School Counselling helps enhance student performance

All students in a classroom may not always be of the same background, financial set up, academic skills and social behavior.

Simply covering the textbook syllabus and expecting them to perform well at the end of the academic year may not always work well.

Understanding their emotional concerns and giving them timely moral support and guidance can make a remarkable difference in their overall performance.

The family problems, financial worries or bullying can take a toll on the student behavior and performance.

This is when counselling as a part of school life becomes a whole lot purposeful.

Some schools would arrange a quarterly or annual counselling to students by arranging some specialist counselors.

While there are others that take into account the importance of regular counselling and have a counselor as part of their teaching team.

Get FREE Teacher Apps (Check it Now)

Here let us have a look at the way school counselling helps students to enhance their performance.

• Better academic outcomes

The counselors would start off with attending individual students that need special care, setting up discussions and group student activities.

Unlike in the past, the counselling is now data driven which improves the probability of the success rates.

They identify the weak students through individual counselling and identify the reason behind their set back.

Through little step by step processes, they contribute to improving the academic outcomes.

 

Let us have a look at the areas they focus during the process:

• Set up an encouraging and supportive classroom where students can freely share their thoughts.
• Improve their confidence through positive student story telling.
• Teaches them how to set realistic goals and monitor their progress.
• Give sessions to learn how to perform under pressure by overcoming test anxiety.
• Gives tips and tricks to improve their memory lane.
• Special focus on developing effective interpersonal relationship skills.

• Better decision making skills

A good counselor can help students to grow up with better decision making skills, whether it is academic, personal or professional.

A well trained student can understand that no decisions should come out of temporary emotions but it should be a well thought one that can decide their future whether it is choice of course or career.

A strong support when making decisions at crucial turning points of life can make remarkable positives in their future.

A few encouraging words at needy times can boost their outlook towards family, school, and the future.

 

• Minimal school drop outs

The lack of confidence and the motivation to continue despite failures are the main reason for school drop outs.

A good counselling group can give emotional and moral support to students to overcome failures and face situations with determination and confidence.

Lack of comfortable school or classroom ambience and bullying inside schools are also reason for students dropping out from schools.

Counselling helps to study the concerns of students and make relevant conversations with teachers and school authorities to make any requisite changes to make school a comfortable place for them.

 

• Improved social and emotional skills

In addition to helping them excel in the academic performance, counselors also play a vital part in their personal development too.

A comprehensive guidance during the process helps them to easily address inequalities and grow up as confident individuals.

Through individual discussions, the counselor can easily find out students with mental health issues and give them special behavioral therapy classes.

Various counselor programs are designed to better their attitude, cognition as well as self-regulation.

For students who are troubled due to family problems, the counselling is sometimes even extended to their parents and a talk with teachers would be arranged if the class ambience is making them uncomfortable.

 

• College and career readiness

A school is the platform of students before going for their higher education in colleges and building up a career.

The role of the counselors also includes making them ready to face this transition stage and assure their college and career readiness.

Unlike the traditional methods that focus more on paper works at school background, the professional counselors today proactively come up with innovative ways to meet the needs of all students and to maximize their academic achievement.

Special training programs help students to relate academic programs to future success.

• Improved health and wellness

In addition to helping students to set a base for higher education and a good career, this professional relationship helps them to accomplish enhanced wellness and health.

When we say health, one of the most important areas of concern is the mental health which is equally important or far more significant than physical health.

One of the major challenges is to help students to overcome the depression and face life positively in case they face any bullying, especially cyber bullying.

They are given good advices on how to overcome the ill thoughts of alcohol and drugs.

• Life after school

The most important part of a school counselling program is to prepare students for life after school.

This is the time when they set a foundation for handling personal problems and emotional conflicts.

They are also trained on how to behave positively in real life scenarios that comes across their lives.

There can be training programs that focus on shaping up student’s behavior and incorporating life lessons and values such as discipline.

A proper counselling channel can bridge the gap between different students and make life easy for them.

They are also given advices on the importance of how to open up their problems and share with teachers or parents rather than living with it.

They provide them with awareness about the changing world and prepare them to face even the worst expected.

The ultimate goal of good counselling at school level is to help students to grow up with a good sense of direction and clearer focus.

Counsellors are not just isolated teams that work with students only for a designated time frame.

In fact, they work in harmony with educators, school administrators as well as parents to provide a comfortable space for students to excel in their academics and grow up emotionally and socially.

A good emotional, behavioural and social support is really significant in a student’s journey.

So it is the role of the school authorities not to neglect the counselling part as just optional but include it as a mainstream area along with the curriculum.

Get FREE Teacher Apps (Check it Now)