Dean of Identity | Mr Charles Brauer

“Sir, why ‘Pastoral Care’ group?”

There was an audible hum that grew amongst our young men in the Campbell Centre when it was innocuously announced at our first College Assembly that our ‘Tutor Groups’ will now be called ‘Pastoral Care Groups’. I’d like to think our young men were thinking “It’s about time they got that right!” However, it was more likely a hum of “What’s the point?” or “It took them five weeks of holidays to come up with that one!” I strongly believe the name change is at the heart of our Terrace Family.

Much of how we are called to ‘care’ for one another is grounded in our faith. Furthermore, many of the practical manifestations of this care for each other in our educational setting is grounded in the tradition Edmund Rice. Edmund Rice personified pastoral care for young people in an educational setting. In the context of English occupied Ireland of 1800, he was countercultural and relatively radical by the way he insisted the staff of his schools care for their young people. 

The below image is from the rule book of the very first Christian Brothers of the early 19th Century - Rules and Constitutions of the Society of Religious Brothers. At first, the rules seem quite archaic; however, it was unheard of for school teachers of the time and culture to greet young people by their first name and never an alternative condescending term or to shake their students’ hands. These two examples ground our community in a proud tradition of affirming the dignity of each and every individual in our school. 

Although it may appear just a name change, the renewed ‘Pastoral Care Group’ title is both an explicit and implicit reminder of the power of pastoral care to enable ourselves and each other to be our very best. I believe our enactment of pastoral care sets us apart from other educational systems. This not for boasting or for self-indulgence. Rather, our pastoral care for each other is something of which we should be extraordinary proud and of which we should never lose sight.