For parents of first year students: This video from Mr O’Brien, our Guidance Counsellor, explains what the CAT4 is and why we use it.

Guidance Counsellor

The role of Guidance Counsellor is to assist students in making informed choices about their lives in relation to personal, educational and career decisions.

The Objectives of the Guidance Programme are:

• To help students develop an awareness and acceptance of their strengths, talents and abilities.

• To facilitate students in identifying and exploring opportunities.

• To enable students to grow in independence and take responsibility for themselves.

• To help students make informed choices about their lives and to follow through on these choices.

• To assist students during the various transitions in their lives.

The Guidance Counsellor also provides a number of other services to students during their time in Grange Community College, which include but are not limited to:

• School Counselling: Helping students to explore their thoughts and feelings, and the choices open to them; giving care and support to students learning to cope with the many aspects of growing up and at moments of personal crises.

• Life Skills: All first year students are provided with three modules of life skills throughout first year - the guidance counsellor is one of three teachers delivering this programme, delving into topics such as Managing My Thinking, Staying Well and Dealing With Loss.

• Assessment: Helping students to obtain a better self-understanding through the use of psychometric tests and other inventories. The cognitive ability test, CAT4, is administered to all first year students to help students, their parents and their teachers gain a better understanding of their strengths in terms of ability and problem-solving as well as revealing areas they may need support in. The Pupil Attitudes to Self and School survey helps to 'catch' any issues students may be having personally or educationally and can inform the guidance counsellor when making appointments with students. Interest Inventories and Work Values tests are used in Transition Year in order to help students better understand their own preferences in relation to work environments and the set of skills they would like to aim to develop.

• Careers Information: Providing students with objective and factual information on education and training opportunities, occupations, labour market information, etc.

• CAO/College, Further Ed. & Apprenticeship Application Assistance: Helping students to prepare for application to third level institutions, colleges of further education and apprenticeships when they are in 5th and 6th year is a major element of the guidance counsellor’s role.