Counseling and Supportive Instruction Unit Exhibits for Founder’s Day

“Discover your inner self” was the theme for the exhibits put up by the senior school’s student advisors and the special instruction unit. The exhibits, put up with the collaborative effort of the staff and students, were aimed at educating the parents on the purpose and work done by these units.

Supportive Instruction Unit

The Supportive Instruction Unit aims to raise awareness regarding learning problems encountered by the children. The unit displayed some of the problems faced by the children in the areas of English, Math and Science. How these problems are tackled were also shown and explained to the parents by the co-ordinators of the unit as well as volunteer children. The unit provided further information on the indicators of learning problems and other information such as board examination concessions which are a major concern for students with learning difficulties.   

The working of the unit, the 10-step process of the Supportive Instruction Unit, referral process, IEP, formats of parental consent and assessment reports were shown and explained to ease any of the concerns that the parents might have had. Several worksheets on the concepts such as parts of speech, vocabulary building, tips on how to improve Math scores, life cycle, hydrological cycle, flash cards etc. were displayed to better explain the strategies of the special instruction unit in assisting the students. A couple of games were also planned for the parents.

Psychological Counseling Unit

In recent times, due to added pressures by both parents and peers, children are usually lost and confused. Despite people around them, children view themselves as isolated bodies. At such times, the role of student advisors becomes all the more important. In an age where counseling is still attached to stigma, it was important to bring to the attention of parents and students the role and importance of student advisors at school. 

Displays bringing awareness of bullying, positive vs. negative emotions, and anger/rage were put up. Awareness was also raised regarding issues faced by students such as self-esteem, identity crisis, etc. The student volunteers wearing crowns with words describing each of them exolained the role of the student advisors in our school and some of the problems commonly faced by the students. Some of the more abstract concepts such as emotions and stroop effect were shown by engaging the parents in a few activities and the applicability of the activites to daily life were illustrated by the students.

The exhibits received rave feedbacks from the parents, with some calling them “unique,” “very informative, with information of a complex subject given in an easy manner,” “wonderful learning tools and helful to all the kids,” and “very perceptive and educative.” The parents were also of the opinion that the exhibits brought to their attention that these units existed in the senior school. From the feedback received, it would seem that the aim of exhibits was fulfilled successfully.

Till next time, we urge you to keep rediscovering yourselves!