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Child Item

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?

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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.