Background to the project

The personal, social and emotional in school

The following notes show how the roots of the ARTE study into the personal, social and emotional dimensions of learning and teaching lie in the counselling and guidance movement. The ARTE project examines the principles underlying counselling and guidance and tries to work on them in ways that will benefit the teaching and learning relationships in schools.

The findings from previous research (McLaughlin et al, 1996) and forthcoming research on school exclusions show that the guidance role in schools is important in helping students to affiliate to school and in the areas of learning to learn, learning to choose, learning to live. The skills, knowledge and attitudes that teachers require in this area have remained underdeveloped over recent years. If one looks at the development of counselling and guidance in secondary schools, early models were largely based on problem solving work with individuals or groups. This reflects developments in training and thinking, largely based on American models of guidance which were imported and adapted. These approaches tended to emphasise the development of good relationships and listening. The guidance role was largely the province of specialists. The work of Gerard Egan (1986) emphasised the skills of counselling. This approach tended to emphasise the use of these skills by non-specialists as well as specialists.

In pastoral care in schools there were similar shifts occurring. The pastoral role of the teacher had largely been a reactive or problem focused one. Teachers in their role as form tutors dealt with the individual welfare needs of the students in their care. This approach became less tenable as social change generated more issues for teachers to deal with. The notion of guidance developed and Marland (1980) wrote about the need to give guidance to individuals without giving it individually. Programmes of educational, vocational and personal guidance were developed in schools. However, the work undertaken was still seen as separate from, or additional to, the main function of the teacher and still largely the responsibility of those who had some specialist function. The shift was from a reactive to a preventative model of working.

Since then there have been further developments in the area of counselling. Many initiatives began to draw on counselling skills. Initiatives such as records of achievement and teacher appraisal drew on the skills of listening, problem solving, setting targets and drawing up and implementing action plans. In such initiatives the skills are very similar but their intentions are different, for largely the skills are being drawn on to enhance communication. Other developments drew on counselling theory and psychology. The big development in the field of bullying emphasised listening to students and the importance of respecting students views and feelings. These developments have been accompanied by an increasing awareness of what the emotional world of schooling looks and feels like to students. Some have argued that listening to the student voice is also a central part of school improvement . (Rudduck, J et al, 1996)

However, the shift is more radical. It is a shift away from 'emotional first aid' (Hamblin, 1974) to a concern with the school's support of student learning and the development of young people personally and socially. Rutter's (1992) research showed thet the split between the cognitive and the personal/ social dimensions of school was a false one. He argued that his research showed that schools should have both social and cognitive goals and that the development of cognitive success, perseverance and self esteem went hand in hand.

Gardner (1993) has argued that our view of intelligence is limited. He has argued for the development of multiple intelligences - the linguistic, the logical-mathematical, the spatial, the musical, the bodily-kinaesthetic, the inter personal and the intrapersonal. He also emphasised the need to create a climate for 'responsible learning'. "Bringing about such an environment is no easy matter. Individual students have a variety of needs, fears and aspirations and in such a world where many of the traditional supports have weakened, much of the burden for providing support falls on the school. Only if schools are concerned with civility, with fair treatment of all students from all groups, with feelings, interests, motivations and values as well as with cognitive goals, can such an environment be construed and sustained." (Gardner, 1993)

Here too then, there is the emphasis on expanding the work of all teachers to include working with the emotional, social and personal in a more developmental way and with a more direct connection to learning.

Traditionally in secondary schools many of these concerns have been seen as largely the province of pastoral care and personal / social education. There has been a view that problems concerned with motivation and the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal ways of knowing are largely met by the curriculum for personal and social education and the pastoral care system of the school. There is also some evidence to suggest that in the turbulence created by school reform, the pressure has been on the pastoral system to deal separately with issues of lack of motivation and to return to a problem centred rather than a developmental approach.

However, the research considered so far and current thinking emphasises the integration of these aspects of the teacher's work. It is an argument for the development of all teachers in these spheres of work and a move away from the notion of separate provision by a specialist. If teachers are to view their role as wider than the development of the cognitive alone then the skills of guidance and counselling become part of their repertoire. The teacher as guiding adult becomes central to this notion. This would involve expanding the notion of what it is to be a teacher and of pedagogy. Teachers would use the skills and knowledge embedded in counselling psychology. Skills such as active listening, facilitating understanding, using a range of questioning techniques, working with emotions, setting targets and working towards action. The skills of facilitation of learning - cognitive as well as personal and social - would become important. Recent research on formative assessment (Black and Wiliam, 1998) emphasises these ways of working. They talk of the need for students to "be trained in self assessment so that they can understand the main purposes of their learning and thereby grasp what they need to do to achieve." (p.10)

These skills of facilitating understanding are similar to those used in counselling. Other recent research on school improvement (Rutter, 1992; Rudduck et al, 1996) and the exclusion of pupils (Hayden, 1997; Parsons, 1995) has also emphasised the importance of these dimensions of a school's work. These research studies have suggested that these dimensions have remained underdeveloped. Recent research undertaken in the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, on exclusions has shown the importance of this guidance Torole. (Cooper et al, 1998)

To explore and research the development of this personal, social and emotional guidance function in the work of teachers is the main aim of our ARTE project.