School Counsellor

The Worthgate School offers an outstanding international pre-university educational experience to students aged 14+ from all over the world. Worthgate School students live and work in the beautiful Victorian campus, studying for GCSEs, A levels and University Foundation Programmes, and preparing for admission to universities across the country and elsewhere. We pride ourselves on our approach to teaching and learning, with small class sizes and an informal atmosphere ensuring that students are treated as individuals and build great relationships with staff.

The role of the student counsellor at The Worthgate School is to provide one-to-one counselling to students to support their health and wellbeing so they can participate fully in an active school life. Together with the Boarding, Pastoral, Medical and safeguarding teams, the counsellor will assist in removing or modifying well-being barriers to learning in individual students and will help early detection, support and where necessary referral.

You will be directly responsible to the Director or Safeguarding, Mental Health and Wellbeing. You will work within the framework set by and under the general direction of the Principal.

Please note, this role is offered on a consultancy agreement with no fixed hours guranteed.

• Provide an independent and confidential counselling service to students at The Worthgate School through individual sessions, responding to their personal, social, emotional or educational concerns.
• Liaise with the student’s Programme Director, or the relevant Curriculum Director, when educational concerns are raised.
• Promote a caring and supportive environment where such concerns may be explored, thereby promoting the mental and emotional health of students.
• Play an active role in Safeguarding children and young people and adhere with guidance from The Worthgate School’s policies.
• Maintain confidentiality (except in those circumstances, in line with BACP/UKCP practice and/or The Worthgate School Safeguarding Policy (especially where information needs to be disclosed).
• Maintain appropriate records and to keep these secure.
• Liaise, where appropriate and with the student’s consent, with members of school staff (unless superseded by safeguarding needs).
• Where appropriate and with the student’s and/or parents’ consent, work with external agencies where needed to make referrals or support self-referrals.
• Be vigilant of trends and patterns of problems and to be willing to identify causes and recommend corrective action.
• Contribute in any other reasonable fashion to promote the safety and wellbeing of students.
• Uphold good practice as described by the BACP/UKCP ethical guidelines.
• Ensure that as a Counsellor you are properly and regularly supervised, as required by the BACP/UKCP. The name and address of the supervisor must be supplied on request to the Head of Boarding.
• Be responsible for identifying your own professional development needs to maintain a high level of knowledge and awareness of changes and developments in the fields of counselling and education and their impact on the delivery of counselling.
• Contribute to an annual report on the use of the service and the types of issues being presented.
• Attend meetings or communicate with parents if asked and as appropriate within the agreed confidentiality guidelines above.
• Attend Welfare meetings or provide relevant information via the Head of Boarding about students of concern in advance of the Welfare meetings.

The job requires that you are:

• A qualified counsellor, preferably with experience within Education.
• Efficient and organised.
• A skilled communicator and a relationship builder - able to…