school life
Pastoral Care
The Academy is big enough to provide a rich diet of opportunities and small enough to focus on everyone’s personal needs. The welfare, health and safety of students comes first, closely followed by a determination to value, understand and support each child’s needs as a human being. This is achieved first of all by the trusting relationship built between staff and students, supported by the staff’s detailed knowledge of each individual.
In order to help all our students to achieve their potential, we encourage the support of parents working alongside our dedicated team of teaching and non-teaching staff. Students are helped to stay on target through regular and systematic monitoring, which can identify fluctuating strengths and weaknesses and so keep parents and guardians regularly informed of their child’s progress.
We take pride in providing excellent care for our pupils, as young people thrive best when they feel secure.
Kirkcudbright Academy is dedicated to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our pupils, and has a robust Wellbeing and Child Protection Policy which provides a framework for all staff. We work hard to ensure that we create a safe environment for young people; staff are well trained and know how to respond to concerns. We also work hard to maintain an environment where young people feel confident about approaching any member of staff if they have a problem or worry.
The national approach to improving outcomes for children and young people in Scotland is ‘Getting it right for every child’ (GIRFEC). This provides a framework for us to work with you and your child to provide the right support at the right time.
The Academy operates a Tutor system within each House where each pupil is allocated a Tutor who meets with them 3 times per week to discuss any aspect of school life.
Assemblies are seen as key channels for promoting and maintaining an ethos of corporate responsibility, consideration of the individual and moral values. Working alongside this, the school’s PSHE (Personal Social Health Education) programme seeks to reinforce positive values amongst students focusing on such topics as relationships, self-esteem, leadership opportunities and working with others.
We believe that students have the right to learn in a supportive, caring and safe environment and that high standards of behaviour allow this to occur.
