Almost every psychologist working in a school or other educational institution, faced with the problem of documentation. No matter how little time, and no matter how much you want to spend it on practical activities, it is worth remembering that the documentation is very important, as it is the main working base of a psychologist. Among other documents, I would like to talk separately about how the psychological and pedagogical characteristics of a student are compiled, a sample of which is rather difficult to find.
First of all, it should be noted in which cases it is needed. Of course, for each student to make such a paper will be an unrealistic task for a psychologist. If there is a need for this, then you can involve a class teacher in this lesson. However, most often, it will be superfluous. A psychological and pedagogical characterization of a student is required if he has any problems in learning, behavior, etc., and he and his parents are invited to a medical psychological and pedagogical commission to decide how to solve these problems. It is also necessary to have psychological and pedagogical characteristics for all “difficult” adolescents who are registered in school or are noted in the department of personal education. In addition, children with whom the school psychologist is engaged in an individual program should also be characterized (mainly in order to understand why they need corrective work).
It must be remembered that close work with class teachers can facilitate the task of the psychologist when writing this document, as they are well acquainted with their students and often know information that may later be useful for describing the personality of the child.
It is worth noting that there is no single sample by which the characteristic for the student is written. Therefore, the writing form can be developed independently or use the existing samples of other psychologists. However, in any case, there are several recommendations that must be observed when compiling it.
Firstly, the characteristics of the student must contain the individual characteristics of the student, his character, position in society, the development of cognitive processes , etc. For this, a complete study of the child is carried out previously, using various techniques that the psychologist owns. The personality of the student should be illuminated in detail from all sides, both positive and negative of his qualities, as well as features of his behavior.
Secondly, it must be remembered that when a characterization of a student is compiled, the psychologist should be guided by the basic rule of professional ethics “do no harm”. Accordingly, each word and phrase should be carefully thought out and correctly formulated. This is especially true in cases where a characteristic is written for a student in a correctional school. Typically, diagnoses in such cases are encrypted using signs that are understood by those skilled in the art.
At the end of the document there are usually recommendations that the psychologist makes individually for each, taking into account the facts listed before. This item should be mandatory, since the task of the school psychologist is not so much to diagnose personality or other disorders in the child as to make efforts to correct them.
It is also worth considering that the documentation maintained by the school psychologist must be of the same pattern among themselves, which will be convenient not only for the employee himself, but also for the administration checking his work. This also applies to the characteristics that are being developed, and then carried out according to one standard. Subsequently, only a psychologist will have open access to these certificates, and other people only with his permission and the consent of the student’s parents.