Guidance councillors-any use to anyone?

lazygal

The posts are being cut, cue the usual whining from the representative bodies. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0104/education.html

Mine was class-A useless, waste of space who had a cushy number handing out college literature and no one got any real help from her. Do we need them at all?

MrStuffins

They're generally useless.

IMO it's a nonsense job, but what do I know?

On the other hand, it's important for young people coming out of school to think about and develop some sort of direction when they are leaving school!

Son Of A Vidic

lazygal wrote: »

Do we need them at all?

No.

RedXIV

Mine was a really nice lady but god love her she was woefully unaware of anything related to IT. Anything to do with business, legal, financial etc she was top notch, but once it was IT you were interested in her eyes glazed over.

L.Jenkins

Well in some cases they do help. Mine put us through a series of aptitude tests and to be honest, he was spot on. He did double as History and Irish teacher.

chin_grin

Well they got me pretty spot on.

"You'll be a troll on a popular Irish forum site." Myep.

It's basically a position for them to pull a card out of a hat that says 'engineer', 'IT', 'HR', 'agricultural sciences', 'dentist', 'rapist'.

mattjack

chin_grin wrote: »

Well they got me pretty spot on.

"You'll be a troll on a popular Irish forum site." Myep.

It's basically a position for them to pull a card that says 'engineer', 'IT', 'HR', 'agricultural sciences', 'dentist', 'rapist' out of a hat.

fcukin' hate dentists.

endacl

Not in my limited experience... Had one brief meeting (3 minutes) with school gc in 6th year 1991, on the morning I discovered the school had one. Was told I was good at English and should therefore do arts in UCD. Didn't. Seems like a handy number. Wonder how one goes about landing a cushy gig like that?

chin_grin

mattjack wrote: »

fcukin' hate dentists.

What you did there, I see it.

My name is URL

Ours was also a history teacher and sat in for other teachers when they were absent. I guess they do have a place in schools but it'd be better if they doubled as actual teachers too.

L.Jenkins

mattjack wrote: »

fcukin' hate dentists.

Of course, who wouldn't when they love to shove stuff in your mouth when you can't feel it

L.Jenkins

My name is URL wrote: »

Ours was also a history teacher and sat in for other teachers when they were absent. I guess they do have a place in schools but it'd be better if they doubled as actual teachers too.

Sounds oddly like mine.

mackg

Our one taught other subjects as well, do they really have full time guidance teachers in secondary schools? Also, she was crap told my buddy to be a farmer even though he had never been on a farm in his life!

John Doe1

Why the hell should children take advice on a career from someone who ended up a guidance councillor:p

mattjack

We had a great guidance counsellor , near the end of 6th year he spoke to all of us individually, helped a some with college applications,others with getting apprenticeships and suggested repeating for a few more...
I remember being outside his office waiting on a friend to come out from his interview,when a passing teacher grinned and said "armed robber" either bout me or my friend....
A year later my friend was convicted of armed robbery ....:)

gigino

The only one I ever knew was useless, he sat around all day most of the time doing nothing. His advice was worse than useless for most people too. He has a lot to answer for. Sack the F****rs.

Corruptable

It seems to vary in my view, some people who rarely, if ever, used the guidance counsellor's service tend to see it as "useless" and a waste of space.

Personally, I would not have survived second level without assistance from the guidance counsellor as they do so much more than simple career guidance, but they actually help young people deal with a range of problems from depression and bereavement to relationship difficulties to drug or alcohol abuse in some cases.

The one at my school knew her stuff in both career guidance and counselling, being a qualified psychologist and also teaching a few subjects. Some people didn't like her because they utterly rejected her analysis or advice, which was their prerogative, but with hindsight, her analysis of the people still proved largely to be correct.

MrStuffins

saa wrote: »

Not in my experience, but its been a massive help to my little brother but because he was so down he stopped going and got worse and his parent, the school or counsellor didn't chase things up or try to help... not an adequate service at all. I know its the own clients responsibility but not when you're dealing with a child.

wha'?

