The informal pastoral curriculum in Saudi special education: teachers’ accounts of supporting the social and emotional development of students with intellectual disabilities

Pastoral care has been studied largely in mainstream, Western schools, with limited attention to special education and Arab-Muslim contexts. Much of the social and emotional support received by students with intellectual disabilities is enacted through unscheduled, undocumented daily practices that remain analytically unnamed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 experienced and formally qualified special education teachers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis, supported by member reflections, peer debriefing, an audit trail and a sustained reflexive journal. Five themes were generated: care as amanah; reading the unspoken; routine as curriculum; invisible labour; and the family boundary. Together they describe an informal pastoral curriculum — routinized, undocumented practices through which teachers support social and emotional development. Naming this informal layer reframes pastoral care as everyday professional knowledge requiring explicit recognition in teacher preparation, leadership and policy.