The Guidance Counsellor in the school is Ms Caroline Doyle. This service is provided to help the students integrate all that they learn so as to be better able to understand and plan their own lives. This means helping our young people to develop as persons, as students and as future members of society.

Guidance and couselling is provided by the school guidance counsellors – but they depend heavily on parent and teacher co-operation. At the same time it is vital for students that they be able to talk to the counsellor in confidence about any matter whatsoever.

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In Guidance the counsellor meets students to supply them with information and an opportunity to discuss themselves, their studies and their careers.

Guidance gives students a chance to learn about their own lives, about how to make decisions (e.g. about choice of school subjects and careers) and about other aspects of their time at school as well as their future. Homework and study is one area frequently dealt with in guidance.

Another important element is career development. Students are encouraged to examine many different occupations and are shown how to go about choosing their own careers in life. From third year on students are helped focus on career interests and options. Test instruments are used over 3-4 years to help in this process. Career Guidance is an essential activity if all the effort put into schooling is not to be misdirected. The practicalities of finding a job, attending interviews etc., are dealt with and students are made aware of the many sources of help and information open to them now and later. The Counsellor’s task is not that of finding jobs for the students but of giving them strategies of finding suitable work for themselves at any point of their lives.

In counselling the student sees the counsellor on an individual basis. Any student may make an appointment to see the counsellor. This gives the student a chance to talk to someone about anything they wish knowing that the topic will be dealt with in confidence. Normally the counsellor tries to help them find ways of solving their own problems.

Of course sometimes the student’s needs are beyond the counsellor’s capabilities or time limits and the counsellor may then recommend that the student see someone else.

Most counselling appointments are made by the students themselves but sometimes it is suggested to them by a parent, a teacher or a school friend. The counsellor does not act in a disciplinary or managerial capacity and this frees him/her to deal with students on a more personal level.