The Conversation of Care: interpreting teacher‐pupil talk in one‐to‐one pastoral care contexts

Abstract Teachers in secondary schools often feel unprepared by their professional training to undertake their pastoral care responsibilities. This paper makes some observations about the value of a particular model devised by Taylor (1980) designed for the analysis of teacher‐pupil talk in one‐to‐one tutorials. Much of the paper deals with an attempt to analyse two taped tutorials between an experienced pastoral tutor and two fourth year pupils, ‘Peter’ and ‘Joan’. It is concluded that the Taylor model offers both a useful analytical tool and a valuable in‐service teaching device designed to help tutors improve their skills of guidance and counselling.