For Forks Sake

saa wrote: »

Not in my experience, but its been a massive help to my little brother but because he was so down he stopped going and got worse and his parent, the school or counsellor didn't chase things up or try to help... not an adequate service at all. I know its the own clients responsibility but not when you're dealing with a child.

You're doing something wrong here...

JohnMearsheimer

Our one was totally useless. Me and a friend went to see him in 6th year, his appointment was just after mine. Our GC accused the both of us of coming to see him just to get out of class. Thanks for the help!

Anita Blow

School guidance counselors act in other capacities besides preparing you for college/your career.
Many people in my old school had lost close relatives, friends and had it not been for the counselors they would not have had anybody trained in counseling to help them through it.

I don't think having a counselor or 2 in each school is something which should be abolished. With the way our education system is (deciding on your career before you finish secondary school), we need people like them to advise students on what they could do as a career. That sort of stuff.

saa

For Forks Sake wrote: »

You're doing something wrong here...

Yeah I'm really sick at the moment so I went off track after it didnt help me ha school or college ones are both rubbish otherwise their career would be a bit more highflying.

krudler

If they knew so much about having an amazing career they wouldnt be working as something as useless as a guidance consellor would they?

Shryke

Completely useless in my experience and probably the last person you would want to take advice from when you look at what they do for a living!

John Doe1

krudler wrote: »

If they knew so much about having an amazing career they wouldnt be working as something as useless as a guidance consellor would they?

Post #14:D

Eve_Dublin

One of my best friends is a guidance councillor in Dublin and I can imagine she's great at it (for all the councilling you can give on your career in Ireland these days) The students seem to love her but she still has the cushtiest number known to man and she'd be the first to admit it.

cloud493

Absolutely useless. We had 4 guidance counsellors, and only one of them was any good, the rest just sat round in offices all day, and did nothing. One of them suggested I re sit the leaving cert in the february before I did it, the other one suggested I try manual labour. And accused pretty much everyone of using an appointment to get out of class. The good one was very good though.

My name is URL

Shryke wrote: »

Completely useless in my experience and probably the last person you would want to take advice from when you look at what they do for a living!

So who would you take career advice from?

krudler

My name is URL wrote: »

So who would you take career advice from?

someone who got very rich doing not much work. soo, I dunno, HSE managers or something.

reap-a-rat

Ours was a legend of a woman, good aul fun like, but when it came to "Careers" class she brought us to the computer labs and made us do the career profile things on qualifax and stuff, but some of those you knew exactly what you were going to get with certain answers so they were pretty useless really.

She talked to each student individually before we picked our Leaving Cert subjects which was good. She had this thing though where she wanted everybody to become an engineer, because if you did a good leaving cert and got an engineering course there was great scholarships for women in engineering. That's fine, she wants you to get funding, but honestly, the majority of the girls hadn't a clue what an engineer was, never mind did they want to be one! Daft...

I wonder what she's doing now...

Gonzor

Yeh I think a lot of people bash them after only ever having one or two dealings with them in 6th year.

As someone else said they help with all sorts and not just advice on college/jobs.

I remember in my own class a chap got in trouble for breaking into a Dunnes stores one night and the GC spent months helping him get off drugs and get his life back on track.

TiGeR KiNgS

Gonzor wrote: »

Yeh I think a lot of people bash them after only ever having one or two dealings with them in 6th year.

As someone else said they help with all sorts and not just advice on college/jobs.

I remember in my own class a chap got in trouble for breaking into a Dunnes stores one night and the GC spent months helping him get off drugs and get his life back on track.

More like months helping him get out of class.

Gonzor

TiGeR KiNgS wrote: »

More like months helping him get out of class.

WHen someone is addicted to drugs, out robbing different places to feed that addiction, and a date in court coming up that could leave him in a detention center.... yeh Im pretty sure the last thing on his mind is trying to skive of Irish and history lessons :rolleyes:

Professey Chin

Mine said I should be a psychologist.
Now Im the patient! MWAHAHEHEHEHEHOHOHOO!

hmmm

Gonzor wrote: »

I remember in my own class a chap got in trouble for breaking into a Dunnes stores one night and the GC spent months helping him get off drugs and get his life back on track.

