“Reflections on 40 years of pastoral care in education”

Welcome to this Special Issue of Pastoral Care in Education in which we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the journal’s membership association, the National Association for Pastoral Care in Education (NAPCE). NAPCE was founded in October 1982 to establish links between education professionals and allied agencies who have an interest in pastoral care, personal and social education and the welfare of students of all ages in schools. Over 300 teachers attended the inaugural conference in Dudley, England, at which the founding chair Michael Marland, spoke of the challenges faced by many thousands of teachers with responsibility for pastoral care despite very little training or support at local or national level and with limited focus during Initial Teacher Training. The first issue of NAPCE’s journal Pastoral Care in Education was subsequently published in February 1983 and in the editorial, Peter Ribbins, Maura Healy and Peter Lang warned that in these ‘hard times for education . . . we shall probably have to be vigilant and fight hard if pastoral provision is not to be reduced to a rump’ (Ribbins et al., 1983, p. 1). The first issue comprised eight articles which focused on a range of themes including ‘Rethinking the Pastoral-Academic Split’ (Ron Best and Peter Ribbins), ‘The Pastoral Head’ (Keith Blackburn), ‘Preparing for Promotion in Pastoral Care’ (Michael Marland) and ‘Teacher-Based Research and Pastoral Care’ (Bob Burgess). Self-evidently the educational policy context was very different 40 years ago. The year 1982 marked the halfway point between Prime Minister James Callaghan’s influential Ruskin College speech in 1976 (which launched what would be known as the ‘great debate’ about the nature and purpose of education in the UK) and the introduction in 1988 of Kenneth Baker’s Education Reform Act and the first statutory National Curriculum in England and Wales. Fast forward 40 years and it seems that our world has changed immeasurably: globally we continue to emerge from the greatest pandemic in a century (Covid-19) which is reported to have caused 6 million deaths worldwide; we face enormous challenges to address climate change which is fuelling weather extremes, natural disasters and environmental degradation; and in recent months we have witnessed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leading to the largest refugee crisis since World War II with almost 9 million Ukrainians fleeing their home country and a third of the population displaced. Educationally too, much has been written about the increased accountability imposed on our school systems, ostensibly aiming to raise standards and generate improved outcomes, but arguably resulting in increased managerialism, an unhealthy focus on ‘teaching to the test’ and a lack of trust in school PASTORAL CARE IN EDUCATION 2022, VOL. 40, NO. 3, 257–260 https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2022.2101778