Applying solution‐focused questions with primary school pupils: a Hong Kong teacher’s reflections

Abstract

It is a reality of schools today that most teachers are overwhelmed by daily demands on their time and energy. In particular, they find it difficult to allocate enough extra time for purposes of counselling individual pupils with problems. Any arrangement that enables them to fulfil this counselling role quickly and effectively – and with positive results – would therefore be welcome. This paper reports a teacher’s application of a brief form of solution‐focused counselling with pupils attending a primary school in Hong Kong. The teacher’s personal reflections after using the approach support the view that this form of counselling can be effective with children of this age. The authors believe that teachers who use solution focused counselling in helping their students would benefit from clinical supervision of a reflecting team.

Keywords:

• solution‐focused therapy
• questioning
• teacher reflection
• Hong Kong
• Chinese