CHAPTER 12

Educational guidance and

counselling

Counselling in school

An examination of guidance and counselling must begin by insisting that

just as every teacher is a teacher of social skills (Chapter 11 ), so every
teacher is an educational counsellor. By this I mean that part of each tea-
cher's function is to help children deal with personal problems and to
make decisions about the course that their lives should take. Since tea-
chers are individuals they will inevitably vary in the degree of import-
ance they attach to their counselling roles, and they will also vary in the
extent to which children seem prepared to consult them about their diffi-
culties. Some teachers tend to invite confidences more readily than
others, and to be more sympathetic and patient in their relationships
with children. Children feel they can talk to them, and can trust their
reactions. It is in fact these two qualities, sympathy and trustworthiness,
rather than any great familiarity with counselling techniques, that chil-
dren appear to look for when deciding to whom they should tum when
in need.
The second of these qualities, trustworthiness, sometimes seems to be
compromised by the fact that teachers have a dual role (Chapter 11 ). Pri-
marily they represent the authority of the school, and only secondly do
they represent the disinterested confidentiality of the counsellor. Thus, if
a child wishes to discuss with the teacher some problem related to
school, such as alleged unfair treatment by another member of staff, or
theft of school equipment, or cheating in a school examination, he or she
may feel unsure whether the teacher will consider it proper to report
matters to a higher authority. Similarly, the teacher may feel the tug of
divided loyalties and be worried as to where professional duty lies, and
this may be one strong reason why some teachers appear to discourage
the kind of confidences that would put them in this uncertain position.

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D. Fontana, Psychology for Teachers
© David Fontana 1995
332 Social interaction, teac~child relations and teacher personali~

One way of avoiding the problem is for the school to employ a

member of staff whose duties extend only to counselling, and who does
not carry a teaching or a disciplinary function at all. The reason why
this practice is not more widespread is hard to say for sure, though some
teachers express themselves to be uneasy at the presence of a specialist
counsellor on the staff. They are concerned that they might be the
subject of discussion between the counsellor and children, that by their
very presence in the school counsellors are a threat to their own pastoral
roles, and that if there are secrets which the counsellor is not prepared to
divulge even to the headteacher, then the latter's authority must to some
extent be undermined within the school. It · seems, therefore, that
however much we may be in favour of specialist counsellors, it is prob-
able that the counselling role will still largely be left to the ordinary
teacher for the foreseeable future. Thus it is important for teachers to
have at least a limited knowledge of the major variables involved. Some
schools give heads of house or heads of year the responsibility for co-
ordinating counselling activities and for advising new members of staff on
what to do, while others appoint a head of pastoral care, but few of
those involved have attended more than short courses on counselling
organized by local authorities or professional bodies, and fewer still have
actual formal qualifications in the subject. This again is unfortunate,
since one of the best ways of disseminating counselling skills is for
someone on the staff with specialist training to become responsible for
handing this information on to others. Thus individual teachers can learn
these skills within the practical context in which they have to apply
them, and can seek a convenient source of expert advice whenever they
feel unsure of themselves.

The problem of confidentiality

To go back to the beginning, it has been stressed that trustworthiness

and sympathy are the basic gifts that the good counsellor has to offer to
the child. I have also said, however, that a major problem arises when
the child brings to the counsellor's attention material that concerns dis-
obedience to important school rules, or that threatens important values
and standards. Should the counsellor maintain confidentiality, or betray
the child's trust and go to the headmaster or to another member of the
school hierarchy? Some writers suggest that the teacher should always
warn children before they offer confidences that he or she may feel it
necessary to break confidence, and this is good policy as far as it goes.
The problem is that it may deter the child from seeking help, and
encourage silence on matters that, in his or her own interest, should be
brought out into the open. There is, too, always the chance that confi-