers offer verbal or written praise to pupils, including private and public comments, notes in diaries and postcards, emails or letters sent home.

The DRIVEN awards system recognises and rewards pupils who demonstrate one of the following exemplary behaviours at school:

Achievement is also recognised in Year, House and School Assemblies, Prizegiving, the award of House Points, and in appointments to positions of responsibility.

Pastoral care that makes a difference

Throughout the Senior School, we aim to create and foster an ethos of mutual respect and tolerance. In year assemblies and form time, pupils discuss issues from bullying and mental health to healthy living and the environment as part of our Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PHSEE) programme of study.

Pupils in Year 7-11 undertake our unique wellbeing programme, Eudaimonia. Broadly based on the virtue ethics of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, the word Eudaimonia itself is most commonly translated as ‘flourishing’ by practising virtuous behaviour and engaging with what it means to be human. Learning how to develop this skill helps pupils to be happier, more ethical, more fulfilled and are engaged in cultivating their own wellbeing and that of others.

The Year 7 ‘Tougher Minds’ resilience course trains pupils in life-skills for health, happiness and high performance – inside and outside school. Similarly, the ‘Colfe’s Family’ project takes small mixed-aged tutor groups, each under the care of a tutor, and gives them real-life family dilemmas to solve. So unique are these programmes that both have won Strategic Education Initiative of the Year at the TES Independent Schools Awards.