Overview

St Michael’s Church of England High School has a long history of providing strong pastoral support to its students, ensuring they learn, develop and grow into well-rounded individuals who leave school with good academic grades.

Over the years, the role of the Pastoral Team has evolved to meet the ever-changing issues that our students face. As a result, we have been able to offer pioneering programmes such as 21st Century Child, which offers informative talks and presentations by guest speakers and advice/ guidance to parents about issues children face in today’s society.

Heads of Year

Mrs W Hill – Deputy Assistant Headteacher for Behaviour 

Mr Graham – Interim Assistant Headteacher: Pastoral (KS4), Behaviour and Attitudes

Head of Year 7 Mrs Faulkner
Head of Year 8 Mrs Gunn
Head of Year 9 Mr Howden
Head of Year 10 Miss Usefnia (maternity cover)
Head of Year 11 Mr Mole

Email: HOYs@st-michaels.sandwell.sch.uk

Assistant Heads of Year

Miss Preston – Assistant Head of Year 7 and Transition, Behaviour, and Refocus 

Miss Preston oversees the running of the school’s ‘Refocus’ facility, ensuring students have a clear understanding of why they may have fallen short of the school’s expectations, and that they learn from their mistakes and move forward in a positive manner. The role also provides a more consistent approach when dealing with behaviour across all year groups. In addition, Miss Preston liaises with local primary schools to work with children who choose St Michael’s as their secondary school. The benefits of this include a smoother transition for the Year 6 students, closer ties with primaries and early identification of students who may need additional support at St Michael’s.

Mr Turner – Assistant Head of Year 8 

In addition to being the Assistant Head of Year 8, Mr Turner works closely with external agencies to provide numerous options for students to access the help they require whilst at school.

Mrs Westwood – Assistant Head of Year 9

In addition to being the Assistant Head of Year 9, Mrs Westwood ensures that all students in Year 9 have strong pastoral support to help them with their revision, exams, and after-school plans.

Mrs Fellows – Assistant Head of Year 10

As well as assisting the Head of Year 10 to ensure the transition between key stages is seamless, Mrs Fellows works closely with Year 10 students to ensure that they are able to work towards their exam year in a positive way.

Miss Thompson – Assistant Head of  Year11

As well as assisting the Head of Year 11, Ms Thompson works closely with Year 11 students to ensure that they are able to manage their exam year in a positive way.

Email: assistantheadsofyear@st-michaels.sandwell.sch.uk

All of the pastoral team conduct one-to-one sessions with students. In addition, group interventions are delivered by the pastoral team, including visits from outside agencies. The pastoral team members attend relevant meetings regarding student behaviour, attendance, and welfare. The pastoral team liaises with professionals and families using a multi-agency approach.

Home School Partnership

The success of our school’s aims relies on the fruitful partnership between our children’s parents and the school.

Partnership with parents

We work together with you to guarantee our students are achieving their full potential. We invite you to attend the following events in our school calendar:

  • Parents’ evenings
  • Year group-specific information evenings/meetings
  • subject and revision evenings
  • concerts and school productions
  • celebration events
  • parent focus groups
  • information evenings

Communication

We feel that communication between school and home is absolutely vital and we keep you informed of what is going on in the school through:

  • our website
  • frequent emails and text messages
  • annual school report
  • regular interim reports
  • letters
  • our termly school newsletter