Describe the roles of external professionals who may work with a school e.g educational psychologist. There are a large range of professionals who work with a schools on a regular basis to help children’s learning and development. They will come in and work with the head and other staff when needed, especially when there are a high number of children with learning, physical and behavioural difficulties in the school. Educational psychologists are concerned with the psychological and educational development of children and young people and bring a specialised perspective to working with children. They aim to bring about positive change for children and have skills in a range of psychological and educational assessment techniques and in different methods of helping children and young people who are experiencing difficulties in learning, behaviour or social adjustment.
Aims – Aims are targets or goals set by the school in the form of a statement or ethos that they commit themselves on upholding. Values – Values outline what is most important to the schools beliefs and describe how the school will behave toward their pupils, parents, staff and local community etc. The “vision” at my setting is “To enable each child to fulfil their potential academically, emotionally, physically and creatively in a safe, happy and supportive environment.” Their values in my setting were established according to what was important to the children, which was: “Friendship, Respect, kindness, Teamwork, Helpfulness, Being healthy, Safety, Determination, Making right choices, love learning and to have fun.” The motto in my setting is “Do your best and nothing less.”
Schools might demonstrate their aims by acting upon that which they have set out to do. If a schools aim was to provide the best curriculum then the school may hold numerous staff training days to ensure that their staff was current and up to date with the national curriculum. This would mean that the pupils were receiving a high standard of education and therefor provide them with better opportunities for the future. The school would uphold their aims by being consistent with their actions in order to achieve their goals/targets. It is important to implement action when making aims to ensure that those aims are met.
The values of the school would be carried through the staff as they are a direct link and representative of the school. For example, teaching and non-teaching staff at a religious school would be expected to uphold and support the values of the church the school is associated with to demonstrate to the children the importance of those values. If staff members were seen/heard to disagree or mock the schools values then pupils may follow suit of the adults. Schools may uphold their values by encouraging charity work within the community, holding fundraisers to raise money, hold open evenings regularly to talk to parents about what they are doing as a school etc.
