Do teaching staff in primary schools perceive any impacts of school-based counselling on school engagement?

Abstract

Teaching assistants and teachers (N = 186) in Cambridgeshire primary schools in the UK were invited to participate in a survey to explore the perceived impact of school-based counselling (SBC) on pupils’ cognitive, social, and emotional engagement. Participants were also asked which of these factors they believed were most important to a child’s educational progress. T-tests and one-way ANOVAs were conducted to explore the findings. Perceived effects of SBC were greatest on pupils’ social engagement (M = 18.05, SD = 4.17), followed by emotional engagement (M = 16.71, SD = 5.24) and cognitive engagement (M = 15.08, SD = 3.96). Emotional engagement was reported as the most important factor in a child’s educational progress χ 2(2, n = 169) = 77.834, p <.0001.