How do schools meet the emotional, psychological and

behavioural needs of pupils?

Education is, in the end, nothing but organised change in pursuit of development.
Maximum growth of a pupils capacities is the key to their future life chances. Success
depends on many different factors. One of the most important factors is the degree to
which schools help young people through important changes (www.Islington school.
net). The aim of this report is to discuss how schools meet the emotional,
psychological and behavioral needs of pupils. The report will first begin with defining
what is meant the terms emotional, psychological and behavioral. Which will be
followed by discussing how these terms meets the needs of pupils. Subsequently the
report will consider what role the counselor and teacher take before coming to an
overall conclusion. The report will discuss how a secondary school meets the
emotional, psychological and behavioral needs of pupils.
Emotional, psychological and behavioral needs have been approved by many different
theories such as:
Emotional development can be described as the changes in emotional communication
such as self-understanding, knowledge about other people, interpersonal skills
friendships, intimate relationships and moral reasoning and behaviour.
Schools have a responsibility to develop students personally and socially, so there is
an educative function. However, personal and social development does not take place
in isolation. Our personal development and sense of identity are learned in our
interactions with others, we learn who we are in the context of a community and those
in it. Therefore, there is also the responsibility to explore the impact of the school or
college on the personal and social development of the student there (Bovair et al
1993:40).Teachers need to be able to use a repertoire of teaching styles and to be able
to choose consciously from them, being aware of the impact that each one has. There
is considerable evidence to show that techniques such as co-operative learning do
impact on students personal and social development.

In a recent study of girls development by Mikel Brown and Gilligan (1982) show that
during adolescence girls loses the ability to express their real feelings and opinions.
They describe this as a loss of voice. They argue that girls do this to avoid
endangering relationships and that it has long term consequences for the development
of women. As a result they argue for the need to encourage adolescent girls to express
difference and disagreement. This would suggest that procedures in the classroom,
such as negotiations . (Bovair et al 1997:42)

The development of counselling in secondary schools is based on problem-solving

work with individuals or group. This reflects the developments in training and
thinking. In the 1970s the predominance of the Rogerian or client-centred model
can be seen. There were counselling training courses for those wishing to become
counsellors in schools, where counsellors did exist. Their existence was not always
unproblematic but many schools employed them. In the early 1980s many factors
impinged to change the situation. First, there were cuts in education spending and
counsellors came to be seen as a luxury, in many local authorities counselling posts
were the first to be cut. Second, there was an increase in the emphasis on counselling
skills for all teachers, influenced by the work of people such as Egan (1986) (Bovair
et al 1993:37).
Section1 of the Education Reform Act states that schools have a statutory
responsibility to develop a curriculum which:
Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of
students at the school and of the society; and prepares such students for the
opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life (Bovair et al
1993:39)
Guidance plays a part in helping schools to fulfill this commitment. The aim is to
contribute as fully and as positively as possible to the mental health of the students in
the school community and to do this in different ways: through the curriculum,
through the community of the school and through one-to-one and group work.
Counselling and guidance have a developmental function as well as a reactive one.
Early in the development of counselling in schools the task was seen as involving
teachers in working one-to-one with students and viewed as developmental in nature.

(Bovair et al 1993:39)
There is increasing evidence of the need for schools to support children with social/
emotional development, in particular addressing the issue of self-esteem (Bovair &
McLaughlin, 2012, p98).

The number of children presenting emotional and

behavioural difficulties, and consequent exclusions, continues to rise. The pressures

on children growing up in a society with such high rates of divorce, unemployment,
crime and abuse of all kinds are great indeed (Bovair et al 1993:98).
Counselling in Schools - A Reader
By Keith Bovair, Colleen McLaughlin
Circle time is group processes that use strategies which help children develop skills to
understand themselves and to express their individuality. It helps them to appreciate
others and the value of friendship, encouraging the individual to be aware of feelings
and how to handle them. It assists in how to handle peer pressure and upsets,
encouraging co-operation and welcoming new challenges and opportunities to take
risks (Bovair et al 1993:99).
Counselling in British education grew out of what was loosely termed guidance in
the early 1900s. Guidance in education traditionally covered three distinct activities:
there was child guidance provided by the medical service, then there were careers or
vocational guidance provided by the careers service, and finally there was educational
guidance (Lines, 2006:5)

The counsellor and teacher meet the needs of their pupils by giving them support,
hope; through counselling and listening they give them courage. Teaching assistants
hear a lot, SEN workers are there to support the childrens learning and learning
mentors are there to guide them. Buddying systems, conflict resolution, peer
mentoring, learning mentors,

Bibliography
Lines,D.(2006) Brief counselling in schools, London (2nd Edition) SAGE