The Counselling Service at Burford School is an integrated part of the school’s pastoral care provision. The service is based on the principle that we learn best when we feel confident, secure and valued. All sorts of things can interrupt and get in the way of our learning. Sometimes people or situations in our lives can make us feel useless, angry, sad and nervous. Counselling is an opportunity to talk through these things with someone who is trained in order to begin to change the way we feel about and behave towards ourselves and others.
Burford Schools Counselling service exists to support all students when life gets difficult for whatever reason. The School Counsellor is Becca Howard Burrell. Becca was a teacher in London for several years before training to be a counsellor at Oxford Brookes University. This is the third Oxfordshire school in which Becca has worked as a counsellor. Becca attends fortnightly supervision sessions and meets with staff formally and informally on a regular basis. She is in school full-time counselling and co-coordinating Burford Partnerships Extended Services and available to talk to staff, students and parents about any concerns they may have. The school’s counselling service provides:
- 1 to 1 and Group counselling for all Year 7 – 13 students
- Lunchtime Nurture Group Support as part of Extended Services
- Sixth Form Counsellors attached to all Year 7 Forms
- Parenting Support across the Partnership
- Support for Families through transition from Primary to Secondary School
- SEAL delivered through PSHE
- Links with external agencies
Individual Counselling
Becca sees students by appointment during lesson time. Each appointment lasts half a lesson (about 25 minutes). When someone is seeing Becca regularly over several weeks the appointment time will vary to avoid disrupting schoolwork. Some people refer themselves to Becca and sometimes Heads of Year or Mrs Smith may suggest talking to the counsellor might be beneficial. Sometimes parents refer their own children and at other times peers recommend that a friend comes along. There are opportunities for Becca to see friends together to help discuss issues that are affecting both of them. Everything said to Becca is kept confidential unless the person is in danger in some way.
Group Work/Restorative Meetings
When relationships within a group get stuck or become problematic in some way it makes sense to work with the whole group to address and explore some of the underlying anxieties. Sometimes it feels safer to talk about and explore things in a single sex or small group and these provide a more informal setting to share concerns and experiences, develop social skills and empathise with and support others. The transition between primary and secondary education can be a stressful one and many students have found the group sessions useful in supporting the move. Restorative work is being used more widely within school to resolve conflict and tackle any bullying issues directly.
Family Meetings
Sometimes families choose to come into school and talk though issues together. Usually appointments can be made after school and in confidence with Becca. This can be a good opportunity to be signposted to relevant services and agencies that can offer extra support.
Burford Partnership
The Burford Partnership of Burford School and nine of our feeder Primary Schools may request a visit from Becca. She can support individual families facing difficulties with any aspect of parenting, access to services, health support and keeping lines of communication open with school.
The House Club
Every lunchtime there is a board games club at school run by Becca in the old Caretakers House. This is an opportunity for students to have a safe place to be when lunchtimes may be difficult. Here they have their own budget to buy games and equipment, draw up their own rules and learn to work together in a positive environment. It is an open group where students can drop in, have a chat and feel safe.
Parenting Workshops
Each term (6 times a year) Becca will be running two workshops in the Library, each lasting about 1 hour in the evening.
Positive Parenting - topics covered include Improving Communication, Setting Boundaries, Using Rewards and Sanctions, How to Listen to Teenagers and get Them to Listen to You, and Understanding Adolescence.
Managing Peer Pressure & Internet Safety - along with the help of Mr David Williams, our ICT co-ordinator, this workshop, aimed at students from Year 6 upwards, will deliver guidance on how to use the internet safely and how to manage pressure from peers.
Dates and details of when these workshops are being run will be put in our termly newsletter and will also be posted on the right of this page.
Sixth Form Counsellors
Becca manages a team of Year 13 student counsellors. Their role is to get to know Year 7 students and be available to them as a source of support throughout the year. To do this, the counsellors are attached to a Year 7 Form, run a drop in service at lunchtimes, run group work within their Forms and attend regular supervision sessions with Becca. They take part in induction days and may in the future take part in the Year 7 residential trip early in the first term.
Referral
There are a variety of ways students are referred to Becca. There are forms available to all students outside the Medical Room and Becca’s room for students to self refer. Sometimes Form Tutors or Heads of Year refer students they have concerns about, usually in consultation with the students themselves. A green slip in an envelope is issued to students informing them of their appointment time and staff receive a green slip letting them know if a student will be missing a portion of their lesson (the green slip for teachers is for information only or in some cases a discrete reminder).
Email
Becca’s email is rhow2335@burford.oxon.sch.uk. This is a confidential messaging service that staff, students and parents can use. Sometimes face to face meetings can be challenging and initial email conversations can provide a safe first step. Please feel free to contact me with any concerns or issues.
It is important to remember that Burford School’s Counselling Service does not take the place of Parents, Friends or Teachers. Indeed it respects very much the contribution all these people make to our lives and is part of an integrated support system for students. Parents are not automatically informed if their child attends counselling; however the ideal scenario is that parents are always involved in the process.