Pastoral Care

At St Joseph's Marist College, we see pastoral care as being the way in which we care for and relate to one another, providing support to all members of our community. It is a genuine partnership between staff, learners, parents or guardians and community resource groups or clinics. Pastoral care is the caring response of people within the school community for one another.

Our pastoral care focus allows us:

To entrench our pastoral care into St Joseph’s Marist College so that we can effectively carry out our mission of being a Catholic school within the Marist ethos. Our ethos is reflected in the way in which we care for each other and promote the potential of all through caring meaningful relationships
To help us to deal with the problems that arise as a result of the society we live in. Issues such as violence, child abuse and stressful home situations have an impact on the lives of members of our community. HIV/AIDS is also dealt with in a way that is consistent with the teaching of the Church
To ensure that issues – such as bullying, stranger danger, low self-esteem, learner violence, fragmented families, teacher stress and various forms of abuse – are dealt with effectively
To provide members of the community with the skills to make sensible choices and to consider others around them when making choices.

The pastoral care team meet to share their concerns about the well being of the parents, learners and staff and to share ideas and resources. The team also monitor how the current systems are working and whether they should be reviewed.

Our community of learners is extremely diverse, specifically regarding language, race, religion and nationality.

The staff caters for the needs of the children and supports each other on a daily basis. There is again great diversity in the staff community and each staff member has various skills that can be utilised by sharing ideas and resources.

The wider community in the area is rich in resources, help centres and people to contact for advice when the assistance of other organisations is required.