That's great and all, but that's not what we're paying them for. "The school had a caretaker, he was rubbish with anything to do with the facilities but he made us all a great coffee in the mornings. I think he should be kept on as school caretaker."

Our counsellor/GC hated me. Had a lot of talks with her about personal stuff. She was awful.
She became principal the year i left. thank goodness i left :rolleyes: my friends said when she was giving actual career "advice" in 6th year, she hadn't a fcuking clue

the GC in the new school was pretty good though and knew about courses

Slunk

Pretty useless. Had about three five minute meetings. I basically told him what i was thinking about doing and he went along with it. Photocopied some generic paperwork and that was that.
Other thing i heard on the news was the amount been spent on chaplains to schools. They should defo get the chop.

El Horseboxo

I only done the leaving cert years in Ireland. I had a very specific area i knew i wanted to go into but my guidance councilor hadn't a clue how to direct me. Thank fook the internet was around otherwise i wouldn't have known which course was relevant. One of the requirements i needed was a foreign language so i said i already have spanish and English. He was trying to tell me to do spanish in college because i'd have no cert to prove i spoke the language. Despite me being Mexican and it being my native tongue. If anything i'd have needed a cert in English at the time.

Grindylow

Mine was terrible. I came to her to suggest a course I'd like to do, she instantly suggested agriculture because sure, I'm from the country, why wouldn't I want to do that? :rolleyes: She suggested it to practically everyone in her class.

Needless to say I went to college this year, doing a course I hated and dropped out..

Twee.

Mine was excellent, helped me pick my perfect course in a college I didn't even know existed when I started looking! Even when my friend found herself a bit lost after a one year FETAC course, the GC had her come back to the school for a few meetings, and helped her find a course to continue her education. What a lady!

thecornflake

They do more than people think.

For example, the one in my school didn't do a stitch of work and didn't have a clue. However, one day I had a huge Irish test that I totally forgot about. So, at lunch time just before the test, I made myself an appointment with the GC. I'll never forget how her face lit up when she saw I wanted to talk to her after lunch about college ect. After lunch the Irish teacher walks in and I explain to her that I have an appointment with the GC and due to the fact that nobody ever saw the GC, she thought it was important and told me to go right ahead.

So kids, there is a good reason to have these GCs in school, they are a get out of jail free card.

mconigol

I'm sure some are good and some are bad. I get the impression that there are more bad than good however.

susita06

mconigol wrote: »

I'm sure some are good and some are bad. I get the impression that there are more bad than good however.

The gc in my school was shockingly bad ! I you were a male you had a choice of the army or quantity surveying and if female, nursing was the only way to go :-). One girl told her she was thinking of studying medicine during a class one day and her response was "yea, um, well the points would be really high and I dnt think you are smart enough but have you looked in to nursing maybe ?! They are the same really " :-D

Seren_

We had a great one in my school. He was our year head as well, and we used to have a class every week were we would go over all the CAO/general stuff and things like CVs, and then we had individual meetings too every so often. He's the reason I ended up going to Maynooth too, because I'd never heard of it before he told me about how he studied there and loved it He left the year after, and apparently the one that's there now is pretty crap sadly.

I don't see why everyone on here is saying that guidance counsellor positions should be cut though. Just because yours was crap doesn't mean every single other one in the entire country is.

Gyalist

Your average elected local government representative would be unlikely to be able to give you sound career advice.

Almaviva

My guidance counsellor was great. Advised me to become a guidance counsellor.
Best thing I ever did - its money for nothing.

Sheeps

There were parents in a certain private school in Rathgar in South Dublin who couldn't stop the school forcing students to attend the psycho guidance councillor at the time, so they got a court to issue a restraining order which forbid the guidance councillor from being in the same room as their daughter.

Snowie

I was once, surfing the net, and ended up on the career guidance test stuf were they ask you a ton of questions and you answer...

I answered honestly and it told me I should be a photographer....:eek:

NTMK

I was told to go into accounting my councillor even though i was **** at accounting and hated it:rolleyes:

Lone Stone

all mine did was recomend fas course's :rolleyes: stupid bitch !!!

Niles

I didn't go to mine in 6th year and ended up doing an Arts degree... go figure.