The Child Psychology Department, made up of a multidisciplinary team, liaises with the other Departments of St. Peter’s International School, with a view to optimizing resources and promoting the well-being of the educational community. Thus, new ways of understanding reality allow each adolescent to reach their full potential. Also seeking to ensure that the Profile of the Student leaving Compulsory School is reached by all, the Child Psychology Department defines the curricular process appropriate to the student’s particularities, ensuring, in collaboration with teachers, to ensure that all students can have equal opportunities in access and attendance of the different educational offerings (art. 6 of Decree-Law 54/2018, July 6).
The Child Psychology Department acts on the relationships that are established in the school context, bearing in mind that, throughout their schooling, any student may present issues that require specific attention or differentiated educational resources.
Its main areas of intervention include psycho-pedagogical assessments that characterize intellectual, neuropsychological, behavioural, emotional and pedagogical functioning (reading, writing and calculation); emotional support in situations that significantly interfere with the student’s academic performance and personal well-being, and directing the student abroad, whenever a clinical and/or psychotherapeutic intervention is considered beneficial; specialized pedagogical support in the face of specific learning problems, promoting equity in favor of discrimination in access to the curriculum; support of a psycho-pedagogical nature to educators/teachers, parents and guardians, in the context of educational activities, aiming at school success and the adequacy of educational responses; implementation of structured programs as a response to specific needs (group or individual).
In Secondary Education, the Department also supports the development of each student’s personal career project. In this sense, it provides career guidance to assist students in making decisions about the course to be selected. At the beginning of each school year, the student’s profile in terms of skills, motivation and interests who enter the school only in Secondary School is also developed, in order to later provide all the necessary support throughout their school career.