Age 16-18
Emma Wood is the Group Director of Tutorial and Enrichment at New City College, leading tutorial and enrichment across nine of New City College’s campuses.
With a background in teaching, pastoral care and safeguarding, she is passionate about empowering young people to become confident, independent individuals who can recognise risks, make informed decisions and access support when needed.
In this blog, Emma explores how tutorials and enrichment can play a transformative role in developing independent, empowered and safeguarded students.
Challenge or Priority
How do we move beyond safeguarding our students to empowering them to safeguard themselves?
At New City College, we recognise that many young people face challenges beyond the classroom, including financial pressures, caring responsibilities, poor mental health, and increased exposure to safeguarding risks. These challenges can be particularly pronounced for students experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, who may have fewer support networks available to them outside college.
Our priority was not simply to raise awareness of safeguarding issues, but to develop students who are independent, confident and able to make informed decisions about their own safety and wellbeing. We wanted students to leave college with the knowledge, skills and self-assurance needed to recognise risks, seek support when required, and make positive choices throughout their lives.
Developing Independence Through Tutorials and Enrichment
Evidence suggests that students are more likely to develop confidence and independence when they are actively engaged in learning and given opportunities to apply knowledge in meaningful contexts.
This principle informed the development of our Tutorial and Enrichment Model at New City College. Rather than viewing safeguarding as a series of policies or isolated awareness sessions, we embedded it throughout the learner experience. The model is designed to help students understand safeguarding issues, reflect on their own circumstances, discuss different perspectives and develop practical strategies for keeping themselves safe.
By placing safeguarding within a wider framework of personal development, students are encouraged to become active participants in their own wellbeing rather than passive recipients of information.
Implementation
Pastoral Tutors and Enrichment Coordinators work together to deliver a comprehensive programme focused on key safeguarding themes identified within Keeping Children Safe in Education. Through tutorials, students explore topics such as healthy relationships, consent, online safety, exploitation, radicalisation, substance misuse, mental health and personal safety.
These discussions are reinforced through enrichment activities and college-wide events, enabling students to engage with safeguarding issues in a variety of contexts.
Large-scale events such as Mental Wealth, Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) and Staying Safe have been particularly impactful. Mental Wealth activities provide students with practical strategies to support their emotional wellbeing and resilience.
EVAWG events encourage meaningful discussions around consent, respectful relationships and personal boundaries. Staying Safe events enable learners to engage directly with internal specialists, external agencies and safeguarding professionals on issues affecting young people today.
Importantly, these activities go beyond raising awareness. Following both the EVAWG and Staying Safe events, several safeguarding disclosures were made by students. While these disclosures required appropriate intervention and support, they also demonstrated that these young people felt informed, empowered and confident enough to seek help when concerns arose.
Reflection
One of the key lessons learned from implementing the Tutorial and Enrichment Model is that safeguarding knowledge alone does not necessarily lead to safer behaviours. Students need regular opportunities to explore issues, ask questions and understand how safeguarding topics apply to their own lives.
We also found that trusted relationships are central to developing learner independence. Students were more likely to seek support, share concerns and engage positively when they had strong relationships with their Pastoral Tutor and felt safe within the college environment.
The impact of this work is reflected in the college’s learner voice initiatives. Through student-led surveys, 96% of learners reported that they feel safe at college. This suggests that students not only understand safeguarding messages, but also trust the support systems available to them.
Call to Action
Developing independent students means moving beyond simply protecting them from harm. It means equipping them with the confidence, knowledge and skills to recognise risk, make informed decisions and advocate for themselves when they need support.
As educators, perhaps the question we should be asking is not, ‘How are we safeguarding our students?’ but ‘How effectively are we helping students to safeguard themselves?’
