The Beacon School

Special Services

Guidance and Counselling

The Guidance Counseling program upholds the two simple but powerful words inscribed in the school's logo and these are "Veritas et Lumen", meaning "the Truth and the Light". We share in the school's "commitment to, and defense of, these two fundamental principles embodied in education, citizenship and conscience".

We believe that the diverse young children entrusted to our care have been gifted with unique talents and huge potential, but they still have obstacles to face as they grow.

The goal of the guidance and counseling program is to assist these young people in their journey to maturity. This will be achieved by helping them be aware and appreciative of their real self, and finding ways to healthily equip themselves with the necessary intrinsic and extrinsic resources to hurdle the obstacles they face as they endeavor to become the best that they can be.

Our Services and Interventions

• Counseling
  The main emphasis of our services is on counseling. The counselors conduct individual and group counseling sessions to help students in the different aspects of their school life, particularly in academics, personal, psycho-emotional and social matters.
• Class/Homeroom Guidance
  The various developmental needs of students are addressed through group processes, usually using structured learning experiences. The guidance counselors and the homeroom teachers work together in planning, preparing and facilitating these programs.
• Individual Inventory Service
  The cumulative file of the student is organized, and updated, by the guidance counselors. This includes scholastic progress, test results and other vital information from home. Information gathered from family, teachers and student interviews is put together with other data considered vital in understanding the background of the student.
• Consultation Service
  The Guidance Counselors are available for consultation with teachers, parents, caregivers and other people deemed significant in the student's development.
• Training/Facilitating
  The Guidance Counselors are available to serve as program designers, trainers and/or facilitators for various seminars and workshops in school, such as leadership training, behavior management, building self-esteem, team building, parenting workshops and caregivers' training.
• Testing
  The Guidance Counselors are trained to administer and interpret some cognitive and psychological tests. Testing, and the analysis of results, is currently being utilized in identifying the student ability profile, using the International School Assessment tests coordinated by the Australian Council of Educational Research as a basis.
• Student Study Team
  The Beacon School believes in inclusion. Thus we have in place a Student Study Team to examine the progress of those students who have specific needs. This team is composed of some teachers who are special education specialists, the PYP and MYP Coordinators, and the Guidance Counselors.

Reading Resource Teacher

The reading resource teacher is responsible for supporting the teaching of Language Arts, particularly in the area of Reading, in our Kindergarten to Grade 5 classes. The planning of the homeroom teachers at each level is supported so that the Reading/Language Arts programme is geared as much as possible to meet each child's needs and level of development in this area. The teacher provides assistance to the homeroom teachers during Language Arts time in developing the children's language and reading skills.

The Reading Resource teacher assists the homeroom teachers by identifying and implementing teaching/learning strategies which promote word recognition and reading comprehension, and by the teaching of a group of students.

The teacher helps to coordinate the other developmental aspects of the language and reading programme, including oral language, writing and viewing.

The role of the Reading Resource teacher is also intended to help to ensure that the learning outcomes and standards at each grade level are met by most students.

The Reading Resource Teacher will also seek opportunities for the meaningful integration of the Language Arts programme with the Programme of Inquiry at each of the Kindergarten to Grade 3 levels.