This master’s thesis is partly theoretical and partly practical in nature. In the theoretical part, I discuss the role school counsellors, teachers and the intersection of both of their responsibilities play in the school environment, and how they cooperate through the lens of actual policies, laws and important authors from this field of study. Towards the end of the overview of literature I have added general guidelines, which were given to schools for the duration of distance learning during the Coronavirus pandemic.
In the practical part of the thesis, I studied the cooperation of teachers with school counsellors in Slovenian elementary schools. This includes the findings of my quantitative research, which are appropriately summarized and comprise 222 elementary school teachers. The focus of my research was aimed at discerning the differences in cooperation between elementary school teachers and school counsellors during the time of »normal«, classroom learning, and during the distance learning period, when working conditions changed dramatically. During both school years I have taken into account, the time students spent distance learning totalled a minimum of five and a half months. I was additionally interested in pertaining to which field of work of the school counselling service the teachers most commonly cooperate with school counsellors, which forms of cooperation with the school counselling service teachers most commonly partake in, how frequently teachers cooperate with the school counselling service, how teachers rate their experience working with the school counselling service, and lastly, to whom do teachers usually turn to in relation to distress brought about by their working environment and working conditions. My aim was also to find out, whether there is a correlation between teachers’ satisfaction and number of school counsellors and between satisfaction of the teachers from different stages of teaching.
Research has shown that teachers most commonly turn to the school counselling service during times of classroom learning concerning issues such as school culture, the child’s upbringing, the school environment and order, but that during periods of distance learning teachers mostly turned to the school counselling service concerning issues about teaching and learning. Incidentally, during times of classroom learning, most teachers decided to go and see a school counsellor in person, while during periods of distance learning they sought the counsellor’s help mostly via a telephone call. Findings concerning the frequency with which teachers decided to turn to school counsellors for help show, that teachers decided to cooperate more frequently with the school counselling service during times of classroom learning than during times of distance learning, but that the frequency of cooperation in both situations was much lower than initially expected. Most teachers were more content with their experience of cooperating with the school counselling service during times of classroom learning, as opposed to periods of distance learning. Both during times of classroom and distance learning teachers usually decided to turn to their colleague, when they were experiencing some sort of distress, brought about by their work. We cannot claim that there are statistically significant differences in teachers’ satisfaction regarding the number of school counsellors and different stages of teaching. In order to try and bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical findings (of quantitative research) of my master’s thesis I have included at the end some general outlines and suggestions pertaining to the topic and field of my master’s thesis.
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