for more about the background to McCrone and Guidance click here >>

Richard Layard, the director of the centre for economic performance at the London School of Economics, argues that the major purpose of schools must be to help develop good and happy people and they should aim to train character and provide moral education. He advocates creating a team of fully trained teachers in personal, social and health education, which should become a specialism of the postgraduate certificate of education.

Mollycoddled children run risk of under-achieving, says expert

.....At Kilsyth Academy our experience is that the more numerous the agencies involved the less co-ordinated the approach to resolving problems becomes.

"....One area of interest on both trips was the guidance provision for the children. In Paris two people, not necessarily teachers, worked full-time with the 1,200 students, doing what we would recognise as guidance work and organising links with other support agencies.

The system in Birmingham, and in most English cities, was to employ a small number of learning mentors (salary about £21,000).  These people take on all of the counselling, social and problem-solving tasks that we expect guidance teachers to do.  They are able to devote time to listening and discussion and setting up targets for improvement.  They have very close links with heads of year and with social workers, community workers, health staff, the police and so on. They undertake attendance checks, make home visits, listen to a pupil's problem, train peer group mentors, form a first port of call for bullying incidents and provide a variety of information leaflets..."