The primary and secondary school counsellors are professional educators with mental health perspectives who understand and respond to the challenges presented by our diverse student population. The counsellors do not work in isolation; rather, they align and work with students, teachers, administrators, and parents to support the development of all students. Their mission is accomplished through the design, development, implementation and evaluation of a comprehensive school-counselling program. School counselling programs are essential for students to achieve optimal personal growth, acquire positive social skills and values, set appropriate career goals and realize full academic potential to become productive, contributing members of the world community.
Our Counselling Program is provided through the following:
PSHE Lessons
The counselors are responsible for PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) by teaching each grade level in the Primary and Middle Schools. PSHE lessons aim that students reflect on themselves, their experiences, and the process of learning in order to support personal growth and their ongoing commitment to personal, social and physical well-being. The development of a student’s well-being is implicitly and explicitly addressed through all areas of the curriculum.
Classroom Guidance
Our counselors provide classroom support services in academic skills, organizational skills, study and test-taking skills, post-secondary planning and application process support, and career planning. They provide education in understanding self and others, peer relationships and effective social skills, effective communication, coping, problem-solving, decision-making, and conflict resolution strategies as well as career awareness and the world of work, substance abuse education and multicultural/diversity awareness.
Individual Student Planning
Counselors work to help students with goal setting, academic plans, career plans, problem solving, as well as education in understanding of self, including personal strengths and weaknesses, and transition plans.
Responsive Services
Counselors provide individual and small-group counselling, individual/family/school crisis intervention, peer facilitation, consultation/collaboration, and outside referrals.
High School / IB Retreat & MS Skills Conference
To promote and further emphasize the importance of student accountability and intrinsically-motivated student-led learning, we offer our students the chance:
- to re-familiarise themselves with the essential tools for active learning and self-improvement.
These specialised workshop sessions are meant to tap into the ‘other’ aspects of learning across the disciplines.
The High School / IB Retreat and the Middle School Skills Conference are held simultaneously on one devoted day during the third week of the academic year. Teachers pair together to offer workshop sessions in various topics from test-taking, note-taking skills and effective study habits, to ways to relieve stress, exercises to increase blood circulation, and maximise a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Grades 5 – 6 Transition Taster Day
The momentous move from the fifth grade to sixth grade is instrumental, as MEF IS students transition from Primary school to Secondary School; from the children they were yesterday, to the young adults they will be tomorrow.
At the end of May, the Grade 5 students will have a chance to have a ‘taste’ of what it is like to be in the Secondary school for an entire day. They will manoeuvre through a Grade 6 timetable, switch from class to class attending Grade 6 taster lessons, and appreciate a new form of responsibility with break times and visits to the canteen. A Transition Parent Night and a Taster Bowling Afternoon are other key elements offered as part of the transition programme.
Pastoral Care
An emphasis on the pastoral aspects of education are instilled and developed further through weekly homeroom activities and assemblies led by the homeroom teachers in collaboration with the school’s Guidance Counsellor and the school administration.
Issues such as healthy eating habits, fostering social interactions, exercising effective solutions and problem-solving techniques, and developing a positive self-image are all included in the Pastoral Care component. Through team-building activities, workshops and mini sessions and practical applications, the topics tap into the deep issues and concerns that our youth have today. From cyber-bullying, to mindfulness, to managing relationships, students are bound to gain confidence and build strength of character.
